Google Analytics: How To Get Started With Web Analytics | mOOnshot digital marketing agency

There’s a reason why we always end up talking about Google Analytics when we discuss digital marketing with our clients. At mOOnshot digital, we know that a fully thought-through analytics strategy is essential if you want to run campaigns to grow your audience. What’s the point of spending time and money on a marketing campaign if you can’t measure the performance of your campaign. If your business has a web presence, you have to understand how people access your online content and what they do once they’re on your web pages.
The good news is Google Analytics is one of the most powerful analytics tools for the web, it’s user-friendly, and it’s totally free! Google Analytics provides a wealth of insightful data to measure how well (or not) a website performs by monitoring many web analytics KPIs (key performance indicators) that will help improve your site. And a better performing website means reaching your business goals faster.

If you’re not already using Google Analytics, you definitely should!

In the first part of our deep dive series on Google Analytics, we’ll tell you how to set up the tracking code and give you an overview of the key information that it will give you access to.
In part two, we will review in more details how you can leverage web analytics to improve the health of your website and grow your business.

Setting Up Google Analytics

Setting up your Google Analytics is a pretty simple affair. The only prerequisite is a Google Account. Head over to Google Analytics and click on ‘create an account” on the top right menu.
Fill in the required fields on the following form including the main URL of the website you want to track. At the end of the form click “Get Tracking ID”.
Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, you’ll need to copy your unique tracking code in your website.

Method 1 – Setting Up Google Analytics With A Plugin
Some content management systems have template ready for you to add your Google Analytics tracking ID. Simply replace the code (UA-00000000-0) with your unique Tracking ID and save your settings. Yoast has an excellent plugin for WordPress for example.

Method 2 – Manual Setting
Copy your Tracking Code (JavaScript), go to edit HTML and search for. Paste the Tracking Code just above and save. Make sure to copy and paste the code exactly as it is provided.
If you’re using a content management system or blogging platform such as WordPress or Blogger, you only need to add the code once to your template or theme. The theme will propagate the code in every post and page you create. However, if your site is custom-built, you’ll most likely need to manually implement the code to every page of your website.
Note that once you have implemented the Tracking ID it may take up to 24 hours for data to start being collected.

Getting Started With Reading Data On Google Analytics

At its most basic, Google Analytics generates insightful data about your website’s traffic, goals conversions and how visitors use and interact with your site.

Log into your Google Analytics account and hit the “Reporting” tab to access the main dashboard. In the left column, you’ll see the various data categories Google Analytics provides:

1. Real-Time – Shows you what’s happening live on your website so you can see who is on your site right now and where they are in the world.
2. Audience – Tells you more about the people coming to your site including what country they are visiting from, what language they speak, if they have visited your site before or are new, how often they visit your site and what devices they are on.
3. Acquisition – Gives you information about how your visitors found your site (via search engines, social media, another site, etc), which sites link to your web pages or keywords searched to find you.
4. Behaviour – Tells you how people are interacting with your site, what content visitors interact with, how people enter and exit your pages, which pages or posts are most popular, what page they land on and leave on, site speed, and more.
5. Conversions – Here you’ll be able to track desired actions from users such as downloads, registrations, etc.

Select Your Date Range

By default, Google Analytics displays data for the last 30 days. You can change the date range using the date selector at the top right of the page. A calendar will drop down and you can select your desired dates. Once selected, click apply. If you want to compare two date ranges, simply tick the “compare to” box.

Dive In And Learn

Long story short: Google Analytics is simply an amazing business intelligence tool for website owners. Find your way around Google Analytics and start using some of the core reports and metrics available.
We will be back with more advanced Google Analytics insights soon.