Know how to interpret Google’s precious data to boost your digital marketing services
Google Analytics is probably the most popular option for website owners and digital agencies. It is known that more than ten million websites throughout the world use Google Analytics today. And this is because, in addition to providing access to an abundance of data, Google Analytics is also a free web analytics program.
But its benefits are not only financial, but also educational, as Google provides a support page, Analytics Help, as well as a large community for you to ask questions and learn new tricks. Not to mention the numerous other free Google tools that you or your digital agency can use in tandem. For example, Google Search Console, a great platform for SEO companies, and Google Ads, a platform for any marketing campaign.
However, regardless of the tools you choose to use, the best digital marketing services are those provided by those who understand how to properly interpret the tools. In other words, to get the data you need to leverage your website, you must first understand how to ask the platform for that data, aka strategically configure each dashboard.
Remember that organisation is an essential component of any digital marketing strategy. That is the only way Google reports will provide you with the information you need. When used wisely, Google can do wonders for your website without costing you anything extra. So, do not waste time measuring meaningless or random goals. Check that you are asking the right question for each metric.
Below, see ten ways to get valuable information from Google Analytics.
Behaviour flow
There are two types of flow reports in Google Analytics, behaviour flow and user flow. The behaviour flow maps the path that users travel when accessing your website, from one page to another. The great benefit of this digital behavioural analysis is to be able to identify which contents get users more engaged, as well as which contents can become a problem for your engagement.
User flow
The user flow acts as a complement to the behaviour flow. With it, you can have a better view of the step by step that users need to do inside your website and at which moment they usually leave your website. It is thanks to this insight that you can identify traffic patterns, where users come from, and why they leave.
In both flow analyses, all the mapped information is delivered to you in the form of a report, with the user flow being delivered in the form of a graph.
Exit rate and bounce rate
There are also two types of rates that you can study within Google Analytics, exit rate, and bounce rate. Although remarkably similar, if understood in depth, this kind of information can whisper in your ear which problem you should prioritise first.
On one hand, if the exit rate points out on which page the user left, the bounce rate points out if the user left on the same page he or she entered. Therefore, a smart strategy might be to prioritise decreasing the bounce rate, since it indicates that upon the first contact users had with your page, they decided to leave.
High bounce rates indicate that the user did not like the first impression he or she had of you. In other words, if you prioritise making all pages attractive – but especially the page indicated by the user flow report as the one through which users most often enter your website, and the page indicated by the bounce rate as the one through which people most quickly leave after entering – and linking to other pages, you will already guarantee that your users have a desire for you.
Traffic source dimensions
Similar to the user flow report is the traffic source dimensions. To tell you the truth, the latter is a further development of the former. With the use of traffic source dimensions, you will not only know from which page people have accessed your website, but from where they have learned about this page.
And the highlight here is how this tool is great when used as a complement to several marketing initiatives. For example, if you use or intend to use Google Ads campaigns, the analysis of the origin of your traffic will help you understand whether your campaigns are working.
Another example is email marketing. By putting these two powerful tools together – your newsletters and Google traffic analysis –, you will know whether people engage with your emails. This is important even for your financial planning.
If your emails do not engage, it might be best to just invest in other strategies. Sometimes you can find that the majority accesses your website directly, by typing the URL directly into the browser, i.e., it will be more advantageous to invest in another type of marketing.
Google Search Console
Another way in which traffic often comes to a website is by entering keywords into a Google search. That is why knowing exactly which words match your business, which words people search for most on Google, and finding the best of both worlds is essential.
For this, a good advice is to connect another free Google tool, Google Search Console, to Google Analytics. This combination is great for knowing how your website is performing in searches, as well as for which keywords you are currently ranking. This is a great source of information for SEO agencies when they have client’s doing SEO campaigns.
Page value
One of the metrics Google calculates is page value, which will also help your financial goals, since it measures the monetary performance of your pages. This, however, unlike the metrics above, which deal with the viewability of your pages, is related to the conversion rate.
With Google's page value metric, you can evaluate how much the content of your pages contributes to users reaching the goals you set (conversion). Google Analytics also makes it possible to create content grouping, which allows you to group similar content so that you can analyse it better, such as by content authors, publication dates and categories.
A/B Tests
When we launch a landing page or update optimise a website, the A/B test becomes a fantastic way to test the reception and adherence of different audience profiles. In Google Analytics, you can evaluate changes to your website in a segmented way and with just one click. It works by making different visitors access different versions of your landing page or website. After this analysis, you may decide which version will be definitive.
Mobile
Mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic. Currently, it is the main factor in worldwide traffic. But even today, most people spend more time optimising their sales for desktop conversions than for mobile. And this is a big mistake for most. Therefore, try to focus on comparing sales and conversions between desktop and mobile to see what you need to prioritise.
Site speed
According to Google, most sites are awfully slow. But speed directly impacts your bounce rate, thus impacting your profitability. One should not take site speed for granted, as it scares potential conversions before the page even loads. Google Analytics helps you to analyse specific pages on your website to see which ones need to perform better. This saves you time and allows you to focus on the best performing pages first.
Finally, in addition to all of this, one amazing thing you can accomplish with Google is to stay ahead of your market. If you use all the tools mentioned above correctly, you can stay alert to latest trends that may emerge, such as new consumer demands for offers that do not yet exist. Imagine being able to lead a market that no one is even aware of!
In any case, a tool is always more effective when used in conjunction with others. Do not limit yourself to Google Analytics. Google alone offers a plethora of other free tools. Not to mention their instructional materials.
Learning how to use digital marketing tools can be simple. Salt & Fuessel purpose is to support you in realising this.
