Mastering Google Analytics
A strategy guide for better decision making to analyze website growth and boost lead conversions
Visit to follow along: whitebuffalocreative.com/wbc-insight
Google Analytics Facts
What is GA?
- Gives a 30,000 ft view of website engagement
- Valuable asset for your business
- It's a secret tool everyone should use
Jumping right in
This is Google Analytics
umm.... Whoa!
Yosemite National Park, Half Dome
Marketing Funnel
Report types
Dimensions
- Real-Time
- Audience
- Acquisition
- Behavior
- Conversions
Filters
- Users
- New Users
- Pageviews
- Bounce Rate
- Location
- and MORE!
Take aways
- Brand Awareness
- Goal %
- Bot prevention
- User drop offs
- Location of customers
- Tracking benchmarks
- Ideas for Improving content
- Greater understanding of your website traffic
Direct customers to you, not away
- Use audience data to find what keywords were used to find your website
- Think about the hierarchy of your content
- Are you standing out?
Resource Guides
Getting Started with Installation
Track a Goal Hits
Marketing Strategy tips
Installation
Starting with the basics. Get GA installed on your website to begin tracking users.
Audience
Get important data about active users, demographics, interests, and what technology users are using to view your website.
Acquisition
Know your channels. This shows how users are aware of your business and how they find you.
Behavior
How users engage with your business. Get valuable data about page ranking and traffic flow.
Conversions
A conversion Track your goals set and know how many users click on a video to watch, or submitted their info on a contact form.
Capture your customer data now! not later.
01
Installation
How to Install Google Analytics
Quick Install
- Use a Google Email registered
- Login into Google Analytics
- Click Admin
- Create New Property
- Install Tracking info into header of your website
High level view
Get ready for you business to change. You’ll start thinking about your business different I know when you see how many people are really coming to site. Scary thought, but it will inform you of the untapped value of your website.
How to use GA reports
- Home
- Audience
- Acquisition
- Behavior
- Converstions
02
Dashboard
Quickly see traffic performance from a given period
Don't burn yourself out
- Schedule a time to check reports
- Have a goal in mind
- Do your homework
- User Experience is SUPER important
Target Areas
- Share Dashboards
- Custom Dashboard
- Users trending overtime
- Highest ranking page visits
High level view
The home dashboard should be your go to on a weekly basis. But really, take time to study and check your weekly online performance. Think of raw data, as the blood of your brand...it's running your business, keep it flowing.
Resources
Benchmark Averages for Bounce Rates
Real Estate
News
Business & Industrial
Don’t leave me… your bounce rate is crucial to understanding your visitors flow. Find out if visitors aren’t reading your content, dropping off the page for technical issues, or missing key information to help them engage.
02
Real-time
The Real time report instantly shows current traffic metrics from a set date range.
TIPS
Mobile device traffic. Locate bad spike traffic. Brand speed awareness.
Target Areas
- Referral Sources
- Geo Location
- Benchmarking
- Mobile Tracking
High level view
Brand Awareness & time marketing campaigns makes for quick spike in traffic. But this often isn't enough to understand your performance of your content. Check a couple times month. There's bigger fish to fry.
Campaign Resource
Think of Google Analytics as a bobber in the water and customers are the fish. How do you know when a fish bits without a signal?
03
Audience
The Audience report is a birds eye view where and how visitors arrived to your website.
Screen Captures
Target Areas
- New vs Returning
- Geo Location
- Benchmarking
- Troubleshoot spiked traffic
- User Interests
- Use with Google Ads
High level view
Your audience is comes from all angles...Country, languages, demographics, ages, and interests. Think about what you want to do with that data?
Benchmarking channels will show a comparison of the highest rank type of traffic (Social, Referral, Paid Search, Email...)
Using Google Ads and this dimension for tracking how and when your (text, image or video) Ad is click and where.
Resources
Be precise. Creating a high volume customer campaign, starts with having the data to back it up.
04
Acquisition
The Acquisition report will present data based on source and medium of your users [Organic Search, Direct, keyword data…]
Screen Captures
Target Areas
- All Traffic
- Channels
- Keywords
- Google Ads
- Search Console
High level view
Track your email marketing campaigns by tracking how many users clicked on your email marketing links.
Definitions: “organic” (unpaid search), “cpc” (cost per click, i.e. paid search), “referral” (referral "facebook"), “email” (the name of a custom medium you have created), “none” (direct traffic has a medium of “none”).
What if you had a larger pocket for your marketing budget?
- Spend more on CPC for specific keyword
- Increase Google Ad focus for mobile devices
- Pay for a subscription to a keyword software
05
Behavior
The Behavior report, is the flow of user traffic for a given time.
Target Areas
- Behavior Flow
- Site Content
- Site Speed
High level view
Traffic will only record a users interaction every 30 mins. Then GA resets if the user comes back. This can be changed, if you have video that is 60 mins long, you can set traffic to be recorded for every 60 mins.
FACT: Shocking that most web agencies don’t include GA in a website build because of cost of work or lack of customer follow up. That doesn’t help you.
06
Conversions
The Conversions report allows you to track goals, giving key insight into how valuable is your content to other users.
Online Shoppers Abandon Their Carts Because of Unexpected Extra Costs
Videos on a landing page can increase conversions or more
Smartphones accounted for retail site visits
Target Areas
- Conversion Rate
- Entered Checkout
- Purchases Completed
High level view
You might find it helpful to give a value ($) for a completed goal. Why? This can help to inform you of performance value of a each event click by an user.
Resources
Use the website grader to check performance and to get recommendations how to improve.
Set reasonable goals each month or campaign duration. This keeps your goals organized.
Didn’t reach your goal? Try A/B test using different messaging and pick the highest click through rate.
Tips for improving conversions
What keywords matter
Strategy Phase 1
Keyword Research
Researching keywords helps to improve how search engines find you
Keyword Research Software
Google accounted for global desktop search traffic
Bing accounted for global search traffic
Tips
- Pick top 10 keywords to include in your content
- Use backlinks to other websites to share information
High level view
Aligning your content with your business literature is key for Google to find your information as relevant searches which brings your link in front of your customer. This is good for...
- Performance measurement frameworks & KPIs
- Performance/content audit
- Competitive analysis
- Buyers Journey Roadmap
- Persona development
Resources
Strategy Phase 2
SEO
SEO stands for “search engine optimization”. It’s the single most important part of your website. It communicates with Google browsers to rise your position on the (SERP) “Search Engine Results page”.
Mobile video viewers share videos with others.
increase of organic traffic from Videos
Tips
- Review site structure
- Use keywords from your research into your content to increase search results.
- Plugin keywords from your research into your content to increase search results.
High level view
Aligning your content with your business literature is key for Google to find your information as relevant. Embrace being found, don't hide yourself in the dark.
- Improved search results rank
- Greater content
Resources
Strategy Phase 3
Design Layout
Improve your conversion rates by designing a LP to make your message stand out.
Tips
- Review site structure
- Plugin keywords from your research into your content to increase search results.
- Add a simple form
High level view
Make the conversion easy for your audience, not harder. Keep your content above the fold they say.
Contact us
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