Web Stats 101: Getting started with Google Analytics
The importance of using stats when measuring a website’s performance is nothing new.
However, the ‘hit counters’ of old have now been superceded by much more sophisticated monitoring tools. Modern web stats software is capable of giving us incredibly detailed analysis of our website traffic and user behaviour, allowing us to continually improve the performance of our sites.
So why isn’t everyone using these new tools?
It amazes me how many webmasters are still reliant on basic stats tools (often those provided as part of their hosting package), or worse still, no stats at all when making decisions on their website. Trying to make good judgements without the information to base it on is like driving a car with your eyes shut - if you’re lucky you might manage to head in the right direction (though you won’t know it) but it’s more likely you’ll end up hitting a brick wall.
If you need to bring yourself up-to-date with web stats, Google Analytics (GA) is a great starting point. It has been around for a while now, but a sleek redesign this July and stacks of useful features mean the arguments in favour of using GA are compelling. And the best bit? It’s completely free.
What can I do with Google Analytics?
GA is streets ahead of any other free analytics tools, though this isn’t particularly surprising when you consider that it was originally ‘Urchin on Demand’, which used to sell for $199/month.
The service is deceptively powerful, allowing you to look at practically any variation of your important web stats; bounce rates, unique visits, length of visit, depth of visit, where your visitors came from, what keywords they used in the search engines to find you…. the list goes on.
If your website is used for business (or even if it’s not) you should be interested in the fundamentals of Conversion Rate Marketing - how to increase the number of website visitors your site turns into actual customers. Google Analytics has facilities which can help you effectively measure this.
Conversion goals - Once you’ve defined what class as a conversion - e.g. the customer hitting your ’submit order’ button or enquiry and being sent to a ‘Thanks for enquiring’ page - GA can record how often this happens and give you a conversion rate in percentage terms of the proportion of visitors you are converting. If you can improve your conversion rate from 1% to 5% this can have a big impact on your profitability.
Funnel processes - If your customers need to follow a certain path through your site on the way to conversion, such as completed the steps of a shopping cart - GA can tell you how many visitors are dropping out at each stage, helping you identify and correct any problem areas.
The data you can collect on your users can be vital in shaping your website. As well as giving you information on users locations (city and country), screen resolutions, whether they are a new or returning visitor etc, Google Analytics is also able to split results in paid and non-paid traffic - vital if you run Adwords campaigns. You’ll soon notice that different user profiles have their own particular behaviour patterns, which you can tailor you site to exploit.
Another big plus point of GA is the reporting. The whole service is well-presented, clear and easy-to-use, with reports available in several data and graphical formats. You can even schedule the reports to be automatically emailed out to relevant people, such as each head of department.
There are some limitations of course - rather than using server logs, Google Analytics relies on JavaScript, meaning data from some users is blocked and as such reports are not 100% accurate. Also, nothing can replace expertise in knowing what changes to make in the first place - but it’s an unquestionably useful tool and a good first step into the world of web analytics.
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