3 Valuable and Underused Reports in Google Analytics That Can Greatly Boost Your Business

Google Analytics is probably the most underused internet marketing tool. Most small businesses barely scratch the surface of what it’s capable of doing.

There are three main reasons for this:

• Google Analytics appears complex and technical. It looks like something that’s going to take time to understand.
• We’re all pressed for time. Delving into analytics reports is easy to push to the bottom of a task list.
• And the real underlying fear: Say we did find the time to study analytics. What if we dug deep into our analytics accounts only to find nothing concrete to act on?

Yikes. No wonder so many small business owners look at a couple of reports and leave it at that. According to Formstack’s study on Google Analytics usage, 46% of companies use analytics information only “informally and sporadically.”

You can do better.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool, and you can wrap your head around it in less time than you might think. There is actionable information in your Google Analytics account, and that information can make a real difference to your business.

To help you get way more out of this free analytics tool, I’ve got three simple reports that can give you actionable information fast. No headaches required.

1. Set up goal tracking and see it in all your reports.

Why use it: To find out which tactics are making you money and losing you money.

What you’ll need to do: Set up goal tracking—here’s a good tutorial video. Also assign a value to each goal. For example, you’ll decide each new email subscriber is worth, say, 50 cents to you.

Where you’ll see the conversion data: In just about every report in Analytics.

Here’s an example of the Social Conversions report. You can find this by going to “Acquisition” in the left-hand column of your Analytics account. Then choose “Social” > “Conversions.” You’ll see which social media channels have generated conversions. This is an excellent way to decide which social media platforms are worth your time.

What you need to know: You can track as many goals as you’d like, but I recommend picking three or four key conversions, otherwise your reports can get complicated. And don’t be afraid of setting up a few goals. It takes less than 10 minutes and can save you thousands of dollars.

2. The site speed overview report

Why use it: Site speed has a huge effect on visitors’ experience of your site. It influences how likely they are to convert, and how your pages rank in the search results.

What you’ll need to do: Nothing–no extra setup required.

How to find the report: From inside your Google Analytics account, go to “Behavior” > “Site Speed”  > “Overview.”

What you need to know: Slow web pages hurt business; in some cases, conversions drop by 7% for every extra second it takes for a page to load.

So how slow is too slow? Anything over three seconds is a problem; anything over two seconds could use improvement. You can get this information from the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, but I like this report because it shows you all the pages of your site at once. You can also sort the report by page speed to find problem pages fast.

3. The landing pages report

Why use it: So you can see which pages are attracting the most traffic and how those pages perform.

What you’ll need to do: Nothing–no extra setup required.

How to find the report: From inside your Google Analytics account, go to “Behavior” > “Site Content”  > “Landing Pages.”

What you need to know: If you’re driving paid traffic to landing pages, it’s critical to see how these pages are performing. If you’re using a poorly performing page, you’re wasting money.

Take a moment and sort the report by Bounce Rate and Average Session Duration. Not sure how to do that? Just click the header row label of the parameter you want to sort by (say, Bounce Rate). The report will sort itself according to that value.

Any page with a bounce rate of over 80% needs help; it’s not engaging your visitors. You’ll see this in Average Session Duration, too. It refers to how long people stay on your site when they arrive on that page. If it’s low–like less than a minute–that page is not keeping people’s attention.

Conclusion

Now that you’re familiar with those three reports, you’ll know:

• Which pages on your site are converting and which aren’t
• Which social media channels are generating conversions and which aren’t
• Which pages on your site are slow, giving visitors a poor experience and hurting your rankings

If you can fix what you find in just those reports, you’ll be well along the way to far better results from all your digital marketing.

The post 3 Valuable and Underused Reports in Google Analytics That Can Greatly Boost Your Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com

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