Google Analytics – do you really understand the way visitors interact with your site?

Question – do you really understand the way visitors interact with your site?

By that I don’t mean do you understand how many visitors your site receives a day. I mean do you really understand where they come from? What they look at? What elements they like? What elements they don’t like? Where they exit? Where they linger? Which pages are important to your site? Which pages aren’t? Where have they come from? What they are looking for?

The list is endless, but if you can’t answer all of the above then you should probably consider installing some analytical software, and if you’re on a limited budget you can’t get a better tool than Google Analytics.

Ok, so what is Google Analytics?

In 2005, Google purchased Urchin Web Analytics, a company that had been producing premium, user- friendly, high-quality web analytics information since the late 1990s. Rather than start from scratch, Google purchased an already-trusted company and set about improving it.

Enter Google Analytics

The newly-installed Urchin team, now backed by Google, continued to improve and refine the system, its reports and functionality to produce a streamlined, highly-powerful analytical system.

What can Google Analytics do?

The first thing to recognise is the distinction between the basic statistics software packages that tend to be bundled with hosting packages and full analytical packages. Basic stats software will give you information regarding volumes of traffic and hits but won’t give you detailed data about your site’s performance which then enables you to make informed decisions about changes that will improve it.

Analytics packages add context to the numbers by allowing you to compare related reports. For example, comparing entrance keywords to time on site or compare entrance source to exit rate.

Google Analytics is a full analytical programme providing in excess of 80 reports which, if used correctly, can unlock the potential of your site.

What does it cost?

Google kindly provide the actual software for free but installation and setup costs vary based on the complexity of the data required from the software. A basic set-up can be completed in several hours but an advanced install can take a whole day. This still represents fantastic value when comparing costs to other available commercial analytical packages.

In conclusion

Historically, cost was the primary reason for not running advanced analytical software on a site with the majority of them costing beyond the reach of many webmasters. Google Analytics changes this. It is giving you what you need to assess and understand your site’s performance and its visitors. As such, we recommend doing exactly that. The insight gained can transform the way your approach your site and future marketing activities.