Although Google Analytics is not a new thing, there are still a lot of business owners who do not use it, and that is really unfortunate because it can give you valuable insight into who your customers are and how to reach them. Not only that, but it’s free!
If you happen to be a business owner who is exploring different avenues that will help you to promote or expand your business, then it is definitely worthwhile for you to give Google Analytics a shot. Here are some points to consider about the software.
Google Analytics is a Free Tool
You’ve no doubt heard about it, and you’ve got nothing to lose in giving Google Analytics a try. Is it really free? Yes, it’s really free, with no strings attached. So, considering what you stand to gain from using it, there’s absolutely no risk to you in trying it.
It’s perfect for business owners or marketing strategists who just want to dip their toes in the water and get an overview of who their web visitors are, where they’re coming from, and how they interact with the website.
Google Analytics is like Garage Band for Mac computers. You can organize pretty advanced projects with it, just as you can with Garage Band, and you can also just use the basic functions of the software to get an entry-level project going.
We’ll get into the more advanced capabilities of the software below, but you can benefit from Google Analytics no matter how you utilize it.
For a Free Tool, It’s Pretty Comprehensive
Honestly, though there are certain unique features you can get from paid services, most businesses don’t really need more than what’s offered by Google Analytics. Just a couple examples of what you get with the software are locations of visitors, what they click on, bounce rates, and conversions.
That, alone, is some game-changing information when you had nothing of the sort before. And what you get doesn’t stop at basic metrics. Depending on how deep into it you want to go, you can look at things like visitor behavior, for example, which includes the visitor path from the first thing they clicked on to when they left, how long they spent on your site, and how they engaged with your social media posts and during what times they did so.
You can even go further to track visitors using UTM parameters. You can create special campaigns to watch, specifically, the behavior of people from certain locations. Even further, you can design your tracking campaign based on type, e.g., organic, cpc, social, or email. The software is way more powerful than you would expect it to be as a free tool.
Find Out How and Where to Market & Advertise Your Product
The information you’ll obtain is extremely useful for promoting your product. Mainly, the reason you’ll find it useful is because you can learn a great deal about the people who are visiting your site.
On one hand, the software makes it possible to understand why your visitors are coming to your site and clicking on whatever they click on, which obviously helps you to make it easier for those people to navigate your online content.
On the other hand, you can also gain an understanding of why visitors do not click on certain things and organize your site and content in such a way that caters to those people, as well. So, that is some truly valuable information to have, to start, and then you can move on to concentrating on the content, itself.
Learn about the content to which visitors are responding more favorably. Similar to A/B, or split testing, you can decide to redesign your content and social media posts based on what you find to perform better. Then, you can even create special tracking campaigns based on what you’ve learned.
Google Analytics Keeps You from Flying Blind
Before online marketing and the analytics which support it, all we knew was when someone bought something and how much they paid, without any insight whatsoever into their unique information or behavior. Free access to online metrics available to us now changes this entirely.
The sad fact is that today, many businesses operating online still operate without the use of any analytics at all, leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of these tools. Those small businesses may tragically fail without ever realizing that they could figure out exactly what their potential customers are looking for, using completely free tools.
You really are flying blind when you don’t look at online metrics that will give you valuable information about the behavior of those people who come to your site with interest in what you’re selling.
If you honestly have an awesome product or service, then to some degree, it sells itself because those who bought it will tell their friends and family to check it out; however, the sales you got from those people indicate that there were plenty of others who would have also bought from you but were somehow diverted before they converted into paying customers. The reasons for those diversions and distractions are the kinds of things you can learn by using analytics.
It’s Designed for Anyone to Use
Google Analytics is not just for experienced marketers who are creating complicated strategies. The tools provided by this software absolutely equip you for that if that’s your goal, but one of the greatest things about using it for your business is that, in a minimal amount of time, anyone can obtain highly valuable information about the people who end up on their website.
Any small business owner who is curious about who their web visitors are, and what they’re doing, can use the metrics available to get a general idea. You can literally set it up in a few minutes and start planning how you’re going to target your market with far greater precision than you were before.
Again, you’ll have no problem going as deep as you want to, or simply look at general metrics that are easily understandable for anyone.
Should you be using Google Analytics? Yes. It’s as simple as that. There is no shortage of paid services that offer all kinds of tools to track and analyze customer behavior, but Google Analytics charges you nothing and offers all of the important metrics and much more, to help your business maximize online sales.
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Stephanie
Stephanie is the Marketing Director at Talkroute and has been featured in Forbes, Inc, and Entrepreneur as a leading authority on business and telecommunications.
Stephanie is also the chief editor and contributing author for the Talkroute blog helping more than 100k entrepreneurs to start, run, and grow their businesses.