Once you’ve installed Google Analytics, you can now monitor the hits your site is receiving in a given time period; you typically want to monitor hits to your site at least once per month. You don’t need to check it every day, or even every week, because you won’t see a big change on a day to day basis.
So how do you know what you’re looking for once you get into your Google Analytics account? When you first log into your account, it is a little intimidating, but here are some quick tips to help you navigate and to find results quickly:
- Once you click on your account, the first set of data you will see is the overall traffic; this shows you the amount of visits you received Organically, Directly, Referral, or Social Media.
Organic Traffic:
Organic traffic, will show you the total amount of visits you received from potential clients who typed in a keyword/phrase into Google, and clicked on your site from the list of search results. Below is some of the features to look for:
- To see how your site is doing Organically (which is the main concentration for SEO), on the left hand side, scroll all the way near the bottom, under Acquisition, click Keywords, under Keywords you will see an option for Organic.
- Once you click Organic, you will see the total amount of visits (sessions), new visits (new sessions), new users, bounce rate, page views and amount of time spent on your site.
Audience:
To find this data, go to the left side, four options below Dashboard, click on Audience.
- The Audience feature will show you data that includes Demographics, Interests, Geo, Behavior, Technology, and Mobile.
- Demographics: will show you which age groups and genders are looking at your site; this will help you determine which audience to target.
- Geo: will show you both the language and the location of people who navigated your site. This will show the amount of visits your site is receiving from different cities and towns around your area; it will help you determine which cities/towns need to be focused on.
- Mobile: will produce data on the devices potential customers are using to find your site. If you’re not getting a lot of traffic through devices like phones & tablets, you might want to think about getting a responsive site, so that mobile users can navigate your site efficiently.
Also, be sure to take advantage of comparing the present month’s traffic, with last month’s traffic, to see if there is any improvement; this will help you determine whether or not what you’re doing on your site is working. If you find you’re not getting the improvement month by month you’re looking for, it might be time to implement some additional strategies.
For more information on reading your site’s traffic, please give Boston Web Marketing a call at 508.526.0096.
By Joe Giorgianni