There is a wealth of information that can be gathered from the data provided by Google Analytics. Making heads or tails of that information can be daunting for those who are unfamiliar with the analytics dashboard. To keep it simple, there are three key statistics to track that will help you to stay in touch with the source of your website traffic, the pages that are attracting visitors, and the value of that content.
How are visitors getting to your website?
The “Source/Medium” (Acquisition/All Traffic/Source/Medium) window reveals a breakdown of the source of the traffic. From paid advertising to social media to backlinks from referral sites that offer niche edits, the information will provide insight as to which marketing efforts are working for you and where you should invest marketing dollars.
What pages are attracting visitors?
The “All Pages” window (Behavior/Site Content/All Pages) tells which pages are the most popular on your website. The results may surprise you. Armed with this information you will be able to better tailor your content according to the preferences of the target audience.
How much time was spent on a page and did the visitor take action?
These stats are known as “Time on Page” and “Bounce Rate” (Behavior/Site Content/All Pages). They are two different statistics but are inherently related. The first tells how long a visitor stayed on the page while the other tells whether they left without taking action. The more time visitors stay on a page the more likely they are to be converted. On the other hand, a high bounce rate is indicative of a missed opportunity.
There is obviously much more informative data that can be gathered from the analytics dashboard. Whatever time that is spent analyzing data from Google Analytics is well spent and will be helpful in more effective marketing.
