Three Reasons to Get to Know Google Analytics

Many small business owners and marketers use “inbound” marketing to attract customers. With inbound marketing marketers publish content like whitepapers, blog posts, videos and social media and attract prospects to their website where they become a lead, and then are nurtured to become customers.
Tracking and measuring content performance and customer behavior on your web site is essential to success with inbound marketing. Google Analytics is a popular free tool that helps you do this. Here are three crucial insights Google Analytics provides:
1) Visits

Data includes the number of visitors to your website, where they come from (geographically and on the web), and whether or not they’re a new or returning visitor. You can also see what browsers and devices viewers use—including tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices. This “big picture” data helps you determine which channels to focus your marketing time and budget on.

2) Goals

Google Analytics allows you to select one of four goal types or business objectives to track. “URL Destination” tracks the number of visits to a specific page of your site. “Time on Site” tracks viewers that spend a defined amount of time on your site. “Pages per Visit” tracks the number of pages visitors view in one session. “Events” tracks specific actions that users take on a page, such as downloading your whitepaper or watching a video. Google Analytics also shows how visitors engage with your web site, including pages per visit and bounce rate or how many viewers don’t click past your entry page before leaving.

3) Social Reports

This feature analyzes how your social channels direct customers to your site. It pinpoints which networks they are coming in from, and also shows you whether they take a specific action (such as making a purchase) after arriving.

These are just a few of the things that Google Analytics can show you. To find out more about Google’s tools.