How Should I Be Using Analytics?

Attendees at Wednesday’s Social Media Breakfast munched on pizza and drank coffee at Brix & Mortar Coworking  – Madison’s newest coworking space. Wednesday’s event was one of a series of events being held across the city during Forward Fest 2017 – Wisconsin’s largest technology and entrepreneurship festival.

Get Found Madison owner Eagan Heath dove right into why and how you should be using analytics.

• Make your website better
• Know where people fall out
• Bring people back

Eagan says with website analytics, you want to make sure your website is doing a good job. “You want to know how good of a job it’s doing, if at all, if it’s doing what we hope it is and we also want to make it do a better job,” he says.

Another reason to use web analytics is to track your marketing funnel. Eagan says not everyone will go all the way down that funnel the first time they visit your website. You want to know where they fall out. Heath says measure your website, and based on what you see, make changes to improve your website and your internet strategy. Then measure again to see how you did. “Whatever matters, measure it over time,” he says.

Eagan talked about the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). He says when people go to Google, they want a specific answer so it’s a great way to capture existing demand. He cited a study that showed the top result on a search gets about a third of the clicks, while the results that follow get half the clicks and so on. According to Eagan, if you climb a spot, you could double the traffic to your site from that search.

Here are the free tools Eagan recommends for SEO and website analytics:

Google Search Console – Allows you to monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google searches. It shows you a sample of queries people used to find your site. You can view:

• Impressions
• Position
• Clicks
• Click Through Rate (CTR)
• Landing pages

Yoast SEO – WordPress plugin that allows you to easily update your title, description, keywords and other items to optimize your pages.

Keywords Everywhere  – Chrome or Firefox plugin (Eagan’s favorite plugin). When you do a Google search, Keywords Everywhere tells you how many people are searching a specific keyword or phrase. It also shows costs per click and other related searches.

Google Analytics (out of the box) – You must add a snippet of code to your website. Google Analytics will show you:

• Visits to your site
• How many users
• Session duration
• Bounce rate
• Goals
• How people get to your website
  • Directly
  • Through an email
  • Google search
  • Google AdWords
  • Social media
• Site speed

Google Analytics has additional tools you can use to measure your site:

• Conversions
  • Micro – “Actions prospects take on the way to the ultimate action you want them to take.” Ex: Watch videos, view products, read blog posts.
  • Macro – “The ultimate actions you want your prospects to take.” Ex: Purchase online, submit contact form, click or call to email.

• Destination
• Duration
• Pages per session
• Destination goals
• Google Analytics Goals
  • Events
  • Category
  • Action
  • Label
  • Value

Google Tag Manager – Allows you to track code in one place. It sends tracking data to all tools: Google AdWords, Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. You must add a snippet of code to your website. You can view:

• Variables
• Triggers
• Tags

Google Tag Assistant – A Chrome extension that makes sure your Google tags are working correctly.

Campaign URL Builder – Allows you to drill down with specific email newsletter campaigns, Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Eagan also provided a couple free resources for help navigating analytics.

Google Analytics Academy

Measureschool YouTube Academy

Facebook Pixel and Facebook Ads – You need a personal page, business page and a business manager account and they must be linked.

The Facebook Pixel is code that runs in the background. Eagan says it’s not conversion tracking for when you run Facebook Ads. He says you can set up the Pixel and spend nothing on Facebook Ads and get value out of the Pixel. “Make sure it’s on every page of your site,” he says.

Google Data Studio – This tool automatically updates from Google Analytics, AdWords and Search Console and turns your data into reports that you can share.

Eagan provided many great tools and information. To see examples of the analytics and reports you can pull using the tools he discussed, view his PowerPoint presentation.

Written by Hywania Thompson, Writer and Editor, @hywania