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Google Analytics DIY – How’s the view up there?
In this weeks Google Analytics DIY series, we will be looking at how to set up different views to separate and distinguish the data that will help you to better understand the visitors that are coming to your website. To get started, I recommend that you use 3 different views for basic analytic analyzation: All Website Data, Master View, and Test View.
The All Website Data view displays all data that lands on your website including visitors, spam, bots, and all other junk traffic. This view will remain untouched.
The Master View will be the most accurate view you will use in analyzing your analytics. We will be adding filters to eliminate the ‘junk’ traffic and this view will be a more accurate representation of your traffic. Filters will be discussed in the upcoming tutorial.
The Test View is exactly that, a view that you can use to test different filters, metrics, and segments so you can learn what works best for you with out contaminating the analytics in your Master View.
Let’s get started.
After logging in to your Google Analytics account, click on Admin in the bottom left hand corner taking you to the admin panel.
Setting Up Your First View
In the right hand column labeled View, select Create View.
From here, you will need to select Website or Mobile App for the data this view should track. Both types of views can display any data you send to your property, regardless of how you collect those hits. For example, you can see web data in your app views and app data in your web views.
However, if you’re only collecting and sending one type of data to Google, we recommend using views that will give you the best analysis experience. If you only collect data from mobile apps, select app when you create a view and if you only collect data from websites, select web.
Name this View. In following the guidelines of this tutorial, you can name it Master View. However, you can choose whatever name you would like. We just suggest to make it descriptive so you can easily tell what data you are looking at.
From the drop down box select the Reporting Time Zone and choose your country and time zone.
If your Analytics account is linked to a Google Ads account, the time zone is automatically set to your Google Ads preference, and you won’t see this option.
Hit create view, and you are all set up to add filters and start developing your strategy to track your users.
Notes:
- Each Property has a maximum of 25 views
- If your Analytics account is linked to a Google Ads account, data from the Google Ads account is automatically imported into any new view you create in that account.
In our next Google Analytics DIY tutorial, we will be adding filters to screen out spam, bots, and all other junk from your data.
“Make your team feel respected, empowered and genuinely excited about the company’s mission.”
–Tim Westergen, Pandora Founder
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Google Analytics DIY: The Behavior Report- What’s Inside?
The Google Analytics DIY series continues! We will be providing an overview of the Behavior Report in its default settings in your GA dashboard.
The Behavior Report Overview
- Pageviews – Total number of pages viewed. Repeat views of a single page are counted.
- Unique Pageviews – The number of sessions during which the specific page was viewed at least once. A unique Pageview is counted for each page URL + Page Title combination.
- Average Time On Page – The average amount of time users spend viewing a specific page or screen, or set of pages or screens.
- Bounce Rate – The percentage of single-page session in which there was no interaction with the page. A bounce session has a duration of 0 seconds.
- % Exit – The number of exits/ pageviews for the page or set of pages. It indicates how often users exit from that page or set of pages when they view the page(s).
Let’s get started.
Behavior Report
To access the Behavior Report select Behavior on the left side of the screen, then select Overview.
Navigate to the right side of the screen to select a time period you want to view. This provides you with the option to input the Date Range in variables of Custom, Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, Last 7 Days, or Last 30 Days. You can set up comparisons for different time periods. You can view the difference of site traffic for August of last year with August of the current year. After selecting your time period, select apply.
Please note, tracking data will only track back to the date you placed the analytics code on your website; there is no information prior to the set up of your GA account.
The first chart in view is the Info-Graph chart. In the drop-down box in the upper left hand corner, you can select Pageviews, Unique Pageviews, Avg Time on Page, Bounce Rate, or % Exit.
At the right side of the graph you can easily select the detailed time view to analyze by Hour, Day, Week, or Month. This chart provides a visual overview of peak days and times that users are viewing your website. This information proves invaluable in getting to know your users, and the best practices to market to them.
The second half of the Behavior Report Overview page provides a detailed description of each metric with Site Content divided into four categories: Page, Page Title, Search Term, and Event Category. In the chart shown, the Site Content is Page, with the Page column displaying the URL of the top 10 Pageviews for the time period chosen. To see a full report of all the website pages viewed in this time period, click View Full Report in the lower right hand corner.
Using the same chart, but changing the metric to Page Title, the Page viewed information is now listed by Page Title. This is often easier to understand than reading the URL.
Term and Event Category tracking are custom metrics which need to be created before you will receive any data on them. This will be covered this in an upcoming BST tutorial. Visit GoogleAnalytics – Site Search Term or
In upcoming tutorials, we will be expanding the explanation of the Behavior category reports by illustrating Behavior Flows (one of my favorite reports), Site Content, Speed, and Search, as well as Events which reveal the actions taken by users on your website.
“If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.”
– Brian Tracy, CEO Brian Tracy International
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- Google Analytics DIY – How’s the view up there?
- Google Analytics DIY: The Behavior Report- What’s Inside?
- Google Analytics DIY: Understanding the Acquisition Report
- Google Analytics DIY: Reports! Reports! Reports! What are they telling me?
Google Analytics DIY: Understanding the Acquisition Report
In this Google Analytics DIY tutorial, we are interpreting the Acquisition Report. This highlights how your site acquired visitors. You can see the top channels driving visitors to your website (i.e. Google, Bing, Facebook, email, and others), track Google Ads and Social Media advertising campaigns, as well as see the number of visitors who visit each (landing) page on your website.
Similar to the previous analysis of the Audience Report, we will explain the default settings of the Acquisition Overview. There are far too many variables on the report to discuss in one post. Our goal is to provide you with a basic understanding, providing you with necessary information to decipher the stats provided.
Let’s get started.
Acquisition Report
Login to your Google Analytics account and navigate to Views. In this tutorial we will be focusing on the basic All Website Data to walk you through the platform. We will later discuss creating your own custom view.
If you need help setting up your Google Analytics account see our Getting Started post that details the setup.
To view the Acquisition Report select Acquisition on the left side of the screen, then select Overview.
Navigate to the right side of the screen to select a time period you want to view. This provides you with the option to input the Date Range in variables of Custom, Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, Last 7 Days, or Last 30 Days. You can set up comparisons for different time periods. You can view the difference of site traffic for August of last year with August of the current year. After selecting your time period, select apply.
Please note, tracking data will only track back to the date you placed the analytics code on your website; there is no information prior to the set up of your GA account.
Top Channels
The Top Channels overview is the first overview after applying the date range for your analysis. A pie chart visual represents the source(s) directing visitors to your website, while the Users graph displays the number of visitors on your site in the selected date range.
Below these charts are the acquisition sources and the data associated with each. Each is defined below:
Organic Search: Visitors who found your website though a search engine, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Paid Search: Visitors who by clicked an ad you are promoting on one of the search engines.
Direct: Visitors who directly entered your domain name into their address bar, therefore coming directly to your website with no alternate source.
Referral: Visitor who clicked on a link from another website which led to your site. For example, a vendor or a professional organization may have your site listed.
Social: Visitor who came to your site via social media such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
In order to view Conversion statistics, you will need to set up Goals within the analytics platform. We will cover this in another tutorial.
Top Channel Details
The bottom portion of the Acquisition Overview Report provides more detail about your site visitors by carving each into separate categories including Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions.
Acquisitions includes total users, new users and number sessions withing the date/time range you selected.
Behavior statistics show the sites Bounce Rate, Pages Per Session, and Avg Session Duration.
Conversion data will not appear until specific Goals have been defined in the GA platform.
To explore further detail in the Acquisition report go the the left panel and choose the options below. These provide a more indepth understanding of your site users.
All Traffic: Channels, Treemaps, Source/ Medium, Referral
Google Ads: Campaigns, Treemaps, Keywords, Search Queries, Hours Of Day, and Final URL
Search Console: Landing Pages, Countries, Devices, Queries
Social: Overview, Network Referrals, Landing Pages, Conversions, Plugins, Users Flow
Campaigns: All Campaigns, Paid Keywords, Organic Keywords, Cost Analysis
Google Analytics should be a part of your daily practice. The best way to understand GA and all the reports is to constantly monitor and read them. Not only will this help you become more skilled in the platform, it will also provide valuable insight into your site and its users.
Like all things in life, the more practice, the better you will get.
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently… A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”
-Henry Ford, founder Ford Motor Company
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Google Analytics DIY: Reports! Reports! Reports! What are they telling me?
Over the next few weeks in our Google Analytics DIY series posts, we will be discussing Reports, beginning with the Audience Report. There are far too many variations of reports in GA to cover all the possibilities, so we will be looking at the basics of each report. Any change to the report, even simply changing a Dimension & Metric or adding a Segment you will alter or increase the information that you receive. Therefore, we are going to focus on the reports as they appear in default with no changes or additions.
Login to your Google Analytics account and navigate to Views. In this tutorial we will be focusing on the basic All Website Data to walk you through the platform. We will later discuss creating your own custom view.
Audience Report
To view the Audience Report select Audience on the left side of the screen, then select Overview.
Let’s start at the top and work our way down.
Here you can select the time frame you want to look at.
On the right side of the screen you see a drop down box to input a time period you want to track. Selecting this gives you the option to input the Date Range in terms of Custom, Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, Last 7 Days, or Last 30 Days. You can set up comparisons for different time periods. For instance, you can view your sites traffic difference for August of last year with August of this year. After setting your time period, select apply.
Please note, tracking information can only go back to the time you placed the code on your website; there is no information available before you set up your GA account.
Overview Chart
The Overview chart is based on the time frame you selected. The chart will show how many visitors came to your site and when these Users visited.
This can be broken down into Hourly, Day, Week, or Month. If you scroll your mouse over the timeline it will show how many Users came at each reference point.
Users – Users is the total number of visitors to your website for the time period chosen.
New User – New User is the total number of 1st time visitors to your website in the time period chosen.
Session – The period of time a user is active on your website. By default, if a user is inactive for 30 minutes or more, any future activity is attributed to a new session. Users that leave your site and return within 30 minutes are counted as part of the original session.
Number Of Sessions Per User – The average number of sessions each User has in the chosen time period.
Page Views –Number of totals pages on your website that were viewed by all the Users that visited during your chosen time period.
Pages/Session – Average number of pages that visitors to your website looked at per session.
Avg Session Duration – This tells you how long on average, visitors are staying on your website. Using the graphic above, we see that on average, every visitor that comes to this website, looks at 4-5 of the pages, with an average time of being on the website of almost 3 minutes.
Bounce Rate – Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that view one page and then leave your website. For example, if 100 people visited your website in the chosen time period, and 45 of those visitors only looked at one page, then left your website, your Bounce Rate would be 45%. Keep in mind there is no definitive number that qualifies as a good or bad Bounce Rate. For instance, if a visitor lands on your Home page, you want them to continue deeper into your website, so a high Bounce Rate for that page would be bad. However, if a visitor lands on a Contact or Form page, you want them to provide the necessary information at the end of their journey and move on, so a high Bounce Rate on these pages would be considered good.
On the right there is a Pie Chart showing the difference between New and Returning visitors in percentages.
Demographics
- Language
- Country
- City
System
- What Browser visitors are using (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc)
- What operating system visitors are using (Windows, Mac, Android, etc)
- Service Provider ( Verizon, Comcast, etc)
Mobile
- Operating System (Android, iOS, Blackberry, etc)
- Service Provider ( Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc)
- Screen Resolution
Hopefully we have provided you with a basic understanding of the Audience Report. We are always here to help if you have questions, contact us directly and we’d be happy to offer more insight.
Tune in next week as we will be breaking down the Acquisition Report.
“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”
Nolan Bushnell, founder Atari andChuck-E-Cheese
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Google Analytics DIY: What’s The Meaning Of That Word?
Last week we started our DIY Google Analytics series with Getting Started, a tutorial on how to set up your GA account and connect it to your website. Now that you’re in there bouncing around and checking things out, there are probably some words and terms that you’re not sure what they mean.
Glossary of Terms
This week’s tutorial is a glossary of terms that will help you to better understand GA.
Acquisition
You can understand how people find your website using the Acquisition reports. The reports present data based on the source and medium of your users, along with other acquisition dimensions. There are dedicated reports for your paid traffic from Google AdWords, organic traffic from Google (if you have linked your Google Search Console account), traffic from social networks and traffic from custom campaign tags.
Active Users
The Real Time and Home reports show you how many people are currently viewing content on your website. Data is processed within a few seconds into the Real Time reports and you can view data for the previous 30 minutes. While the Active Users report (under ‘Audience’) tells you the number of unique users who performed sessions on your website within a certain number of days.
Audiences
You can configure custom audiences to see more granular metrics inside your reports. For example, if you’re considering running a re-marketing campaign you can create an audience to monitor current performance before you begin advertising. You can find the Audiences report under ‘Audience’.
Bounce
A bounce is reported when a user’s session only contains a single page-view. The idea is that someone comes to your website and they ‘bounce’ away and leave after only viewing a single page.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions with a single page-view. Bounce rate can provide top-level insights about the performance of your content. For example, if you want people to travel on to view a subsequent page on your website, then you can aim to lower your bounce rate. It’s also important to apply context when analyzing bounce rate,since some pages will deliver all of the information somebody is looking for on a single page, for example, a store locator or a blog post.
Campaign Name
Campaign name is one of the four main dimensions (along with source,medium and channel) for reporting and analyzing marketing campaigns. The campaign name is provided when you use a campaign tagged URL for your inbound marketing or from your Google AdWords campaigns (when Google AdWords is linked to Google Analytics).
Campaign Tags
Inbound marketing can be tracked and reported by Google Analytics using campaign tags. Extra details (query parameters) are added to the ends of URLs which are then included in the Acquisition reports. Campaign tags include campaign name, source, medium, term and content. Learn more about campaign tags.
Channel
Channels provide top-level groupings of your inbound marketing. Each channel combines source and medium so you can understand overall performance. For example, the default channel grouping includes ‘Organic Search’, ‘Paid Search’, ‘Social’ and ‘Email’ which automatically combines pre-defined sources and mediums. You can also configure your own custom channel groupings.
Conversion
A conversion is reported whenever a user completes a goal or makes a purchase during a session. Each goal will report a maximum of one conversion per session, while every transaction is reported. See also goal completion and eCommerce transaction.
CPC
Cost-per-click or CPC can be seen in the Acquisition reports and typically refers to people clicking through to your website from paid ads. This includes traffic from linked Google AdWords accounts and campaign tagged URLs where the medium has been defined as ‘CPC’ or ‘PAID’.
Dimension
One of two types of data that Google Analytics collects,a dimension is an attribute or characteristic of your users and the interactions with your website. Dimensions are typically presented as a row of information within your reports. Examples of dimensions include page path, which provides information about the pages people have viewed and marketing channel which provide information about how people found your website. You’ll find the dimension presented in the first column inside the standard Google Analytics reports. See also metric.
Direct
Direct traffic includes people who typed your website’s URL into their browser or clicked a link in an email application (that didn’t include campaign tags). Direct sessions will also include other cases where Google Analytics is unable to identify the source of the click. Google Analytics will only assign ‘direct’ as a last resort when a known source is used, that source will be attributed to the session.
Event
A custom interaction (or attribute) that is tracked from your website into Google Analytics, for example, tracking plays of an embedded video.Each event can include up to three dimensions (the event ‘category’,‘action’ and optional ‘label’) and a metric (the optional event ‘value’).Events require custom implementation to be tracked and are then reported inside the standard ‘Behavior’ reports. Events can also be used to configure event-based goals.
Filter
Filters can be applied to reporting views inside Google Analytics to include a subset of data (for example, only include data for particular parts of the website) or exclude a subset of data (for example, excluding your own sessions on the website) or to transform the data (for example,to modify the reported page path to include the host name).
Goal
Goals are used to track desired actions on your website. For example,subscribing to your email newsletter, submitting an inquiry or registering as a member. Goals can be configured inside Google Analytics and can be based on people traveling to a particular page (or pages), triggering an event, sessions of a certain duration or viewing a certain number of pages.
Google Ads
Google’s paid advertising platform,allowing you to display ads to people searching on Google, third-party search sites (Google Search Partners) and browsing websites and using mobile apps (Google Display Network). Check out our accompanying Google AdWordsGlossary as a reference for your paid campaigns.
Google Tag Manager
A system for managing the deployment of tracking and other tags on your website. Google Tag Manager allows tags to be tested on your website before being deployed live and is designed to reduce the dependence on IT for managing tracking tags.
Hit
Is the way data is sent to Google Analytics before it’s processed into your reports. The most common type of hit occurs when a page is viewed on your website. Hits are also sent to Google Analytics for other types of interactions, including events.
Interests
You can view your audience’s areas of interest by enabling ‘Advertising Features’ (navigate to ‘Admin’, then ‘Tracking Info’ and selecting ‘Data Collection’). The categories within the Interests reports align to the Interest targeting options available in Google Ads.
Keyword
Google Analytics provide details about the keywords people use to find your website. The organic keywords report shows you the terms people used to find your website when clicking on a free result from a search engine.A lot of organic keyword traffic is shown as ‘not provided’ which means that the individual keyword was hidden by the search engine (see also not provided). The paid keywords report shows you keywords from linked Google AdWords accounts and campaign
Hostname
The part of your website’s URL that identifies where the Google Analytics tracking code was loaded. For example, if someone viewed https://www.example.com/contact then Google Analytics would report onwww.example.com as the hostname. Viewing the hostnames in GoogleAnalytics can be especially useful if you’ve installed the tracking code on multiple domains (or subdomains).
Landing Page
The landing page is the first page viewed during a session, or in other words, the entrance page. It can be useful to review your landing pages to understand the most popular pages people view as they navigate to your website. This can be used to identify potential opportunities to cross-promote or feature other content from your website. See also entrance.
Medium
Medium is one of the four main dimensions (along with source, campaign and channel) for reporting and analyzing how people found your website.Medium tells you how the message was communicated. For example, ‘organic’for free search traffic, ‘CPC’ for cost-per-click and ‘referral’ for inbound links from other websites.
Metric
One of two types of data that Google Analytics collects, a metric is typically a number, like a count or a percentage. Metrics are typically presented as columns of data within your reports. Examples of metrics include page-views, which tells you the total number of pages that were viewed and users which tell you how many people viewed your website. See also dimension.
New User
People that visit your website for the first time in the selected date range. Since users are based on the Google Analytics tracking code and browser cookies, it’s important to highlight that people who cleared their cookies or access your website using a different device will be reported as a new user. See also user.
Organic
Organic refers to people clicking on a free link from a search results page. For example, people clicking through to your website from a free result on a Google search results page.
Page
The page shows the part of the URL after your domain name (path) when someone has viewed content on your website. For example, if someone views https://www.example.com/contact then /contact will be reported as the page inside the Behavior reports.
Page Value
Allows you to understand the impact of your website’s pages in driving value based on eCommerce transactions and goal conversions (where a goal value has been set). Each page that led to a conversion shares the value that was generated by the conversion.
Pages Per Session
A top-level metric for user engagement showing the average number of page-views in each session.
Pageview
A pageview is reported when a page has been viewed by a user on your website. In the Google Analytics pages report, by default, your pages are ordered by popularity based on pageviews. This allows you to see which content is being viewed most often.
Property
Properties are created within a Google Analytics account. Each property represents an instance of the tracking ID used to collect data from a website, group of websites, a mobile app or the Measurement Protocol.Each property will include data sent to the associated tracking ID. Once data has been collected it is processed in the reporting view (or views)created under the property. See also tracking ID.
Search Query
The actual term somebody used in a search engine before clicking through to your website. Depending on the report, the terms can be from paid ads(inside the AdWords reports), or from Google organic search results(inside the Search Console reports).
Search Term
If your website has an internal search function you can configure the Site Search reports to show the particular terms people are using as they search your website. See also site search.
Self-Referral
Referrals coming from your own website are called ‘self-referrals’. This can occur if there is a page (or pages)on your website that doesn’t have the Google Analytics tracking code installed.For example, if a page is missing the tracking code or if your website spans multiple domains. In most cases, you will want to correct the tracking issue to remove (or reduce) the self-referrals. This is because a new session is created when someone clicks from the page (or pages) causing the self-referral.
Session
A single visit to your website, consisting of one or more pageviews,along with events, eCommerce transactions and other interactions. The default session timeout is 30 minutes, which means that if someone is inactive on your website for over 30 minutes, then a new session will be reported if they perform another interaction, for example, viewing another page.
Social
Social appears as a marketing channel (in the default channel grouping) in the Acquisition reports which automatically includes traffic coming from social media, including Twitter and Facebook. The Acquisition reports also include a dedicated set of social reports to further analyze and report on the performance of your inbound social traffic.
Social Plugins
Google Analytics can be configured to track people engaging with social sharing widgets embedded within your website. The social plugins report then allows you to report on the pages people are on when they use your social sharing widgets, the social networks they use and the actions they’ve taken.
Source
Source is one of the four main dimensions (along with medium, campaign and channel) for reporting and analyzing how people found your website.Source tells you where the message was seen. For example, a source of‘google’ would indicate that someone found your website after performing a search on Google. Source can be used in combination with medium for more granular insights, for example, a source of ‘google’ and a medium of ‘cpc’ would be reported for paid clicks from your AdWords campaigns. See also medium.
Transaction
A single purchase on your website reported inside Google Analytics. Each transaction can include one or more items that were purchased during checkout and each transaction is associated with a transaction ID which is sent to Google Analytics from your eCommerce system using special eCommerce tracking code. The number of transactions, along with total revenue and eCommerce conversion rate are generally the primary measures of success for an eCommerce website. Each eCommerce transaction can include details about the total transaction value, items purchased, shipping details and more.
Tracking ID
In order to send hits to the appropriate property inside Google Analytics, a tracking ID is included in the tracking code (or Google TagManager tag). The tracking ID starts with ‘UA’, followed by a series of numbers, for example, UA-123456-1. The number between the dashes is a unique identifier for the Google Analytics account and the number at the end identifies a property within the account. See also property.
Unique Pageview
Counts a page once even if it was viewed multiple times within a single session. For example, if someone landed on your homepage, then viewed the‘about us’ page and then navigated back to your homepage, the homepage would have 1 unique pageview (even though the page was viewed twice during the session).
User
An individual person browsing your website (technically, a unique browser cookie). Each user can visit your website multiple times, for example, 1 user could create 3 sessions on your website, with each session containing multiple pageviews. By default, each unique browser cookie will be
View
Within each Google Analytics property, there are one or more reporting views which contain data from your website. Views can contain a complete set of data from the tracking code or a subset of data (using filters).Each reporting view has its own goals and other configurations.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – WarrenBuffett, chairman and CEO Berkshire Hathaway
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Google Analytics DIY: Getting Started
Starting any new project sometimes can be a little scary. Diving into the analytics of your website can be terrifying!! You may be wondering: How much time will this take? Will I ever be able to understand it? Do I have the skills necessary? Do I have the time needed?
While many website owners have heard of Google Analytics, most have never worked with or studied GA (Google Analytics) reports on their website. These reports allow you to track and monitor the traffic on your website.
Google Analytics DIY
We are going to be featuring a Google Analytics DIY series in the upcoming posts. Designed to help you set up, manage, and monitor the analytics of your website in simple, easy to understand terms.
The first in this series will provide you with the basics to Get Started in GA. In this lesson, we will walk you through setting up your GA account including adding the analytics tag to your site. This tag is required and necessary in order for the tracking to begin.
Let’s dive in.
STEP 1
Go to google.com/analytics. Here you can create an account or use your existing Google account to login.
STEP 2
Begin setting up your account and add your website. You will need to add the information unique to your site by setting up a ‘Property‘ in your GA account.
Setting up a New Account
Choose to track your website or mobile app, in this tutorial we will be focusing on setting up your website.
Name your account.
More than likely this will be the name of your business.
Enter the name of your website.
If you plan of tracking different versions of your website be specific in this name in order to keep your GA account organized.
Enter the Web Site URL.
You cannot create a property if your URL isn’t formatted correctly, make sure you are using the correct protocol, i.e. http:// or https://. We suggest always having the SSL certificate installed, which can be easily installed through the control panel of your website. If you are unsure how to add an SSL certificate, contact your host provider for help with installing.
Interested in doing it yourself?Check out an industry leader in website security, Sucuri’s Guide to installing SSLs.
To see the correct protocol for your URL, go to the Home page of your website and copy the URL from the address bar.
Choose your Industry Category.
Once you set up your analytics tracking you will be able to use ‘Goal‘ templates within Google Analytics to help measure the success of your site.
Select the Reporting Time Zone.
Once the analytic tracking begins, this time zone will be used in the reporting. The time zone setting affects how data appears in your reports. The beginning and end of each day is calculated based on the time zone you choose, regardless of where the sessions are detected.
Step 3
Get Tracking ID.
Your property is created after you select ‘Get Your Tracking ID‘. You will then need to add the tracking code to your website to begin collecting the information about your site.
The tracking code will need to be placed in the header of your site. If using WordPress, you can use a plugin to easily add code to the header tag of your site. Additionally, you can use an SEO plugin to add the Universal analytics code to your site.
If you do not have access to your website dashboard, cpanel or admin you will need to contact your website administrator to insert the code properly.
Once the code is installed on your site, your Google Analytics tracking is set up and you can begin monitoring the performance of your website. All stats will begin as soon as the tracking code was installed on your website. Please note, there will be no history prior to you setting it up.
“The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake – you can’t learn anything from being perfect”
– Adam Osborne
Stay tuned next week for the next edition in our Google Analytics DIY Series.
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If You’re Not Tracking, You’re Lacking – Google Analytics
I have worked with business owners for several years. When the conversation centers around their website, we begin talking about usability and performance. I am always asked, “Do you think I should be using Google Analytics on my website?” My response is, “Do you have a checking account?”
Obviously the answer is yes.
If you have a checking account, I’m sure you keep a ledger showing all deposits and withdrawals to keep an accurate balance. You know how much money you have. If you have children in school, you recieve quarterly report cards detailing an accurate assessment of their grade marks.
Your website is one of the most important aspects of marketing your business, you need to know how it is performing
You may have GA (Google Analytics) on your website but have never viewed the reports; and if you did, you may have gotten lost in the analytics vortex. The reports can be overwhelming and confusing.
In our previous blog post, Build Community Around Your Brand, we discussed building your brand locally and keeping it simple. My suggestion is to do the same with GA. Begin with the basic reports and then expand further into more detail.
Google Cofounder Avinash Kaushik states – “There is one difference between winners and losers when it comes to web analytics. Winners, well before they think data or tool, have a well structured Digital Marketing & Measurement Model. Losers don’t.”
3 Basic Google Analytic Reports
To begin, here are the 3 basic reports I suggest to get started with:
Audience Overview Report
The Audience Overview Report tells you how many visitors have come to your website. It will distinguish how many of those were there for the first time and how many have been there before. You receive information such as, how many pages have been viewed, what localities they are from, how long they stayed on your website, and much more.
Acquisition Overview Report
The Acquisition Overview Report lets you know how the visitor came to your website, or how they have found you. This includes your direct domain name, a Google search and through social media. You can learn if another website referred you, what pages on your site people are landing on, and what social sites (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc) are sending you the most traffic.
Behavior Overview Report
The Behavior Overview Report tells you what actions visitor are taking once they are on your website. You will learn the exact pages they visited, how long the visit was, what links, if any, they followed, form submissions. Every user action is logged and can be found within this report.
10 Reasons to Use Google Analytics
To help you better understand the importance of GA, check out this infographic from Logit: Digital Exellence 10 Reasons Why You Should Choose Google Analytics.
Knowledge is power! Knowing the performance of your website gives you more power in using it for marketing purposes, which in turn drives more potential clients to your site.
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney, founder Disney
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Build Community Around Your Brand
A successful brand is trusted and respected by customers – Build a strong community on and offline and you will achieve success.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to build a solid brand. In fact, many successful companies concentrate almost exclusively through online and offline community building instead of traditional advertising. Through Facebook, Twitter and additional social networks you can grow your online community; while local community activities, events and fundraisers build your offline community.
Ryan Holmes – Founder & CEO of HootSuite states – “In our first three years of business we grew from zero to 3 million users … an impressive feat for any company, but what’s even more notable is that we did it with virtually no advertising, marketing, or PR budget …Instead we grew through community building”.
Can community building help your business?
Think Local – Grow Local
One of the biggest mistakes I made launching BST was developing a marketing plan that geographically reached further than I was able to control. Being an online marketing agency, I believed the world was open for business. However, economically it made more sense to build my business through a more local approach.
You can start with building your brand directly from your front door. Local business communities offer incredible networking opportunities. Search for these organizations through online meetups or local business directories. Joining the Westmoreland County Chamber of Commerce offered an immediate value to my business. Not only did it introduce me to businesses in the county, but the networking events helped forge relationships. First build your foundation locally, then move on to a larger geographic area.
Kalin Kassabov, Founder and CEO of ProTexting.com, and Inc Magazine contributor states – “One of the best ways to grow your small business is to join or create a larger business community … Partner with other businesses … Raise money for charity … Do speaking or teaching within the community … Create your own online community”
Let them know what your brand stands for
A clear and concise Mission Statement will define your brand. At BST, our Mission Statement is “To provide support, direction and execution of modern marketing strategies to businesses in an affordable and effective way. Through ethical business
Building a brand isn’t just about ROI
Building a brand through community means building sincere, authentic relationships. I remember talking with two gentlemen in the banking industry at a chamber event when a guy interrupted our conversation to introduce himself – but only to the two men from the banking industry. In his line of work he only deals with that industry. As the two stood there awkwardly, the other gentleman kept engaging them until they conceded a good time to call them at their office. After getting what he was after, he then quickly ran off. This is not the way to get involved in your business community. Building a community is about building relationships.
While I understand a business owner may be working 10-12 hours a day, finding time to build an offline community through networking may be challenging. Initially, it may challenge your schedule, but as you get involved and build relationships, you will be amazed at what it brings to your business.
Many people have told me that getting involved in their business community saved their business. Will you use it to help grow yours?
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
– Steve Jobs, Co-founder, CEO, Chairman Apple Inc.
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- Google Analytics DIY: Understanding the Acquisition Report
- Google Analytics DIY: Reports! Reports! Reports! What are they telling me?
Does Your Product or Service Rock?
Most business owners started their business because they have a passion for their product or service, or they believed that it had a great potential for profit. The wine making industry is a great example of this as I know several people who knew nothing about making wine before they got into business, but did it because it is booming.
So why did you start your business? Were you passionate about your product or service? Did you see a great profit in it? Or both?
Now that you have your business going, the smart business owner is always asking, “How can I make my product or service better?”
No matter what product or service you sell, making it better and continually improving it is a constant. It never ends, not if you want to stay ahead of your competition. In trying to get a handle on developing and improving your product or service, here are some questions you should ask.
What is the singular value of your product or service?
By determining the most important value, you can then determine the best strategy for marketing that product or service. Benefit marketing helps customers understand how you can improve their lives. It’s not just about telling them how great your product is, but how your product can actually solve a problem for them in a way that no other product can.
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner states “Above all else, great products have a clearly defined sense of purpose, deliver value in a singularly focused way, and do so as well or better than any other product in the marketplace”.
Who is your potential audience? How does my product or service fulfill their needs or wants? Does geography impact the potential size of the audience?
Being the owner of a digital marketing agency, I know my audience is limited to businesses trying to promote a brand image, while retail owners or insurance agencies have the potential for a much wider audience to have interest in their products or services. Understanding your target audience can help you improve keywords you use to describe your product, ways you describe the benefits of your product and can help you create personas around who is using it.
What makes your product unique?
How does it differ from your competitors? Customer service, being honest and differentiating yourself from your competitors are just a few. Take the unique aspects of your business and put them at the forefront and show your audience the benefits they provide beyond any other business. Check out our blog 5 Ways To Make Your Brand Stand Out to learn more.
What’s your customers’ experience?
I was recently at a small business development conference and the speaker asked the question, “Raise your hand if you think customer service is the most important thing to consumers today?” Naturally just about everyone in the room raised their hand, then said, “Put your hands down because you are all wrong.”. He went on to explain that consumers don’t want to be serviced, they want to have a “great experience”, they want to have their “expectations exceeded”.
Consider your customers experience with your product and the buying journey you take them on – is it effective?
Is word of mouth driving sales?
Considered the oldest and best advertising there is, and it still rings true today. There’s an old salesman’s saying that goes, “They like you. They trust you. They buy from you.”. People are much more likely to trust recommendations from friends and family, rather than a business. When you create trust and satisfaction, your customers are more likely to recommend you. When they do, and often times you see this on Facebook “Where can I find someone who does ……” and you get mentioned, then you have eliminated the first two steps and they go right to the “buy from you” stage.
We live in a far different business world then just 20 years ago. Because of the internet and apps your competition is not just down the street or on the other side of town anymore, it’s across the country and sometimes on the other side of the world. Don’t lose sight of your product or service – keep refining it, testing new ideas and offerings, and gearing your marketing towards your ultimate value.
“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky, co-founder Behance