Let’s Take a Closer Look into Google Analytics

Perhaps like me, you find this whole identifying and analyzing web traffic, mind numbing. There are a growing number of analytical websites out there to help with this taunting task.

Google Analytics, although free has a bit of a learning curve just to understand the statistics being presenting to you. My first struggle was adding the script and tag ID to my business website. Google Analytics has easy to follow steps for doing this on Google's Blogger  however my website is hosted by WordPress which has another way to add the tracking info. I did find a nice tutorial on Wpbeginner and you should check it out if you have WordPress. I also found lots of help on the Google support pages.

Once GA is running - One of my favorite features of Google Analytics is the Audience Reports. This section characterizes your audience, their demographics, location and behaviors. I think this is a wonderful place to make strategic decisions about your business.  For instance you can find out the geographic location of your customers which will help you decide where to spend your advertising dollars. There is also information about what devices your customers are using to find and communicate with you. This would be important if you are trying to determine if you should spend money on optimizing for specific platforms. Google Analytics is a great place to get an overview of where your customers are coming from and what they are doing. GA gives you many options for customizing reports, filter data and search information. But there are many other services out there.

I also tried Simply Measured as a free Facebook analysis and Twitter measurer. The Facebook analysis is run then emailed to you and the cost is posting that you are using Simply Measured  on your Facebook page. However, this is a snapshot in time, not a daily progression. This will give you a feel for what they can do for you.

Simply Measured Facebook Megaphone

Simply Measured  boasts "All your data in one place." A nice place to have your collection of tools, but not free. Below is a graph from their website where you an see what the different features will cost you. 

Simply Measured Prices

The Behavior section of your analytic dashboard has a variety of pages selections like; All pages, Site Content and Site Search. The Site content section allows you to see what is happening on your page and what people do once they are there. The Content Report lets you understand the performance of your website.

A slow website will have low conversion rates where fast have higher conversion rates.  Site Search tells you what people are searching for once they are on your site. Site Events allow you to get very granular about each click happening on your site. For example you want to measure how many clicks on a button or link, you can use events and track each visitors actions. Content Experiments can be used to test different landing pages or different versions of an exit page to see which ones make the biggest impact for your company. Using Behavior Reports you can determine what is working or not and make changes that will influence your conversion rate for each visitor.

Simply Measured  reports a range of web analytics-driven insights, from tactical to strategic, all of which can be easily downloaded to Excel or exported to PowerPoint, including:

·         “Social Media Traffic Report – Connect owned and earned social media engagement to website traffic, engagement and conversion.

·         Twitter Traffic Analysis – Track the impact of Twitter activity through the entire marketing funnel with detailed analytics down to the individual Tweet and user.

·         Blog Performance Report – Optimize corporate blogs and the intersection between blogging and other social media campaigns.

·         Traffic Sources Analysis – Attribute and compare traffic sources, including organic, paid, direct, referral and social traffic to develop goals and determine focal points.

·         Landing Page Comparison – Compare website content by referring traffic category, entrance segments, bounce rates, keyword analysis and engagement.

·         Website Influencers Report – Identify influencers who drive social engagement for your brand, as well as website traffic and conversion. Correlate Klout scores, Twitter reach and demographics with each individual’s downstream impact on your website” (Simply Measured,2015)

There are many more Analytic tools out there.  Shane MeLaugh posted a nice comparison blog (in 2011) about the top alternatives to Google Analytics. He suggests, ”for many businesses, it pays off to get acquainted with the intricacies of the tool (GA) and wrestle it into some semblance of usefulness. It is a time consuming and often frustrating task, but it can be worth it” (MeLaugh, 2014). His favorite and that of many others is Clicky. Here are the major features pulled from the Shane’s blog.

ImPact Shane MeLaugh Blog

As you can see, Clicky is free to a point, up to 3000 page views per day. If you are a small time blog like myself, Clicky could be perfect for you. What I like the most about Clicky is the Heat maps. Heat maps are views in real-time of individual visitor sessions. The other thing of Clicky was a very user friendly support feature. You can type in a question into their knowledge base and get the answers in seconds. For more information about Clicky check out this comparison: http://clicky.com/compare/

I hope you find the right tool for you and your business. Come back and share your favorite with me!

Reference:

Google Analytics. Retrieved from: www.google.com/analytics

WordPress Retrieved from: http://wordpress.com

MeLaugh, S. (2014) Web Stats: Alternatives to Google Analytics. Impact Retrieved from: <http://imimpact.com/web-stats-alternatives-to-google-analytics/>

Simply Measured Retrieved from: http://simplymeasured.com/

Clicky Retrieved from: http://Clicky.com