Intro to Google Analytics for Small & Medium Sized Businesses: Part 1

If you are running a small or medium-sized business, I hope there is a strong correlation between your desire to succeed and your need for insights. Without data from which to gather insights, you're asking for trouble — sort of like swimming down a class-5 rapid river without a helmet or a raft.

Insights help us all make more informed decisions. Think about a helpful 1-star Google review that directs us away from a potential price-gauging mechanic. Or client feedback that guides us toward making the customer experience more meaningful.

“Wait, did you say Google Analytics?”

If you haven't dabbled in Google Analytics, I suggest setting up an account and properly placing the tag or code on your website. Today's popular website-building tools make integrating with Google Analytics very simple, even for non-technical folks.

Step One: Audience Overview

After logging into your account, click on the “Audience” category and then “Overview.”

Before diving into the numbers, let's review the glossary of terms:

• User: An individual person browsing your website (unique browser cookie).
• New Users: A user who has never been to your website before.
• Sessions: Visits to your website. Two visits within 30 minutes = one session.
• Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed.
• Pages / Session: Pageviews divided by Sessions.
• Avg. Session Duration: How long users stay on your website.
• Bounce Rate: Sessions with a single pageview where the user didn't continue browsing.

The two numbers I review first are: “Pages / Session” and “Bounce Rate.”If your Bounce Rate is above 70% and/or viewers are seeing less than 2 pages, something is wrong.

Step Two: Trends Over Time

Above are “Users” over six months. Good news! The chart is trending up.

Above are “New Users” — again, positive news here.

Above are “Pages/Sessions” — there is a slight decline worth exploring.

Step Three: Organic Search Behavior

The goal here is to view how “New Users” that found your site through “Organic Search” are behaving.

As expected, the organic search audience is behaving better than overall traffic. They view more pages and bounce at a lower rate.

Google Analytics 101: Keep Trying

Did you learn something? Are you still overwhelmed and need help deciphering what you have? If so, give us a shout, we can dig deeper together. After all, don't you want a computer science major with 10+ years of marketing experience helping with your analytics?