Using the free tools provided by Google
As we all know, Google dominates the search engine world, particularly here in Australia where Google currently has 94% of the market share. But did you know that Google is a lot more than just a search engine? They also provide free tools for website owners and marketers to help them get the best results they can online.
Today I’m going to talk about one of the free tools provided by Google to help with your website.
Google Analytics
The number 1 complaint I get about websites is the lack of traffic. But wait – how do you know if your website’s getting any traffic if you’re not using Google Analytics?
Google Analytics tracks and reports on traffic to your website, giving you valuable insights about your site visitors. It also tells you how people find your site – through direct traffic, organic traffic or referral traffic.
Direct Traffic is when visitors arrive on your site after typing your web address in the browser, or clicking on a link in an email, SMS or message.
Organic Traffic refers to visitors who find your site after typing a search term into Google
Referral Traffic is visitors who get to your site by clicking on a link from another website. This could be from social media like Facebook, or from links on other websites known as backlinks.
There’s a section for checking paid traffic too if you’re using Google Ads.
Still with me? I promise you, once you understand what Google Analytics can do, you’ll love it as much as I do.
Google Analytics lets you know all about your site visitors. Where they are geographically, the time of day they visit, the browsers and devices they’re using, and the pages they visit. It also checks how long users spend on your site, and what the bounce rate is. A “bounce” is when someone lands on a page of your site and bounces off somewhere else into the online universe without taking a further action.
So what’s the point of all this information? This stuff is gold! Having the right data interpretation can help improve your search engine optimisation strategy. Having said that, here’s how you can interpret it all.
You can tell what pages are the most visited on your site by clicking the tab and see what is the most popular content. This lets you know what content is resonating with your audience so you can attract more visitors to your website.
You can tell what pages on your site are the most visited and what content is the most popular. You can track how long visitors are staying on your site, and set goals to track the actions your visitors do (or don’t) take – like signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. This is really handy, because if people are landing on your site but not doing what you want them to, that’s a conversion issue not necessarily a traffic issue.
So you can use it to make informed decisions about your marketing, but there’s one catch – you actually have to look at it!
Google Analytics is easy to install and you can download the app to your phone so you can check it anywhere any time. Find out more here.
And if all this sounds a little too overwhelming, book my Get Your Google On package for $99, setting you well on your way to being Google savvy. Contact me for more info:)
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