Five Essential Features of Google Analytics
Thousands of people use Google Analytics every day for their website reporting. Besides being one of the most comprehensive analytics platforms on the web, Google Analytics is also 100% free, which is invaluable to a small business looking to get the most out of their online marketing spend.
After spending some time using Google Analytics, and learning about all it has to offer, you'll find it's difficult to rationalize the cost of a paid web analytics platform, such as Omniture.
Here are five key features of Google Analytics:
1. Traffic reporting
At the most basic level, Google Analytics is a traffic reporter. The service will tell you how many people are visiting your site each day. You can also track trends over time, which will influence your online marketing decisions.
2. Conversion tracking
Once you've identified conversion points on your website, (such as a contact form submission, e-commerce sale, or phone call), you can set them up for tracking in Google Analytics. You'll be able to see when someone converted, the traffic source that referred them, and more.
3. Keyword referrals
Have you ever wondered what people were searching for when they found your website? With Google Analytics, you'll be able to see what keywords people used to find you, which can heavily influence your website's SEO strategy.
4. Third party referrals
You'll be able to see what third party websites sent you traffic. This is useful, because you'll be able to see what sites are worth spending more time on, as well as if any new sites have started linking to yours.
5. Custom dashboards
Google Analytics gives you the ability to create semi-custom dashboards for your analytics. If seeing web traffic, conversions and keyword referrals are most important to you, you can add them to your dashboard. Your dashboard is the first screen you see when you log in to your website's profile, and it can be exported into PDF and .CSV format for easily sharing your reports.
Of course, these five features of Google Analytics only scratch the surface of what's possible. Once you're comfortable with the platform, it's amazing the kinds of insights you can pull out of it. For more information on getting the most out of Google Analytics, be sure to check out Avinash Kaushik's blog and Google's Conversion University.
What are your favorite features of Google Analytics?
