How to use Google Analytics to make informed decisions about your website
Measuring your site’s performance can shine a light on areas for improvement
Google offers an incredible tool, Google Analytics, that provides an immense amount of data and analytics that measure your website’s performance.
It’s free, has customizable reports, and does a better job than most other data platforms. If you’re using a CMS platform that collects data for you, we recommend checking to make sure it’s measuring enough data to help you reach your business goals. If not, Google Analytics is the way to go.
Google Analytics is easy to set up on your website and Google even offers free training courses to show you how to use Google Analytics effectively.
It may take some time to receive actionable and accurate data, as Google Analytics begins to collect data after you’ve installed it.
Once you receive that information, how can you utilize it to make informed decisions about improving your site?
It can be time-consuming to learn how to get the most out of Google Analytics. Carson and I are both certified in Google Analytics and we use it on a daily basis.
We’ve outlined a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to watch for on Google Analytics that can shine a light on how to enhance your website:
Organic Traffic
Google Analytics measures where all website traffic comes from.
Organic traffic encompasses all traffic that comes to your website naturally, or without paid advertising.
You don’t have to pay for digital ads to get valuable traffic to your website.
If your Organic Traffic is high, that means your users are specifically searching for your brand online and are able to easily find the page using a search engine or through (unpaid) social media.
If your Organic Traffic is low, it may mean that your website is not optimized for search engines. Search Engine Optimization is directly linked to organic traffic.
A great place for small businesses to start is by optimizing content for search engines.
To further strengthen the website’s Organic Traffic, try strengthening the website’s Search Engine Optimization by publishing (and promoting) relevant content consistently.
Conversion Rate
Google Analytics will let you know how much traffic your website gets, and how much of that traffic turns into a conversion. The ratio between the two is called your Conversion Rate.
You can tell Google Analytics what a conversion is for your business. Conversions may be e-commerce sales, a phone call, or a newsletter signup…depending on what your specific goals are.
It is important to dive into your site’s Conversion Rate, as you may be missing opportunities to convert visitors to customers.
For example, seeing a higher conversion rate on one item for sale versus another may help inspire you to improve the product page that has a lower conversion rate.
There are many ways to increase the Conversion Rate, especially for e-commerce websites.
Uploading a clearer product image, rewriting the product description to be simpler and more informative, or highlighting a call-to-action in a new way can help to increase sales for a specific item.
Bounce Rate
A “bounce” occurs when a user exits your site before performing an action on the page.
Actions typically include scrolling, clicking a link or button, watching a video, signing up for an email newsletter, etc.
The Bounce Rate is simply the number of bounced sessions divided by the number of total sessions.
It is typical for sessions to bounce about half of the time, depending on the industry.
A high Bounce Rate signals that the website needs to be designed for longer sessions, by adding relevant information, clearly leading the visitor to the next step of the buyer’s journey, or simplifying the page.
Slow website speed can also lead to a higher Bounce Rate.
In today’s world, web users are impatient and won’t wait more than three seconds for a page to load before returning to the search engine results.
The goal is for all websites to load as fast as possible (you can test your website speed here).
Pages per Session
This metric allows you to know how many pages on your website a user visits before ending their session (or leaving your website).
If your navigation bar isn’t working properly, or if there are broken links throughout your site, it may reduce the number of pages per session that the viewer is able to see.
Is the user only viewing your homepage and then exiting?
If yes, you can add more calls-to-action on the home page, or links to guide the visitors to the information you want them to see in addition to, or after viewing the home page.
Want to increase the average Pages per Session?
Try creating, publishing, and promoting new content on a consistent basis.
If you already have a good amount of content, you can create enticing links for the user to seamlessly navigate between preexisting pages on your website.
Top Exit Pages and the Exit Rate
The goal is to have all users exit from your “Thank you for your purchase!” page.
If users are typically exiting your website before that, improvement is needed.
Of course, people are going to exit your website on every page, but the Exit Rate (the number of exits divided by the number of page views) is a good indicator of success for each page overall.
To help minimize the Exit Rate, the website should easily guide visitors to purchase the product as well as provide all information for that customer to make an informed purchase decision.
Average Session Duration
The average amount of time viewers spend on your site can provide insight into how much information they are gathering.
A high average session duration is great because it proves that visitors are soaking up all that your website has to offer.
If the average session duration is low, it could mean that visitors aren’t able to see, or are opting out of seeing, the rest of your site.
To improve the Average Session Duration, make sure the content is worth your target market’s time.
A simple way to increase the Average Session Duration is to rearrange the home page to highlight (and link to) relevant content that visitors will be intrigued by. Make sure every page leads to another in a captivating way.
To Wrap it Up
Using Google Analytics is a great way to track your site’s performance, and to see where you may need to improve.
We know that small business owners are incredibly busy and not everyone has the time to learn how to make informed decisions based on the information collected by Google Analytics.
We are here to help! Please feel free to reach out for a free consultation at any time.
Thanks for reading,
Elle
Updated on March 27th, 2023