Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you see what’s working and what’s not in your business. But it’s not enough to simply collect data. You need to take action on the insights you discover.
Here are 4 actionable steps you can take to improve your Google Analytics reports:
Table of Contents
1. Get Your Data
The first step to improve your Google Analytics data is to gather it. You can do this by using the Google Analytics website, or by using the free Adobe Analytics software. Use GA in conjunction with a third-party reporting solution, like Mixpanel, Digimind or Adobe Analytics Cloud (AA). These tools can help you make more informed decisions about how to improve your website and your marketing campaigns.
Set up an A/B test on your site with different types of content or ads to find out which ones perform better than others. This will give you an idea of what works best so you can focus on those elements in the future.
If this all seems complex and you’re not sure whether you would make it or not, hire the right SEO services at Wellington.
2. Set Up Goals and Notifications in Google Analytics
The second step is to set up goals and notifications in Google Analytics so that you can keep track of what’s happening on your site, and who’s doing what. This will help you see how people interact with your website, which can be incredibly valuable for improving your content strategy and understanding how visitors are using your site.
3. Enable custom dimensions and metrics
Custom dimensions allow you to view and analyze data from specific sources within your Google Analytics account. For example, you might have a custom dimension for “Campaign source” that shows how visitors arrived at your site from various campaign types – e.g., display ads, YouTube ads, etc. Custom dimensions are the best way to get granular data on your website.
If you’re not using them, you’re missing out on a lot of valuable information. Custom dimensions help you understand the performance of your website in terms of user behavior, search traffic, and more. They also allow you to create new metrics for your business.
Here’s how custom dimensions work:
A custom dimension is a set of variables that are defined by Google Analytics as part of your tracking code (instructions here). These variables can then be used to define metrics like visits or pageviews, which are then tracked by GA over time.
You can add as many custom dimensions as you want to track with GA, but only 20% of these will show up in the dashboard so make sure it’s the right ones for your funnel before adding them!
4. Use filters to isolate key metrics
Filters let you look at certain data points in your report for more in-depth analysis. For instance, if you want to see which of your campaigns is performing best, use a filter that only shows data from those campaigns.
One of the most important things that you can do here is enable custom dimensions and metrics. By default, Google Analytics doesn’t give users access to their own data; instead, it gives them access only to aggregate data from other users. This means that users aren’t collecting information about their own performance or how they compare against others in their company or industry.
This can be a problem if you want to find out more about what your customers are doing on your website and whether or not they’re finding it useful. If they aren’t using the site frequently enough to have an impact on sales, then there may be something wrong with the design or functionality of your site!
