It's February (!), and this month's theme here at GN towers is data-driven marketing. To kick off, let's #getbehindthewheel of one of the most important analytics tools: Google Analytics.

I recently published a blog post on the importance of writing good web content.

This post touched on the importance of analytics in your content strategy.

Today, I'll explore that idea further by providing a brief introduction to the most popular web analytics app in use today.

It's a free program, and I believe it's a critical tool for anyone who's publishing content on the web. Whether you run an online shop or a blog, this one's for you.

What is Google Analytics?

In a nutshell, Google Analytics is a powerful measurement tool that enables you to dive into thousands of aspects of a website's performance, and track visitors' behaviour patterns down to the tiniest digital footstep. It's a marketer's goldmine.

The home screen looks like this:

(the data shown comes from the Google Merchandise Store demo account—us small fry can only dream of having 300+ eyes on our website right now).

The home screen is the most visually appealing page in the app and offers a high-level view of popular website metrics. It's great for seeing how things are going at a glance. But to get the real value out of GA, you need to navigate a bit further.

Why though? How does Google Analytics help me create better content?

and... why would I want to do all that tracking stuff?

Imagine for a moment, you're an author. The publishing cycle might go like this: you write a book, you ‘sell the sizzle’ to publishers and secure a deal, then you launch and wait for the sales figures to roll in. You'll have to excuse my reductive (and possibly wildly inaccurate) summary of the process; I'm not a novelist.

The point is, it could be months or even years between finishing your book and knowing how it's received.

Now, imagine instead, that as soon as you hit your big red ‘publish‘ button, you know which pages of your book are delighting your readers. Which paragraphs are compelling them to hunt down more of your books to buy. Imagine you know which sentences of your writing people are quoting to their friends. You could use this information to write more of what delights and less of what doesn't. Now stop imagining. This is the power of digital content. But if you're not measuring, you're missing out.

Every webpage, blog post, video, advertisement. You can see the results they're driving for you or your clients.

Keeping it simple

The sky's the limit when it comes to measurement in Google Analytics—how far you delve into its features depends entirely on you. For example, e-commerce websites can use it to set hyper-targeted website conversion goals, or test and optimise their content to the nth degree in order to sell more products.

But you don't need to worry about all of that. Because you can keep it simple.

When I learned how to (properly) use Google Analytics, at General Assembly in Melbourne, our instructor offered the following advice:

Using Google Analytics is sort of like riding a bicycle. A bit scary the first time, but once you've got it, you never forget how it works. And you should always wear a helmet.

Alright, I made the last bit up. But the rest? Verbatim. The good news is, most of us can get a great deal of value out of Google Analytics with minimal training.

Here's how:

Getting started is as easy as signing up with your Google account and watching the free instructional videos.

Once you're up and running, remember: keep it simple. Focus only on the reports and metrics that are relevant to you.

I like to focus on the five Ws:

who, what, when, where, why?

Who are my audience?

Head to the Audience report... see, it's easy!

With just a couple of clicks, I can see a whole slew of information about my audience, from where they live to how old they are. Some of this data is estimated based on your browsing habits or your Google logins; it isn't 100% accurate but it's a good reference point.

What are my site visitors doing? What are people using to view my site?

Find out in the Behaviour report:

Here we can see which pages are the most visited, how long they spend on each one, and where people are coming and going from our website.

Maybe you'd like to know how many of your website visitors use a desktop versus mobile? OK, let's go back to the Audience report:

Mobile-first is Google's mantra, but it's useful to know what the actual breakdown is on your site. For example, if you're a B2B, you might see a greater proportion of desktop traffic than a B2C. Check the numbers and you can tailor your content accordingly. If most visitors are on their phones, they might be more inclined to watch a video than read a long, text-based post.

When are my visitors online?

This one's on the home screen, where we can see our site's most visited days and times. These could be good opportunities to schedule new content for release.

Where on the web do my visitors come from?

Inbound traffic to your site is detailed under the Acquisition report:

Organic search means people who found you via Google (excluding clicks from paid ads). Direct is the people who entered your URL into their web browser’s address bar, and backlinks from external sites are found under the Referral label.

Bonus:

If you have a social media presence, the Social reports in Google Analytics are great for seeing which social media channels are bringing in the most website traffic. You can then focus your energies on the channels that provide the most value. You'll find the Social report as a sub-category under the Acquisition report.

There are other types of traffic sources, but those four are the fundamentals you need to begin with.

And if we click that referral button...

We see which backlinks are bringing in the most visitors.

And the fifth and final W:

Why do they leave?

Okay, this last one is a bit more in depth (and existential) than I'm able to cover here, but the answer probably isn't that they don't like your website; more likely they just finished doing whatever they were doing on it.

It's a critical question to chase after if you're looking to improve your user experience, though.

To sum up

So, what's good with Google Analytics?

As purveyors of digital content, GA provides us with a clear idea of who our audience are and what they like, enabling us to publish better content. Essentially, we can put away the scattergun and use the scalpel instead.

If you want to learn the ropes, I recommend trying Google's Merchandise Store demo account. It's available to anyone and lets you poke around without the fear of deleting someone's data forever. And yes, that's something that can really happen, but we'll come back to that another time...

If you're interested in reading more about data-driven marketing, I'll be covering this topic for the rest of February, so keep an eye out!

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