Carpenters are admonished to measure twice but cut once — a reminder that good decisions flow from good data. Getting things right at the outset means less time and money spent fixing things later — or rebuilding from the ground up.

So what’s carpentry have to do with the web?

Think of Google Analytics as a virtual tape measure. It helps anyone — from Web pros to business owners like you — understand how your site is performing. It also helps you identify where “remodeling” is needed to improve the user experience or boost sales.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Google Analytics reports — generated by installing the Google Analytics Tracking Code — tell you how many unique visitors you have, how popular certain pages are, and how much time people spend on certain pages.
  2. From there, the data can be interpreted to tell you more about your site performance. For instance, are users visiting a page in droves but scurrying away just as quick? High “bounce rates” for seemingly popular pages could mean that the page is failing to meet users’ expectations, perhaps because of poor design or outdated content.
  3. Additional Google Analytics featuresCustom Reports and Advanced Segments —allow you test the effectiveness of certain types of landing pages. The Google Analytics blog highlights these tools by taking us through a fictional e-commerce website that sells empanadas, and showing how to encourage each visitor to purchase as many treats as possible.

By using Google Analytics to measure what you’re doing now — and test what’s working and what’s not — you can create a structure solid enough to build on in the future.

Want to learn more? Contact us any time.

1 reply
  1. Paul Parr
    Paul Parr says:

    Google Analytics is the tool I use to determine my keywords and it teaches me how to fine tune them to fit my particular product, which is a very limited of one vacation rental condo on Siesta Key in Florida. My goal is always to attempt to achieve a 100% occupancy. I watch my bounce rate when I introduce new content to see how affective the content is in getting the attention of visitors.
    I have also learned to expect a high bounce rate when my site has little availabily for vacationers to book their vacations. This situation also encourages visitors to book well in advance which also benefits my goal of high occupancy.

    Reply

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