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How to Use Google Analytics to Make Your Website Better - Dylan Brooks and Phillip Long, ITC
The document provides a comprehensive guide on using Google Analytics to enhance website performance by tracking visitor behavior, determining marketing effectiveness, and achieving business objectives. It outlines how to set up tracking, interpret key metrics, and make data-driven changes to marketing strategies. Best practices include focusing on business objectives, analyzing visitor data, and considering external factors affecting website traffic.
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How to Use Google Analytics to Make Your Website Better - Dylan Brooks and Phillip Long, ITC
- 1. How to UseGoogle Analytics to Make Your Website Better Dylan Brooks | Phillip Long SEO Coordinator | Customer Advocate
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- 3. Google Analytics is •A free analytical measurement program from Google that simultaneously tracks and helps analyze activity on your website. • An invaluable tool for your agency’s website that can help refine your Internet marketing tactics.
- 4. How Does ItWork? • Google Analytics installs a hidden JavaScript code on your website.
- 5. How Does ItWork? • Whenever a page is viewed, the JavaScript code works with web browser cookies to collect data on the user’s location, browser and referral channel.
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- 7. Do You Know… •How people are finding your website? • Which pages people are visiting once they land on your website and in what order? • If people are requesting quotes, filing claims or making payments through your website? • If your website traffic is increasing or decreasing month-to-month and for which channels? • Google Analytics can tell you the answers to these questions.
- 8. Using Google Analyticsfor Your Internet Marketing Strategy • Analyze the effectiveness of different marketing channels, devices, website pages and the flow of your website towards achieving your business objectives. • Determine how well your website is at capturing your target visitor. • Make changes to your website or associated marketing channels to help reach your goals.
- 9. Making Changes to MarketingTactics • Google Analytics data can help you • Diversify visitor acquisition for your website across a wider variety of channels. • Improve poor performing website pages and optimize the flow of your website so more visitors can take action to become prospects and clients. • Determine which opportunities are best for cross-channel marketing.
- 10. Getting Started WithGoogle Analytics 1. Determine your business objectives for your website. 2. Set up Google Analytics tracking. 3. Monitor data as it relates to your business objectives. 4. Make adjustments to your marketing strategy as needed.
- 11. What To LookFor
- 12. What To LookFor • As you get started with Google Analytics, it’s important to know what you’re looking for when you analyze data. • Google Analytics can break down data by several factors that can give you a better view of where your website visitors are coming from and what they’re doing.
- 13. What To LookFor
- 14. What To LookFor • Sessions: Each time a visitor lands on your website, it counts as a session. • The session count will tell you how many times your website is visited, but it won’t show much about visitor interaction. • If you have a low session count, focus on marketing initiatives that drive people to your website. • SEO improvements • A targeted email campaign
- 15. What To LookFor • % New Sessions: The percentage of visitors who landed on your website for the first time. • If the business objective of your website is to drive new business, you’ll want this percentage to be high. • If you’re equally focused on gaining new business and serving current clients online, this number can be closer to 50%.
- 16. What To LookFor • Pageviews: How many pages were viewed by visitors to your website, in aggregate. • You want this number to be higher than your session count. • This indicates that visitors are interacting with your website by clicking on more than one page.
- 17. What To LookFor • Average Session Duration: How long visitors spend on your website, on average. • Your target average session duration value can vary depending on your business objectives and website structure. • In general, visitors will spend at least a minute on your website if they complete a form or gather information to call your agency.
- 18. What To LookFor • Pages/Session: How many pages visitors view, on average, per session. • The target number for this value can vary, depending on your business objectives and website structure. • It’s generally best if visitors view more than one page per session, as that shows that they’re engaging with your website.
- 19. What To LookFor • Bounce Rate: The percentage of website visitors who left the site after viewing only one page. • A good bounce rate is 60% or lower. • A high bounce rate could indicate that your website is missing out on potential leads and clients. • Take a closer look at pages on your website with high bounce rates to see if they can be redone.
- 20. What To LookFor • Channel: Which marketing channel visitors used to find your website.
- 21. What To LookFor • Channel: Which marketing avenue visitors use to find your website. • Organic: A visitor clicked on your website link in the search results in Google, Yahoo or Bing. • PPC/Paid Search: A visitor clicked on your paid search ad in Google, Yahoo or Bing. • Direct: A visitor typed in your URL directly or followed a bookmark or browser history link. • Referral: A visitor clicked on a link to your website on another website. • Social: A visitor clicked on your website link on a social media site, such as Facebook or Twitter.
- 22. What To LookFor • Source/Medium: A combination of referring websites and the marketing channel assigned to them.
- 23. What To LookFor • Source/Medium: A combination of referring websites and the marketing channel assigned to them. • Questions to ask: • Are there any sources that I should be focusing on more? • Are certain sources performing better or worse than expectations?
- 24. What To LookFor • Geo-Location: Geographic locations where visitors are accessing your website.
- 25. What To LookFor • Geo-Location: Geographic locations where visitors are accessing your website. • Google Analytics looks at the locations of the IP addresses of website visitors to determine this . • Questions to ask: • Are my target geographic markets being represented adequately? • Are people visiting my website from areas my agency doesn’t serve?
- 26. What To LookFor • Web Browser: The program visitors use to access your website.
- 27. What To LookFor • Web Browser: The program visitors use to access your website. • Questions to ask: • Does my website appear and function correctly in all browsers? • If not, what needs to be done to fix the user experience on each browser? • You might need to work with a developer to fix certain browser-specific issues.
- 28. What To LookFor • Device: The tool visitors use to access the Internet and land on your website.
- 29. What To LookFor • Device: The tool visitors use to access the Internet and land on your website. • Questions to ask: • Is my website mobile friendly? • Should I be focusing more on mobile devices? • If you have a website built using ITC’s Insurance Website Builder, you have a mobile version of your website. • If not, you might need to work with a developer to enhance your website’s mobile performance and enhancements.
- 30. What To LookFor • Behavior Flow: Shows the path visitors take on your website, from the first page to the last page they view before exiting.
- 31. What To LookFor • Behavior Flow: Shows the path visitors take on your website, from the first page to the last page they view before exiting. • Questions to ask: • When visitors land on my website, what are some common sequences of pages they follow? • Do these page sequences meet my business objectives for my website? • Are there page sequences with high drop-off rates that might need to be fixed?
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- 33. Customization • Filters: Helpinclude, exclude or categorize data to make it easier to analyze. • Many Google Analytics users add a filter to remove all website visits that originate through their office IP address from reports.
- 34. Customization • Goals: Definedwebsite actions that are valuable to your business objectives.
- 35. Customization • Goals: Definedwebsite actions that are valuable to your business objectives. • Creating goals can help you view conversion data, which is calculated by dividing the number of website visitors who complete each goal by the total number of sessions. • Conversion data can help you determine if your agency’s website is meeting your business objectives. This information can impact your Internet marketing strategy.
- 36. Customization • Destination goalsare particularly good for forms and client acquisition objectives. • These goals track the amount of times a specific page is viewed. • Destination goals work best when they track a page that is only accessible after a visitor takes a specific action. • If you have forms on your website, make sure they redirect to specific confirmation pages on your website when a visitor completes a form. • You can then track the amount of visits to the specific confirmation pages to see how many visitors are completing forms.
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- 38. Google Analytics Best Practices •Don’t micromanage data. • Data can fluctuate on a daily basis. Don’t overreact to data changes that occur in a small amount of time. • Instead, look at trends on a weekly or monthly basis.
- 39. Google Analytics Best Practices •Consider external factors: • Insurance can be a highly seasonal industry, so traffic will often drop off in certain months. • If you start or pause a PPC campaign, your website traffic could also fluctuate. • Email referral campaigns and social media campaigns can also lead to fluctuations in traffic. • Ask yourself if any of these factors could be responsible for a change in website traffic before adapting your marketing strategy.
- 40. Google Analytics Best Practices •Have specific business objectives. • Start small with your business objectives for your website. Define your target visitor and your focus line of business. • Track your progress in meeting these objectives and then expand your strategy wider. • It will be easier to track your progress through Google Analytics and grow your strategy this way.
- 41. Summary • Focus onbusiness objectives before looking at Google Analytics data. • Analyze where your website visitors are coming from and what they’re doing on your website, and make sure it aligns with your objectives. • Customize data to see if visitors are using your website to convert into prospects and clients. • Look at data trends on your website before shifting your Internet marketing strategy. • Focus on website improvements and cross- channel marketing initiatives to improve your website’s performance in specific areas.
- 42. Resources • To setup Google Analytics: • http://www.google.com/analytics/ • You will need to create a login or use a Gmail address to create an account • Google Analytics Support • http://support.google.com/analytics/ • Helpful articles for every aspect of Google Analytics
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- 44. Thank You Don’t forgetto fill out your surveys!