Google Analytics is an amazing tool that every business with a website can take advantage of. This works by collecting data on how your visitors are using your website.
BUT… simply using this tool blindly will not help you receive any insights into your audience. You need to be able to know what key analytics are related to the operations of your business, and then set goals on the analytics you want your organization to have.
Listed below are the 7 must have metrics for Google Analytics that your business needs to track and set goals for:
Traffic Source
This metric is all about how people get to your website. Are they typing in your domain directly into the browser? Have they been referred to your website from another website? Maybe it was from a social media channel? Or they found your website based on your specific Ad Words.
It is important for you to know how your visitors are coming to your site because it can point out areas of opportunities where you can draw more people to your site.
Bounce Rate
It should be your goal to minimize the bounce rate. This metric is measured as the rate of new users who visit your site and immediately leave without completing an action.
Depending on your website, if you have a specific action that you want your users to complete, then having a high bounce rate would indicate they either your users don’t understand what they are supposed to do or they don’t have an incentive to complete the desired action.
New/Unique Visitor Conversion
It is important to isolate how first-time visitors interact with your website independently from your returning users. This metric will allow you to see important patterns that will enable you to ensure the best first-experience for every user.
The usability of a website plays a big factor in the bounce rate, so increasing the New/Unique Visitor Conversion Rate means that the Bounce Rate would be decreasing.
Interactions per visit
Conversion is not always the end-all-be-all for user interactions. It’s important to see and understand what the normal conversion process. For some, its immediately filling out a form or making a purchase, while others it includes reading articles, leaving comments and other interactions that eventually lead up to a conversion. You should try to increase your interactions, and leverage them to increase your conversions.
Average Session Duration
This metric tells you the average time a user will spend on your website interacting with your content. If your visitor values your website and believes it relevant to them, then they will spend more time on your website. But in the same case, spending too much time on a session could mean that visitor is confused by your content.
Exit Pages
This metric is about knowing your conversion funnel. At what page/process of the conversion cycle is your visitors leaving? In order to increase your conversion rate, you will need to know when your visitors are leaving and try to understand why.
Value per Visit
Your organization needs to define what type of user interaction adds value. For content-focused websites, added page views, commenting on blogs, or sharing post will probably be their value. For online ecommerce, their value is found by customer purchases. Understanding how each additional visit will impact your organization will effect your operations and digital marketing strategy.
It’s important to understand how Google Analytics works and be able to define its limitations to draw meaningful data to empower solutions driven results. Google Analytics can track these metrics plus more, so make sure to take the time to determine what metrics fit best with your operations.
