Google Analytics is one of our favorite resources at FSC Interactive. It is a free tool used to track how users are getting to your website and what they are doing while they are there.
Of course, overall traffic is always the first thing almost everyone looks at. But beyond that, you can drill down and parse information to find out a ton of things: the geographic make-up of your visitors, customer loyalty, most popular time of day… You can track visitors who have been to your site more than 3 times from a particular newspaper website and purchased a product over $25. We’re not kidding.
Google Analytics is an incredible resource. But it can also be pretty overwhelming. Here are 7 key performance indicators beside traffic to keep an eye on:
1. Goals:
Want to see if the visitors to your website are buying something or asking for more information? Goals are a way to see if visitors to your website are doing what you intend them to do. Examples of goals can be seeing if they reach the thank you page after making a purchase or submitting a contact information lead form.
2. Events:
Want to know what actions people are taking on your website? Events can be used to see how website visitors are using your website. Having a developer add a couple lines of code to your website will allow you to see if people are clicking the red buy button or the green one, if they’re using the contact form to send a message to support and much more. Events can also be turned into Goals.
3. Ecommerce:
Would it help to know how much users are spending on your website? Ecommerce tracking is a must have if you run an ecommerce website. It allows you to see transactions, revenue, conversion rate and much more. It can allow you to see which social network’s visitors converted the highest into paying buyers or which source of traffic bought the most.
4. Time on Site:
How long are visitors spending on your website? This can be more informative than Pages per Visit if your landing page has a great deal of content. For example, if you have a 2 minute video on your landing page and people are only spending 1:30, you can be sure that they aren’t finishing the video. But, if they spend 2:00 or more, you can feel confident that they are spending enough time on that particular page.
5. Referring Traffic:
This will show what sites are driving visitors to your website. This can help identify potential places to advertise, reach out to for PR or engage in some communication efforts. Let’s say your PR efforts land you a feature in an online publication, but it only sends 20 visitors. On the other hand, your Facebook Page sent 50 visitors, all of whom had high time on site and completed your Goals. Where are you getting the most bang for your buck? This can help you focus your efforts and outreach where they best perform. It is also an opportunity to identify untapped niche audiences you might not even know about to find new conversations.
6. Queries:
This will show you what people are typing into Google to get to your website. You can use the top ranking terms to optimize all of your online content to increase your search engine rankings. This is another opportunity to identify areas of opportunity. Look at some of the unexpected keywords driving traffic to your site and review the visitor engagement. These terms might identify less competitive areas for your company to create a distinct presence in the marketplace.
7. Top Content:
What’s the first page people are seeing when they visit your site? Does it best represent what you are promoting? What is the most popular page on your website? Create distinct urls and landing pages to test and measure interest and direct people to exactly what they are looking to find. You can also use these more popular pages to promote and drive visitors to other lesser viewed content. For example, if the FAQ page is the most popular content on your website, be sure there are strong calls to take action driving visitors to alternative pages that provide additional resources or opportunities to complete your goal.
This is certainly not an exhaustive list of what you can measure using Google Analytics, but is a good place to start.
Do you have something to add? How do you use Google Analytics to measure success?