Brilliant Google Analytics Hacks You Should Know
Google Analytics is the most robust free analytics platform available today. It is estimated that anywhere from 25 to 40 million websites use it, arguably making it the leader in its space.
Most users use Google Analytics for its at-a-glance-view only. Beyond the polished dashboard and high-level stats, these people aren’t digging deep to get to the really good stuff!
In this blog, we are going to share some brilliant Google Analytics tips and tricks so that you can start getting more out of the platform today.
Start tracking the conversions
For the first Google Analytics tip, let’s look at the conversions. A lot of website owners put too much weight on traffic, and too little weight on the conversions. It’s important to know that, are your website visitors actually doing what you want them to do.
These conversions are called goals in GA. Goals fall into one of 5 types, listed below:
The fifth one is Smart Goals.
By setting goals within Google Analytics, you can start getting down to the nitty-gritty about what users are doing when they come to your website. For example, are they loading a specific page or signing up for an email newsletter? Let’s find out!
Here’s how to see:
Open GA dashboard >go to Conversions> then Goals> and then Overview on the left menu bar.
How to create a custom goal?
Click Admin > Go to goals > Now click on NEW GOAL.
Next, you will be asked to walk through a template to setup a goal. Tell GA what you’re looking to track, choose between revenue, acquisition, inquiry, and engagement. And if not finding what you’re looking for just start with a custom goal.
Here you’ll be asked to give goal a name, and specify what it is you’re looking for, and choose goal type:
Next, add visitor reached XYZ destination, or that they performed an action, like downloading. You can even assign a value to your goal and create a funnel to specify a path you expect traffic to take towards the destination.
Congrats, you’ve got a goal.
Know your traffic
Overall traffic numbers may seem mighty but they are mighty obscure. They just don’t tell you much. GA offers the opportunity to use segments to get more specific data. You can add a segment on attributes, such as traffic source,device, browser, new or returning visitors and more. GA also allows you to compare one segment to another.
To get started with segments, you can go to the Audience and then Overview. Alternatively, you can add segments in the Behavior or Acquisition areas of Google Analytics. Just click the segments you want to see and then click “apply.” To speed the process up in the future, save your added segments with an intuitive title, like “iPhone users.”
Track events and see what your visitors are up to
In Google Analytics, an event is an action, like a click, call, or downloads. Your website may serve many different purposes. What are visitors doing once they arrive,find out everything by tracking an event, or a link to a specific URL, once visitors arrive on your landing page?
You can accomplish tracking event process with a simple string of tracking code. The form goes like this: ga(‘send’, ‘event’, [eventCategory], [eventAction], [eventLable], [eventValue], [field0object]);
It’s time to get slightly technical now. Add the event tracking code to the link for your download or the link for whatever action you want to track. All you need to do is just use GA’s handy event tracking code generator.
Don’t forget to customize your dashboard
Creating a custom dashboard is a must, it gives you a go-to place to view all your custom reports, in just a few clicks. Plus, dashboards allow you to get hyper-focused on the metrics that count. You can have up to 20 dashboards per GA account.
To get started, Click “Customization” on the left navigation>“Dashboard”> and the “Create.”
You can either choose to create one from scratch (Blank Canvas) a basic template or the option allows for a wide range of customization options, including widgets (things you want to see, such as metrics or timelines) and custom reports.
And there you go; you have created your very own custom dashboard. If you ever want to rearrange some panels or remove anything, you can do so in just a few clicks as well.
Don’t forget other tools
You can also use other awesome tools as well. Believe it, there is a world beyond Google Analytics tool and it starts with Google Search Console (also Google Webmaster Tools). In fact, you can even tie Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts together.
Integrating the two can give you access to the SEO data and filters. It’s a great way to uncover new ways to boost your website traffic, understand search query impressions, create long-tail keywords combinations and much more.
Conclusion
To make sure the traffic your website is getting is performing the best it can. Implement these brilliant Google Analytics tips and tricks. Move beyond to just checking the default dashboards and really dig in and make measurable improvements to your website.
Originally published at www.maxxmann.com
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