What and why of Google analytics
It is high time we move from amateur SEO to some real professional stuff. Most of the advice which you hear from SEO experts boils down to the same thing said in different words. But there are some techniques which are never discussed probably because they have never been used by the so called experts. Use of Google analytic is probably one such tool which differentiates the boys from the men. Analyzing traffic to your website and creating suitable web interfaces to maximize ROI is a major part of Web master job. As I mentioned in my last post understanding the mind of your visitor and creating suitable interactive web pages is more important than understanding the technology. Google analytics is for the grownups ,those who know the business of website.
I have used Google analytics effectively for many of my clients and can say with authority that it helps increasing traffic – sometimes by a percentage , sometimes by leaps and bounds. The beautiful part is that Google analytics helps in sewing up a whole lot of Google application and tools like Google AdWords , AdSense and PPC campaigns.
The dashboard feature of Google analytics is particularly fascinating since you can monitor aspects of your website which you consider most important. Presentation can be tailored for different roles. A CEO would like to know about the overall performance of a website. At the same time people from web design would like to drill down and analyze the click through patterns to modify their interface for increasing traffic and revenue. Geographical indicators give detailed information on the different user and preferences across the globe. One can even drill down to an individual visitor and identify the IP address. At the same time the privacy of the visitor is maintained and privacy concerns are amply protected.
Google analytics gives the bigger picture as well as drills down to the minutest detail. You can analyze the traffic coming from various sources. The keywords which drive traffic to your website can be thoroughly studied and SEO tactics refined and corrective measures taken.
Google analytics provides complete campaign tracking capabilities. You have the power to track various kinds of campaign and evaluate their effectives. This includes banner ad campaigns , advertisements and even email marketing. I just cannot explain in words how easy to use and fantastic this tool can be. The resulting revenue gain can be tremendous and most of all, it gives a thrill to me when tweaking one small aspect of a website results in a quantum leap in traffic. All this can be accomplished with a simple user friendly interface requiring only common sense to navigate and use.
The entry points and exits of visitors can be effectively monitored using Google analytics. In fact, the time spent on the web site by each of the visitors can be seen giving a hint of what is important for them. Comparison of various metrics on a time scale provides data about the success /failure rate due to changes made on the website. Advertisement campaigns can therefore be fine tuned with this tool. One of the features which I found relevant was the tracking of visitors beginning with entry to website from keyword search , their movement within the site and their eventual exit. We can analyze the keywords which lead to fulfillment and those which are least rewarding. In fact you can use Google analytics for many purposes depending on your appetite for analysis and power to digest data.
The benchmarking feature can provide an insight to how your website is performing in comparison to others from the same industry. As I mentioned earlier, knowing your competitors is more important than anything else. As we compare our stats with others ,the chinks in our armor would get exposed . As someone has well said, SEO is a game in which we have to topple the website on top of us to come up tops. Benchmarking exposes us to tactics which are employed by our competitors and provides an opportunity for us to exploit their weaknesses.
Overall, Google analytics exposes us to a whole new and fascinating world of web metrics. The only danger is when we are too taken up with the numbers and spend all our time analyzing them rather than take positive steps to move ahead. We must avoid this paralysis in analysis scenario. Still Google analytics can be a whole lot more addictive than video games. It gives more thrill and a greater high.
