Google Analytics Platform Principles

Is Google Analytics a rocket science?

Solo online marketers have lots of challenges to deal with when it comes to conducting business on the internet. The good thing is that Big G or Google has provided tools and services to ensure their business’ success. A very good example would be GA or Google Analytics. It is a service that provides data analysis and statistics tools for a you as a website owner. A CEO of a business with a website should definitely access this service. It is absolutely for free and the single requirement is that the user should have a Google account. Current Google Analytics Platform Principles are explained on the web pages of the Big G.

So, why are Google Analytics Platform Principles so important for an online business? To begin with, websites chip in a lot of data that could lead to either the success or failure of a business. By using these sets of information, a business you could see through patterns of customer visits, buying behavior, sales, and other similar things. When data is correctly gathered in through Analytics, your correct decisions can be made regarding SEO (search engine optimization) and online e marketing tactics. Therefore, learning about Google Analytics Platform Principles and its uses is very crucial for any solo online marketer or business CEO.

What Makes Analytics Seemingly Difficult for People to Understand?

I:O Session II - Lost Bits

What are the common terminologies used in Analytics?

When one aims to understand Google Analytics fast, the following terminologies must be understood first:

  1. Visitor and visitor sessions: A visitor is a person who clicks and stays on a website. Visitor sessions are activities that happen while an individual is within a site. Sessions that happen for more than 30 minutes will be classified as another visit.
  2. Referrals: These can be likened to recommendations from independent websites. It brings in visitors to the website of a solo online marketer. Links of a site found on another site could be a source of referred traffic. This is often mentioned in tutorials covering Google Analytics.
  3. Bounce Rate/Exit Rate: Bounce rate describes the number of people who visit a website page for a short duration then navigates away. Exit rate is the number of people leaving a specific page of a website after viewing several other pages in there. A website owner must aim to reduce bounce rates. Exit rates should of course be reduced too. However, its usefulness is seen when one aims to troubleshoot problem areas of a website.
  4. Conversion rate: Conversion rate is the number or percentage of website visitors who become actual customers. This is measured by the action completed by these visitors. If a page is meant for selling products and then a visitor buys something in it; this could be termed as a successful conversion. Online marketers should strive to boost up their site’s conversion rates.

conversion-rate

Is Google Analytics a rocket science?

One of the key things discussed in Google Analytics you need to understand is the use of numbers or data in general sense. Basically it should never be a problem for a user. Some important things to take note about Analytics and numbers are the following:

  1. Caveman analytics: Google Analytics will generate reports on a regular basis. These reports could cover website hits, bounce rates, visit durations, conversions, and many other similar data. A noticeable thing that seems to complicate matters is that these reports could be totally overwhelming. If an online marketer will focus solely on the generation and safekeeping of these reports, nothing will be gained for the business. Of course, it would take some effort on the part of an online marketer to make sense out of these materials generated through caveman analytics.
  2. Numbers without context: An individual using GA will most readily notice that he or she will be provided with mere numbers on reports. It won’t take a genius to figure out that unless the meaning or interpretation of such numbers is there, nothing could be used. The good thing is that Analytics could now be set to interpret some meanings of these numbers. Of course, this will depend on the knowledge of an online marketer about some basic GA Principles as discussed above. There are instances wherein a search engine optimization (SEO) company would be needed to interpret these numbers as provided by Analytics. It is on this scenario where suitable solutions for a business could be prescribed and implemented.
  3. Goals: Analytics will provide numbers based from the goals of a business owner or online marketer. When setting up the parameters for the generation of regular reports, it is the online marketer who will determine what he or she really wants to see. It could be stats regarding page visits, conversions, location based visits, and many more. It is therefore very important for a CEO or owner of an online business to be clear about his or her use of the Google Analytics. In a more technical aspect, goals are ways to measure how customers or visitors on a website should do the required actions. The control panel of a GA account allows a user to create and set up goals. There could be only one or a multitude of it present for an account. Goals could be set according to type, value, and availability of goal templates.
  4. Context: One of the most important principles is putting context into the numbers (information) that would be generated. Users find this to be quite complicated to figure out. This could be one of the biggest reasons why GA is being seen as complicated by many newbie web analytics tool users. The good thing is that Google actually made it possible for users to put more visual context into charts, reports, and other regularly generated data. For those who are still not aware of it, there is a GA annotation tool available for users to use for free. Annotated charts will definitely boost the context of information even when presented to non-techies.

Is Google Analytics a rocket science? Definitely NOT! Through a simple glance at the contents of Google Analytics, it is easy to get intimidated. There are terminologies there that are applicable to complicated SEO and marketing aspects. There are also skills in IT that are obviously required in order to carry out the operation of tools and processes. The biggest stumbling block here is the presence of numbers. Just because numbers need to be gathered in, processed, and interpreted, people would think that the whole thing is like rocket science. In reality, it is just essential to know some basics about Google Analytics Platform Principles. It is not meant to confuse but to help online business site owners attain success in their craft.

Google Analytics Platform Principles

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