Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a powerful application for tracking traffic patterns on the website. It is a free to use program which integrates very well with powerful programs like Google AdWords and Google AdSense.

The Google Analytics interface comprises of a dashboard that displays different kinds of realtime reports. The dashboard can be customised by adding and configuring widgets. A widget is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information or provides a specific way for a user to interact with the operating system or an application. Widgets include icons, pull-down menus, buttons, selection boxes, progress indicators, on-off checkmarks, scroll bars, windows, toggle buttons, form, and many other devices for displaying information and for inviting, accepting, and responding to user actions.

The Google Analytics default dashboard opens with a visitor's overview screen. This gives information about traffic sources and content. The page also gives information on number of visitors. number of unique visitors, percentage of new visitors and returning visitors, number of page views, number of pages viewed/visit, average time on site, bounce rate, etc.

Google Analytics Application Suite

The Google Analytics Application Suite comprises of Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Optimize. Data Studio, Surveys, Attribution and Audience Center. The Google Analytics 360 Suite combines enterprise analytics, tagging, site optimisation, data visualisation, market research, attribution, and audience management into a powerful measurement solution for online business.

Google Tag Manager is a tag management system created by Google to manage JavaScript and HTML tags used for tracking and analytics on websites. Google Optimize is used for testing different variations of the website and then tailoring it to deliver a personalised experience that works best for each customer and for the business. Google Data Studio turns your data into informative dashboards and reports that are easy to read, easy to share, and fully customisable. Dashboarding allows you to tell great data stories to support better business decisions. Data Studio gives you the ability to create meaningful, shareable charts and graphs that bring your data to life.

Google Surveys makes it easy to get fast, reliable insights from consumers across the internet and on mobile devices - allowing you to make more informed business decisions, understand your marketing impact, and keep a pulse on the health of your brand.

Google Attribution helps to track conversions. Google Attribution unifies and analyses all available data streams (with data-driven attribution, marketing mix modelling, and TV attribution) to create a highly accurate model of a marketer's full efforts. Attribution is the identification of a set of user actions ("events" or "touchpoints") that contribute in some manner to a desired outcome, and then the assignment of a value to each of these events. Marketing attribution provides a level of understanding of what combination of events in what particular order influence individuals to engage in a desired behaviour, typically referred to as a conversion.

Audience Center is Google's data management platform for clients. Its purpose is to aggregate media campaign data to learn, optimise and inform research for future efforts. Google Audience Center has the ability to aggregate campaign audiences while serving ads, and also customize campaign targeting to fit your needs from real-time data.

How to use Google Analytics

The first step to use Google Analytics is to sign up in the website https://www. google.com/analytics. Here, we need to submit the information about which website or blog we want to monitor. After registration, Google will give a tracking code that has to be pasted on the pages that you need to be tracked by Google Analytics. The whole process of validation takes a few hours, after which Google will start giving real-time analytics data about the website.

Google Analytics offers hierarchies to organise your account. You can have up to 100 Google Analytics accounts under one Google account. You can have up to 50 website properties under one Google Analytics account. You can have up to 25 views under one website property.

After you install your tracking code on your website, you will want to configure a small (but very useful) setting in your website's profile on Google Analytics. This is your Goals setting. You can find it by clicking on the admin link at the top of your Google Analytics and then by clicking on "Goals" under your website's "View" column.

Goals will tell Google Analytics when something important has happened on your website. For example, if you have a website where you generate leads through a contact form, you will want to find (or create) a thank you page that visitors end up on once they have submitted their contact information. Or, if you have a website where you sell products, you will want to find (or create) a final thank you or confirmation page for visitors to land upon once they have completed a purchase.

Once you start getting in Google Analytics data, you can start learning about your website traffic. Each time you log in to Google Analytics, you will be taken to your Audience Overview report. Alternatively, if have more than one website, you will be taken to your list of websites to choose from, and then taken to the Audience Overview report for that website. This is the first of over 50 reports that are available to you in Google Analytics. You can also access these reports by clicking on the reporting link at the top.

The Google Analytics Reports

The various types of reports that you can get from Google Analytics are:

1. Audience Reports

These reports tell you everything you want to know about your visitors. In them, you will find detailed reports for your visitors' age and gender (Demographics), what their general interests are (Interests), where they come from (Geo > Location) and what language they speak (Geo > Language), how often they visit your website (Behaviour), and the technology they use to view your website (Technology and Mobile).

2. Acquisition Reports

These reports will tell you everything you want to know about what drove visitors to your website (All Traffic). You will see your traffic broken down by main categories (All Traffic > Channels) and specific sources (All Traffic > Source/Medium).

You can learn everything about traffic from social networks (Social). You can also connect Google Analytics to AdWords to learn more about PPC campaigns and to Google Webmaster Tools/ Search Console to learn more about search traffic (Search Engine Optimization).

3. Behaviour Reports

These reports will tell you everything you want to know about your content. Particularly, the top pages on your website (Site Content > All Pages), the top entry pages on your website (Site Content > Landing Pages), and the top exit pages on your website (Site Content> Exit Pages).

If you set up Site Search, you will be able to see what terms are searched for (Site Search > Search Terms) and the pages they are searched upon (Site Search > Pages).

You can also learn how fast your website loads (Site Speed) as well as find specific suggestions from Google on how to make your website faster (Site Speed > Speed Suggestions).

4. Conversions

If you set up goals within your Google Analytics, you can see how many conversions your website has received (Goals > Overview) and what URLs they happened upon (Goals > Goal URLs). You can also see the path that visitors took to complete the conversion (Goals > Reverse Goal Path).

Speaking of goals and conversions, most of the tables within Google Analytics standard reports will tie specific data to your conversions. For example, you can see the number of conversions made by visitors from Mumbai in the "Audience > Geo > Location" report. You can see the number of conversions made by visitors from Facebook in the "Acquisitions > All Traffic > Source/Medium" report. You can see the number of conversions made by visitors who landed on specific pages in the "Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages" report.