Higgins Marketing Group - Google Analytics in Less Than 10 MinutesGoogle Analytics in Less Than 10 Minutes

If you’re like most executives, you’re…. well… busy running your business.  It’s just not an option to spend hours digging deep into the complexities of Google Analytics.  Hopefully you’ve got a good marketing person that tends to things at this level of detail, or maybe Google Analytics is not on your radar at all.

Whatever the case, I encourage all small business CEOs to make reviewing website analytics part of their weekly routine.   What is occurring on your website is hugely important to your business – and Google Analytics can provide strong signals regarding what is working well and what needs some tweaking.

But let’s start with just a 10 minute per week commitment.  When you know what to look for, that focused 10 minutes each week can represent your highest ROI activity of the week.

Here’s my recommendation for how you spend that 10 minutes:

Step 1 (4 Minutes):  Get a Sense for Overall Traffic

In the left panel, scroll down and select “Audience” then “Overview.”  It will look something like this.

Higgins Marketing Group - Google Analytics in Less Than 10 Minutes

Ideally you’ll want to look at about 6 months of data (you can change the reporting time frame at the top right).

Priority items for this view:

  • What is the overall traffic trend… is it increasing, decreasing, or flat? View main “Sessions” graph at the top.  If you’re not seeing some level of increase over a full 6-month period, it’s time to start thinking about a strategy to get more eyeballs on your site.  That could (in most cases) involve pay-per-click advertising, SEO, content marketing via social media, or other advertising.
  • How compelling is my site to new visitors? View the “Bounce Rate” percentage.  This tells you the percentage of visitors who viewed only one page on your site, then bailed.  Bounce rates can vary significantly, but for your initial interpretation, you’d generally like to see something below 70%.  If you are over 80%, it signals a problem in most cases.  If your bounce rate is high, it means people are not engaging with your content.  Typically this indicates an issue with your site design and copy, but also could be driven by over reliance on low-quality traffic sources.

Step 2 (2 Minutes): Understand how folks are accessing your site

In the same left panel, click on “Mobile” and “Overview.”  It should look something like this.

Higgins Marketing Group - Google Analytics in Less Than 10 Minutes

 

Priority item for this view:

  • What devices are folks using to access my website? Nice an easy to understand.  Google provides clean percentages across desktop computers, mobile devices like smartphones, and tablets.  Here’s the takeaway… if you see any more that 10% of your traffic coming from mobile or tablet (that’s a total of 10% between the two), you need to ensure your site is mobile friendly.  I know… I know… the last thing you may want to consider right now is a site redesign, but it really has become a top priority if you want to see results from your website.  If you are unsure of whether your site is mobile friendly, use this link to check: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Step 3 (4 Minutes): Understand where your traffic is coming from

In the same left panel, click on “Acquisition” and “Overview.”  It will look something like this.

Higgins Marketing Group - Google Analytics in Less Than 10 Minutes

Priority items for this view:

  • What is the mix of incoming traffic sources? View the session data to determine the top sources of your traffic.  Does this align with the time and money you are spending on marketing and social media?  If not, it’s time to reevaluate things and dig deeper to see if these things are delivering a solid ROI.

Maybe the majority of your traffic is coming from Paid Search.  If so, that’s usually not a situation you want to be in for the long-term.  Start pushing your marketing pro to find ways to generate more free (or at least lower cost) traffic.

  • What traffic sources are paying the bills? Take a look at the “Conversions” column (assuming you have this set up in the account – and I HIGHLY recommend you do).  This indicates which traffic sources are actually delivering the goods… whether that be actual sales transactions or sales leads.  If you see a particular traffic source is driving sales or leads… well… find a way to increase this flow of traffic!

Yes, we only scratched the surface with Google Analytics, but that’s OK.  If you do nothing more than keep your eye on these key metrics (and have your internal or external marketing pro take appropriate action to influence them), you stand to realize some nice results!

Hope this helps.  As always, HMG is here to help you move the needle in the right direction!  You can contact us at 407-680-3735 or https://higginsmarketinggroup.com/contact/