Evaluating and tracking business progress and growth is important for all businesses. We don’t leave it to guess work or chance. The free tracking tool called Google Analytics makes it easy for online business owners to track almost everything on their websites.
Google Analytics is an easy tool to read and give you ways to find out what is working and not working for you, what drives traffic, how long someone is on your website and more.
Here are six ways you can evaluate your progress by using Google Analytics:
One: Real-time traffic
When you sign in to your Google Analytics, on the left side of the screen you will see Real-time report and click on Overview. This shows you the number of visitors on your site live as you watch Google Analytics. To test if something works immediately, send a tweet on Twitter or post something on Facebook and see if anyone clicks on the link and visits your website on real-time. It is one fun way to watch your traffic.
Two: Unique visitors
Click on Audience then click on Overview. You will find a page with a graph showing unique visitors. Unique visitors means the number of new visitors going to your website per month. If it shows 2,000 means you have 2,000 new and different readers (counted only once) visiting your site for the dates shown. Unique visitors data is important to track. Your business needs to attract new visitors every month.
Three: Average visit duration
This means the average time readers spend on your site. If your readers are spending more time on your site it means they are very interested in what you have to say. How much time a visitor spends may be influenced by your content, how user-friendly your site is including if it is mobile friendly, your offer and your uniqueness.
Four: Bounce rate
On the same analytics page you will see bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits that is visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page. A lower bounce rate is better because it shows the visitor is spending time on your website and your website is what they are looking for from the point of entrance (the initial page viewed).
Five: Traffic sources
Click on Traffic sources and click on Overview. On this page you will find a pie chart showing search traffic, referral traffic, direct traffic and campaigns. Search traffic means your traffic is coming from search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. Referral traffic is from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or other social media channels. Campaign or paid ads mean just that. Here you will see the most effective way have been directing your traffic and where to improve.
Six: Content traffic
Click on Content and click on Overview. Here you will find out which blog posts or pages have the most traffic on your website. It shows page views and percentage of page views. You can dig in more by clicking on Page link. It will show Average Time on Page, Bounce rate and unique page views. Content traffic shows which topic attracts the most attention and get the most traffic. You can continue writing on the same topic to attract visitors.
Take time to read your Google Analytics at least once a month. Don’t leave your new business to chance. Please leave us a comment.
Photo credit: Google Analytics
