When looking to track your website statistics, there is no better way that using Google Analytics on your site.  Traffic is still, by far, the best way to check how well your site is doing online, so it is important to monitor how well your site is performing.  Thousands, if not millions of website owners from across the world use Google Analytics to analyse their site statistics everyday.

Hopefully, this blog post will provide you with an overview of how you can make the best use of Google Analytics for your site.

Using Google Analytics

Adding Google Analytics To Your Website

Before we start, it is vitally important to know how to integrate Google Analytics on your website.

While you set up your website on Google Analytics, make sure that you plan it out for at least a year. The vast majority of people will start with a single domain name, however, you might have to expand into subdomains in the future where it would be difficult making any modification to the Google Analytics settings.  Therefore, Google Analytics with subdomain and sub-directory tracking should be well set up in advance.

In addition to this, ensure that you turn “ON” the ‘subdomain’, ‘Top Level Sub Domain’ and ‘Display Advertiser Support’ tracking as it will help you to incorporate it better with other Google tools such as Google AdSense and Google AdWords.

Goals

The most significant thing is to set up the right goals on Google Analytics first. You should know the right metric to calculate the overall target of your business goals. Once the goal is set, anything you do on Analytics will automatically fall in place.

AdWords

When we talk about Google AdWords, you will be amazed to know that AdWords and Google Analytics can do wonders for your site. The quickest way to include Google AdWords and Google Analytics is by introducing the goals from Google Analytics into AdWords. This is actually done through an AdWords conversion panel where you would find that the goals are ready to be transferred, provided there is adequate data available.

Custom Campaigns

To remind you that while you set up Google Analytics, do not forget to activate the “Custom campaign tags” in the snippet settings. This is important especially when you want to track traffic from a definite source like an advertisement you have sited on a website and wish to add custom codes to the referral URL you have given on the ad. You can add the custom URL to Google Analytics by manually adding them to the tracking code.

Check Tracking Code

But before adding any URL to the tracking code it is crucial to check whether the tracking code is implemented properly. So how do you check the tracking code? One of the best ways is to track the source code of your website. You can check either the most important page or all the pages and then look for the snippets. If the snippets are in place, then it is rest assured that the tracking code is properly implemented. However, make sure that your website has the updated code, if you have done any modification to the code setting.

Analytical data is collected by Google. This data includes the number of visitors for every page on your website, the source of traffic, the amount of time spent on browsing and even the information on mobile devices used to search your website. Above all, the most important information is the collection of keywords that the visitors use to find you. Google Analytics quickly identifies which section of your website is receiving the most traffic and which sector needs to be rethought, reworked and reworded.

If you invest your time learning the primary keywords and integrate them in your site, you can ensure that your potential visitors are searching for you. Without proper development of the keywords or search engine marketing stratagem, your site becomes dormant and will be visited less by your targeted audience. More importantly, all the parameters and the variables are customizable in Google Analytics, which will help you to identify the strengths and weaknesses in your internet marketing strategy.

You can simply describe Google Analytics in one word – “versatile“. No other platform can match its versatility or usefulness. You can use it with the similar effectiveness as on a single page portfolio website or a hundred page eCommerce site.  The point is that you look to implement it properly so that you can look to monitor and improve every aspect of your site.

Make sure you check out our Beginners Guide To Google Analytics.