Most folks probably already know this, but for those who don't, you need to install Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools on your website.
I spend a large portion of my days going through the data, both for Peacock Virtual Solutions and for our clients.
Google Analytics gives a huge amount of insight into your website and the visitors behavior while they are on your site.
Some of the primary information it provides you with is:
- The number of visits to your website
- How many of those visits were unique
- The average number of pages your visitors looked at
- Your bounce rate (percentage of visitors who left w/out clicking deeper into your site)
- How long your visitors are staying on your site
All of this information can help you see how effective your sites content and design is, but you can dig much deeper and there is a lot more valuable information available.
Google Analytics also gives you acquisition data (where your visitors are coming from and how they are finding your website).
If you are a social media addict like myself, you can see how many visitors come from each social media platform. This will tell you how effective your marketing efforts are on these platforms. For instance if you are getting lots of visitors from Facebook but not many from Twitter and Pinterest, maybe you need to adjust how you are sharing and engaging on those sites.
Google Analytics also tells you the search terms that your visitors used when they clicked onto your site from the search engines. This is valuable information because you can tell what keywords and phrases you are using effectively. Potentially more important than that though, you can see if people are not finding you for keywords and phrases that you think they should be, this lets you know if you need to make adjustments in your content.
More awesome data Google Analytics tells you:
- Which pages & posts on your site get the most visits
- Which pages & posts on your site have the lowest/highes bounce rate
- Which pages & posts people enter your site on the most/least
- What days of the week your triffic is highest/lowest.
- Real-Time Data - Who is on your site right now and where they are
In addition to Google Analytics, you need to setup Google Webmaster Tools.
Webmaster Tools gives you much different information about your website and it's performance and visibility.
Some of the best info Webmaster Tools tells you:
- Search Queries (where Google Analytics tells you what search terms people used to click through to your site, Webmaster Tools tells you every search term people used that your site was presented to them and they did not choose to click on your site. It shows how visible your site is)
- How many websites link to your site, and how many links there are
- How many pages Google has indexed on your site
- Your keyword density for your entire site (which words are used most frequently)
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