It wouldn’t be incorrect to assume that digital marketers absolutely love Google Analytics. You can say that it is their bread and butter. There would be any analytic certification which doesn’t talk about Google Analytics!

For the newbies in the field of digital marketing, Google Analytics is a service that provides users with analytical and statistical tools to measure the Return on Investment (ROI) on their marketing campaigns. It tracks and measures social media platforms, websites, apps an even offline data. As per the last estimate, at least 30-50 million websites use Google Analytics. According to another report, around 61% of the top million websites with Alexa rankings use Google Analytics. The statistics clearly indicate that if you have a website, Google Analytics is your hold grail.

The traffic data generated by Google Analytics could be overwhelming, but it is real-time. Ideally, you should check the reports daily or at least once a week. This will help you to analyze the data promptly and modify your marketing strategy for the website, if the need may be.

Though Google Analytics may look complex for the beginners, it is really a simple tool once you get the hang of it. You have to follow these steps to dive into Google Analytics:

1. Sign into your Google Analytics account.
2. Click ‘view report’ option.
3. On the left side, you will find a ‘content tab’ button.
4. Click the data range for which you want the report. By default, Google Analytics throws a monthly report.
5. You will get to see another tab ‘Top Content’. If you click on this tab, you can view the pages that have pulled the highest traffic.
6. If you want to access the data on all pages, simply click on the tab ‘View Full Report’.

This entire report is a goldmine of information on your website. Within this report, you will get multiple tabs and clicks to scour the data you want to look at. You can do a detailed analysis and plug the loopholes if any.

Google Analytics gives website page-wise reports. You can instantly know which pages are getting higher traffic and which are not. The pages which are lacking the visitor footfall are the ones which require your most attention. Other than the web pages, other reports about your website that Google Analytics generates are:

• Visitors – new returning traffic.
• Keywords – which keywords that are driving the highest traffic.
• Visits – which day or at what time users visit your website the most.
• Referring sites – which affiliate websites are driving traffic to your website.
• SEO – which pages are getting most clicks and impressions.
• Landing page report – which landing pages are receiving the highest traffic.
• Bounce rate – the percentage of visitors that return from the website after viewing only one page.

Other useful ways to leverage Google Analytics to increase website traffic are:

• Study the demographical and geographical demarcation of traffic. It will give you an idea which type of customers and from which cities/countries are visiting your website. For instance, if you run a website in India, but attracting traffic from Sri Lanka, you have a potential new market to look at. If your target audience is in the age group 25-28, but even those aged 29-30 years are visiting your website, you have a new target audience to cater to.

• Digital marketing is all about ranks and trends. This week, your blogs have gone viral. Next week, your website ranking could take a plunge. What is in your hands is to study these ranks and trends at least on the weekly or monthly basis if not daily. This exercise will give you a fair idea of what is working on your website and what is not.

• Identify the content which is creating more footfalls. Is it the blog or white paper? Is it the product information page? You will know what type of content is popular with the audience and accordingly, publish more of it on the website.

• Google Analytics can give you reports for both desktop and mobile traffic. Find out which one is faring better. If the bounce rate on a mobile website is higher, it is an indication that either it is not responsive or lacks the necessary speed. If the mobile website is driving more traffic than the desktop, you need to find out the reasons. Perhaps, the content is crisper, or navigation is easy, which may not be the case in the desktop

• There is another popular feature called ‘users flow’ in Google Analytics. It gives insights into buying patterns of customers and their behavior. You can understand their preferences and interests to create personalized marketing campaigns.

There is no doubt that Google Analytics is an immensely beneficial tool for digital marketers. However, it must be used along with other website metrics to get the accurate and bigger picture.

What this article has touched on Google Analytics is just the tip of an iceberg. If you want to get to the bottom of it, data analytics certification courses are where you should begin.