By Diana Garcia

As an aspiring entrepreneur or a small business owner, it is up to you to develop and execute a winning marketing strategy for your business. To create the best approach, you will need data. Without data you are left guessing your customers likes and dislikes and areas they are more concerned about.  Where can you find data from your website?

This is where Google Analytics comes in. Google Analytics is a free, website analytics tool that measures what is and isn’t working in your business’s online marketing strategy. Whatever industry you are in, Google Analytics is a great tool to help you understand your customers and your website.

Listed are some key reasons why using Google Analytics can help improve your business:

GOOGLE ANALYTICS GIVES YOU THE ABILITY TO SEE WHERE YOUR VISITORS ARE COMING FROM

Facebook, Instagram, referrals, organic search, or paid ads, where are your visitors coming from? With Google Analytics, you have the access to view which social media platforms and which ads are attracting the most traffic.

Seeing a social media platform or ad that has a high conversion rate might mean you should invest more in that platform. While on the other hand, a platform or ad with low conversion rates means that you need to either improve or re-allocate your resources to a more beneficial platform. Either way, Google Analytics has the data to see which other platforms are driving traffic to your website.

IT HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND WHY VISITORS ARE LEAVING YOUR WEBSITE

When someone visits your website and leaves automatically, that is called a bounce. Google Analytics takes the number of times someone has “bounced” out of a specific page and divides that by all the times people have visited that page on your website. This percentage is what is known as a Bounce Rate, but why is this useful? This percentage shows you which pages on your website are causing people to click out. With this information you can adjust the page and make it easier and more attractive to navigate.

Having a low bounce rate is not always bad. It all depends on your business goals. If your goal is for visitors to sign up for a webinar, then the bounce rate is going to be high because they are only being directed to one landing page. On the other hand, if you are a blogger, you want people to navigate throughout your website, so having a high bounce rate might be a sign for you to go through and fix some pages.

A detailed report of the bounce rate will help you find better ways to improve your website and adjust it according to your business goal.

IT REVEALS VISITORS’ BEHAVIORS TO GIVE YOU A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR AUDIENCE

The more you know about your visitors’ behaviors, the more equipped you are to make smart choices that follow your business strategy and goals. Google Analytics can track these behaviors and help you understand how your visitors interact with your website.

From what type of devices they are using to look at your website, to the pages that have the most views, to what links visitors are clicking on, to how long they are staying on your website, to if they are a new or returning visitor, Google Analytics behavior analysis tab has the data. With this information you can make the necessary changes and modifications to your website’s navigation and products. These changes will improve your website and make it more user friendly.

To run a successful business, you need to know your customers’ behaviors and patterns. Do they prefer to shop using their phone or on a laptop? Are they on Facebook or Instagram? Are the paid ads you are running bringing traffic to your website? Google Analytics has the data to help you answer these questions and more. 

Remember, understanding your website’s analytics to help you achieve your goals is the first step for growth, and Google Analytics is a free tool to help you on your small business journey.