Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help businesses track their website performance and make informed decisions. However, with so many Google Analytics metrics to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start.
In this article, we will demystify Google Analytics metrics and highlight how every business should monitor.
Audience
The Audience section of Google Analytics provides insights into your website visitors, such as their demographics, interests, and behavior.
Here are some key audience metrics to monitor:
- Users: The number of unique visitors to your website during a given period of time.
- New users: The number of new visitors to your website during a given period of time.
- Returning users: The number of visitors who have returned to your website during a given period of time.
- Location: The geographic location of your website visitors.
- Device: The type of device that your website visitors are using.
- Browser: The web browser that your website visitors are using.
Acquisition
The Acquisition section of Google Analytics shows you how visitors are finding your website.
Here are some key acquisition metrics to monitor:
- Sessions: The number of times that users have visited your website during a given period of time.
- Traffic sources: The channels that visitors are using to find your website, such as organic search, social media, and paid advertising.
- Landing pages: The pages on your website that visitors are landing on first.
Behavior
The Behavior section of Google Analytics provides insights into how visitors are interacting with your website.
Here are some key behavior metrics to monitor:
- Pageviews: The total number of pages that have been viewed on your website during a given period of time.
- Average session duration: The amount of time that visitors spend on your website on average.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page.
- Exit rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your website from a particular page.
- Engagement metrics: Metrics such as event completions, clicks on internal links, and time spent on page can be used to measure how engaged visitors are with your website.
Conversions
The Conversions section of Google Analytics allows you to track how visitors are interacting with specific goals on your website, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
Here are some key conversion metrics to monitor:
- Goal conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a specific goal on your website.
- Micro conversions: Smaller actions that visitors take on your website, such as adding a product to their cart or signing up for an email list.
- Funnel conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who enter a funnel and complete a specific goal at the end of the funnel.
Additional tips for using Google Analytics
- Set up goals to track the specific actions that you want visitors to take on your website.
- Create custom reports to track specific metrics or segments of your audience.
- Use the Google Analytics benchmark tool to compare your website performance to other websites in your industry.
- Integrate Google Analytics with other marketing tools to get a complete view of your marketing performance.
If you need help getting started with Google Analytics or interpreting your website data, there are a number of resources available online and from Google itself.
Conclusion
By monitoring the key metrics in Google Analytics, businesses can track their website performance, identify areas for improvement, and make informed decisions to grow their business.
