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Setting Up Google Analytics For Web Site Success

July 7, 2014 by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

businesswoman walking blindfoldedDo you know if anyone really cares about what you have to sell? If you’re not testing and tracking your web site success you might was well be working blindfolded.

Google Analytics is free, but your time is valuable, so if you don’t yet have Google Analytics installed on your WordPress site…

…Begin It Now

 Do these 2 things first:

  1. Sign up for Google Analytics
  2. Put your Google Analytics <script> into the header or footer script of your WordPress web site

If you’re concerned about messing up or loosing important data, set up 2 views: One to be your test area, the other to stay untouched. Your first “view” was set up automatically when your signed up for Google Analytics. Here’s how to setup a second view:

Sign Into Your Google Analytics Account Then…

  1. Select Admin
  2. Under View
  3. Open All Web Site Data
  4. Click Create new view

Google Analytics screen shot setup

 

In the New Reporting View…

  1. Type in a name like “z-test” or “z-Playground” (tip from Lynda.com Google Analytics Essential Training with Corey Koberg: add a “z” before your label so it appears last in your your list)
  2. Change the Reporting Time Zone to reflect your time zone
  3. Click Create View

Google Analytics screen shot New Reporting View

 

Time To Drill Down

Google will begin collecting data the minute you sign up, but it will take a month to see any meaningful activity.

I, for one, will take the advise of Jessica Commins‘ VP of Marketing at Copyblogger, and spend 15 minutes, once a week looking at my data, and one hour, once a month comparing totals to my weekly baseline.

Go ahead — there’s no time like the present to get started. Log into your Google Analytics Account: http://www.google.com/analytics/ and click on Reporting (at the very top). Go to the sidebar and choose —> Audience —> Behavior —> New vs. Returning

Google Analytics screen shot Reporting New vs. Returning visitors

Now you’ll be able to see:

  1. How many people came to your site last month
  2. How many are returning
  3. How many are new
  4. How long they’re spending on your pages NOTE: Anything over 1 minute is good because it means they’re reading the page!

I’m not knocking it out of the park in terms of visitors, but I also have no way of knowing if this past month was favorable or poor, because I have nothing to compare it with right now. The good news is I have nearly the same number of new and returning visitors, and my returning visitors are staying longer on my site. Studies show that most new visitors will not buy the first time they arrive on your site.

How Are Your Visitors Finding You Online?

Facebook is not my favorite place to hang, which is why it was such a surprise to learn most of my traffic is coming from my Facebook page. Fortunately Google organic searches are close behind.

To find out how visitors are finding you, go to Acquisition —> All Traffic.

What’s Your Top Content?

My visitors are most interested in my blog posts. The About and Contact pages are also in my top ten.

To see what pages your prospects are visiting, check out your page views. You’ll find that under Behavior —> Site Content —> All Pages.

 

Google Analytics screen shot Reporting

What Do Your Visitors Care About?

Go to Behavior —> Site Content —> Content Drilldown.

My visitors most care about WordPress, design, and SEO — in that order. It now makes sense why my blog posts are ranking higher than my main webpages because I write about these topics on my blog. But visitors are also interested in my packages. Knowing this, I will spend more time and effort selling my services, and developing other packages that may have greater appeal to visitors who care about WordPress, design and SEO.

What’s Next?

I’d like to build my list. Setting up goals in Google Analytics will help me figure out how people are getting to my email list signup page, and what they’re doing once they get there.

Would you like to learn about setting goals, too? Stay tuned.

Filed Under: Google Analytics, WordPress

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