The Most Important Metrics in Google Analytics

Whether you are a seasoned marketing veteran or are completely new to the world of digital marketing analysis, it can often be difficult to know where to begin with Google Analytics. Although it’s possible for any website owner to hop onto their Google Analytics account and find out important information regarding their website, it can also be a bit of a jumble that is difficult to navigate. For this reason, having a team of experienced marketers answer your questions and send regular reports can help you get your main takeaways so you can move ahead with your work. At FirstPage Marketing, reporting is a regular part of any aspect of our internet marketing work so that our clients can make important decisions about how to spend their marketing budget.

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What are the Most Important Metrics in Google Analytics?

When you first open Google Analytics, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by the numerous metrics that greet you. Knowing which numbers and graphs are the most meaningful to the widest range of users can help you get a better idea of where to look. Some of the most important sections within Google Analytics are:

Website Traffic Sources

Knowing how visitors found your website can help you to determine your ROI for various marketing tactics you might be employing. It can help you to get a good idea of whether your audience is growing or shrinking year over year, and it can show you where you might need to invest more effort.

Keyword Searches by Area

There are a variety of keywords that any website should be prioritizing, and it is important to track how each of these keywords perform in geographic regions of interest. Knowing how easy a company is to find in a particular town or community for relevant services can help that company to plan where and how to expand their brand.

Conversions

The number of conversions a website gets is directly related to how well that website does its job. If then number of conversions a website brings in consistently declines from year to year, it might be time to look at a website redesign.

4 signs that it’s time to redesign your website.

Top Website Pages

Monitoring the top viewed pages on a website can help you to understand where visitors’ interest lies. It can also help to show how easy it is to access certain areas of a website.

What are the 4 most important pages on a website?

Session Times

In most cases, longer website sessions mean a better chance for a website to convert, or for users to return after leaving the website. Better user engagement means that a website is doing its job, so it’s important to monitor how long the average person is spending on your website.

Bounce Rates

Website bounces are bad. If somebody is bouncing away from your website, it means they aren’t finding what they are looking for. It’s important to monitor bounce rates to be sure that numbers are trending in the right direction. If bounce rates are on the rise, it might be worth looking at redesigning some pages to make it easier for visitors to find what they want.

Devices and Demographics

Although most companies know their user base pretty well, it can still be helpful to see who the website appeals to most and how those individuals tend to view the website. Learning about your target demographic can help to create more targeted marketing campaigns and ensure that those campaigns are optimized for the right devices.

If you would like to learn more about which metrics are most important to monitor in Google Analytics, or to take a look at a sample report, call the team at FirstPage Marketing.

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