This month we are covering metrics so very simply if you are not using Google Analytics, you need to be put in a time out, because it is THE best way to measure your website metrics.
If you are not sure whether you have it or not, you probably don’t but it is an easy fix. Simply go back to your web person and have them add it.
If you do not have a web person, you can reach out to someone on Fiverr who can do it for you. It’s that simple to have done, and it is necessary. Trust me.
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So — we are going to cover a few things about Google Analytics — and the first one is —
Why We Need to Know
If your website does not concentrate on your most popular topics, then you are just stabbing in the dark and you are not going to go anywhere.
Your website probably ranks higher for certain subjects than others. You need to know what those are because Google will be sending people to your website and you need to know what brought them there.
If you don’t rank near the top then you don’t track keywords and that is where your Google Analytics comes in. It tells you what your website is doing.
If you have it, why don’t you look at it? Are you not sure what you are looking at? Is it because you have never taken the time to try to understand it?
Google Analytics is so easy to understand that someone even like me can do it.
It is designed for people like us so we can understand what is going. Don’t give me an excuse that you cannot do it.
So let’s get into your Google Analytics shall we?
Aquisitions
So when you go into your GA, on the left hand side there is a tab called acquisitions. This is how your website aquires videos.
Under that there are 2 main sections you are going to look at.
The first one is Adwords. Under that section is “keywords”. Now if you are doing Google Adwords, that is simply a pay per click type of thing.
If you are doing that, you will be able to glean untold riches in how your website is analyzing — and even better if you are doing Google Shopping.
Under those keywords it will tell you which ones are ranking on top. And from there, you are golden. You will be able to dive in deep and find out what is the best subject for you to be writing about.
If you are not doing AdWords, you can do the free organic search which is what Google uses for keyword search.
People have searched certain terms on Google and those keywords are what Google has used to put your website up as one of the places they should click on for more info – so those keywords are important too.
Search Console
Most of these searches you won’t be able to get results for, but you can look at the queries and kind of find out what people are searching for.
For us, we sell fire extinguishers and sometimes people will search for things like “How do I get rid of rusty old fire extinguishers” and when we know people are searching for this topic, we can write a post about it opening the door for traffic to our site.
Behavior
The next section we are going to look at is behavior. This is a separate tab from the acquisitions tab. This is generally what people do when they come to your website.
Under this tab there are 2 sections you are going to pay attention to — site search and site content.
Site search is like if someone visits your site and searches for something specific on your site and GA will track that.
Site Content is very interesting. This will tell you the top landing and exit pages on your site.
From the landing pages you can find where they go after that. This tells you where the people start on at your site. This is the subject not just keywords.
If you have a popular landing page, then this means you have a popular subject which means you should be writing more about this topic.
If you have a high bounce rate on one of those landing pages, then this means people are coming and then leaving pretty quickly, but for the most part, people will stay and read anywhere from 3-6 pages.
The top exit pages are pages where people visited and left quickly which means those are subjects you don’t want to really write about. It’s as simple as that.
And this is what it is all about.
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
Today is Tuesday and that means it is time for a toolbox tip. Today I am recommending Google Keyword Search Tool.
This comes in your GA. Look it up and use it. It is free.
Tomorrow we have Brian Fanzo in our expert interview series. He is one of the best of the best when it comes to live video and social media.
You will not want to miss this interview.
