Are you looking to improve your business and website but not entirely sure where to start? The best answer is to start with data. Google Analytics allows you to use actual user behavior to drive your decision making. Here are five ways to improve your business using Google Analytics.
- Get a better understanding of who your audience is
You might assume that all your visitors are from the local area – but you might be wrong. Google Analytics can show you exactly where your audience is from. To find this, go to the Audience in the sidebar and then click on “Geo”, then “Location”. Just because your business is based in the United States doesn’t mean that most of your traffic is coming from the United States. Once you dissect the data and have an idea of where the majority of your traffic is coming from, you can then modify your business to better suit these specific audiences. - Know how long users are spending on your website
Getting more traffic to your website is one way to increase sales, but ensuring that people are staying long enough to consume content and make purchases is also crucial. The percentage of people who leave your site after a page instead of browsing to different pages is known as your bounce rate. Google Analytics allows you to check the time a user spent on the site and time on a single page, which tells you how long they were sticking around for. If you notice your users aren’t staying, you may want to modify your website design or content so that it’s more attractive for users. - Learn if your website is compatible with the right browsers
Google Analytics allows you to know which browser your visitors are using. By finding out which web browsers your customers are using, you will be able to determine if your site is displaying correctly for them. Right now, the most popular web browser is Google Chrome, but that might not hold true for your audience. If 45% of your visitors are using Firefox, but your website isn’t compatible with Firefox, then you could be potentially losing a lot of business. The same goes for mobile devices and different operating systems. - Know where you rank on Google
You may already know that keywords can drive traffic to your business, but increasing your rankings for those keywords is one advantage that Google Analytics gives to you. Google Analytics allows you to see where you are ranked on Google, and how to improve your on-page SEO. - See how you stack up against your competitors
One of the first metrics you should check is the benchmarks tab. This will tell you how you’re doing compared to other sites in your industry. This data may not be 100% accurate since all your competitors may not use Google Analytics, but it’s better than no information at all. Google Analytics will also give you a better understanding of how engaged your website visitors are compared to your competitors. Google Analytics allows you to compare statistics like average time on site and you’ll get a better understanding of how you stack up against your competitors with your audience and where you need to make changes to start improving your website.
Now you’ve got a great idea of what actionable steps to start with to improve your business. Google Analytics provides you with important information to better understand what your visitors care about, where they’re coming from and how they’re viewing your site. If you are looking for help learning more about what Google Analytics says about your website, reach out to us here!