Google Analytics Metrics You Should Know

For anyone with a website, Google Analytics is a MUST have tool. It delivers valuable user information that will help you to make informed decisions so that your website can perform significantly better.

Google Analytics may seem a bit overwhelming to start with but if you know where to focus your attention, it will make your life a lot easier.

Once you understand all these terms and what they represent, you will be able to use the data to improve aspects of your website leading to an increase in visitors, leads, and sales.

You will also be able to identify the pages that need improvements in order to rank higher within Google’s search results.

Here is a list of the most important Google Analytics metrics you should know:

1) Bounce Rate

A bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave without visiting another page within the same site.

There are many reasons why a user may leave a site. Here is a list of the most common reasons:

• The user lost interest.
• The web page is too confusing.
• They didn’t find the answer that they were looking for.
• They found the information they were looking for immediately.

The average bounce rate varies considerably depending on your site and industry but if it appears to be elevated, it’s an indication that one or more of your pages have a problem that needs fixing fast.

To find out which pages have a high bounce rate go to Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages and you will be able to see the individual bounce rates for each page.

2) Avg. Session Duration

This is the average amount of time a visitor spends on your website. You will want this number to be at least a couple of minutes.

Pages that have a lot of text or videos will often increase the amount of time people spend on your site.

By going to Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages you can see the average time on each individual page. This will help you identify which pages need to be worked on to ensure your visitors spend longer on your website overall.

3) Acquisition Overview

This section enables you to keep an eye on where your traffic is coming from. Here you will find details about the number of users, new users, sessions, bounce rates, avg. session duration, etc. It will give you an insight into which traffic sources are providing the most valuable users and how those users are engaging with the site.

Keeping track of where your traffic is coming from, will help you understand where you need to spend your marketing efforts to help you draw more people to your site.

4) Social Overview

Here you can see if your social efforts are paying off. The social tab enables you to see the impact that social media has on your website. Google Analytics does this by providing you with information about social shares, on-site user engagement and the users journey through your website.

5) Behaviour Flow

Behaviour Flow gives you an insight into the journey that your visitors go through when they land on your website.

It will help you visually identify which pages attract the most hits, the steps most users take on the site and the pages your users commonly exit from. With this knowledge, you can turn your website around, focusing on making changes to the weaker points and work to build bridges for the user to move from one page to the next.

6) Exit Pages

Here you can see which pages your users leave the site. Pages with high exit rates are pages of interest as this is where you are losing your potential customers. It’s important to keep your users on the site for longer, so for the pages with high exit rates you will have to identify their weaknesses and find ways in which you can keep users on the site for longer.

Analysing the data from Google Analytics isn’t easy to wrap your head around but if you focus your efforts on the main metrics you will find it easier to define where your website is a success as well as identify issues that could be costing you greatly!