Let’s talk about Google Analytics and why it’s time to geek out over them today. 

Google Analytics give you the answers about what you need to do or how to make money or what’s working and what’s broken on your website. 

Even if you like data, the problem most business owners have is that we look at data like numbers and sometimes forget to reflect and analyze if what we were trying is actually working or not. 

Just like the scientific process, it’s helpful to approach data by following (although, let’s be honest, I’m not going to be quite this formal) 

1. Set question
2. Do some background research
3. Create a hypothesis
4. Test it
5. Analyze the data coming in and then 
6. Decide what to do about it. 

This is part 1 of a 3 part series on Google Analytics and today I want to break down some vocabulary you may have run across in wondering how the heck do you figure out what these numbers mean in GA. 

Web property – looks at your domain Views – filters & how they look at the data Sessions = 30 minutes or less Cookie – stores data about who you are in the website New Session = sees your cookie for the first time (but would be treated different if they cleared their cookie or were on mobile, etc.) Returning – have seen this person cookie’s before, then you know they are coming back (loyal people) Users (visitors) – unique cookies over a certain period of time (like everyone over the past 30 days) (can be inflated again like how many unique computers you’ve seen) Page views – page view and fired up the code when it loaded 

Bounce Rate: # sessions and only saw one page You want to improve it against your number right now — having a high number isn’t necessarily a bad thing Goals: Trains GA what is the purpose of your website

Google Analytics Basics

Next, let’s talk about some basics. First, create a Google Analytics account if you don’t already have one. – sign up at analytics.google.com – add the code to your website – then the data starts to come in and you learn about your audience If you are unsure if you even have it, or if someone created your website and helped you with it, you can right click in Chrome (that’s my favorite browser) and choose to inspect or view source code and search among the code for gtag.js or analytics.js (for Universal Analytics) or ga.js (for Classic Analytics)

Second rule: Don’t track yourself. Make sure to apply a filter around your IP address to block yourself from being counted in the data. *make sure you are an admin for your account so you can set this up. Third rule: Define goals of websiteThis could take all day, which is why we’ll go into it in more depth on the third episode. This is a ninja move that makes analytics so valuable, that most people don’t take the time to learn and set up. When we are talking about goals on Google Analytics, there are two kinds: – Macro goal == makes you money  – Micro Goal == nice but doesn’t bring you revenue 

Now, let’s look at why we’re going into nerdy detail about website data.

What’s possible with Google Analytics?

Here are just a few things we can track and watch with Google Analytics: – Content performance: You can get there by going to Behavior > Site Content >  look at page views/ avg time on page to see what your audience likes most. – Bounce rate to measure performance of your pages and if people are converting like you expect on the pages – Page value: When you set goals, you can also set revenue amounts for actions and pages, which will allow you to see the value of each page on your site if they’re contributing to your revenue – Find out what content can be promoted more on social media that isn’t promoted enough (what isn’t getting any page views)

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