by Julia Bourbois
What is Google Analytics?
Essentially, Google Analytics is the go-to solution for monitoring website usage. Though it is frequently used in conjunction with Google Adwords, for e-commerce, and in improving website user experience, it is flexible and powerful enough to be used by any organization that has a website. Indeed, you do not need coding prowess to utilize Google Analytics.
So, this guide is directed principally to individuals who do not consider themselves or their principal professional responsibilities to be tech. It will touch only on the essential elements to get started with Google Analytics.
Getting started with Google Analytics. AngularFireAnalytics dynamically imports the firebase/analytics library and provides a promisified version of the Firebase Analytics SDK (firebase.analytics.Analytics). Getting Started with Google Analytics 4. Lindsay Halsey / January 1, 2021 / Quick Start Guides. Lindsay Halsey is a co-founder of Pathfinder SEO. Want to get started using your Google Analytics data today? Join my 5-day e-mail course Site Traffic Secrets. I will help you get started with accessing and understanding your reporting from the beginning and get you inspired to continue using your reporting in the future. Google Analytics is a free, web-based tool developed by Google. So, naturally, the first thing to do is to go to Google Analytics and set up an account. For this, you will need an active Google account. You don't have to create a separate account for this purpose – you can use your personal one and then give other users permissions to.
What can Google Analytics do for me?
Odds are your organization has a presence on the web. Google Analytics collects and renders a tremendous amount of data. Raw data is curated into a variety of reports depending on your needs. The data-driven insights that are applicable to your organization will depend on your goals for your site and your organization. Even if your goals are not yet defined there are areas of Google Analytics that are useful for most organizations.
Google Analytics can also help you identify underlying issues with the site. For instance, if there are performance or usability issues for mobile users of your site.
Acquisition Overview
Acquisition Overview answers questions like: How much traffic does the site receive? What is the origin or top traffic for your site? What is your goal conversation rate? What is the break down of new versus returning users?
This is particularly useful when examining change over time. Comparing weeks or months will give you a better idea of site performance over time.
Behavior Overview
Some pages will be more important to your organization than others. On the Behavior Overview page, individual page performance will help you identify which pages are bringing in the most traffic. It will also provide you with an overview of your site's technical performance, such as the bounce rate.
If you are working in e-commerce, pages such as the home page, product pages, search results, the shopping cart, check out, and the thank you page, will be critical pages on your site to track.
However, if you're a museum you may want to track pages for education, exhibition, and programming. You may also be interested in targeting geography to get a better idea of your target audience. Museums, as well as restaurants, diners, and cafes, will want to prioritize the local search optimization.
Conversion Overview
For Business impact reports, it is necessary to configure goals or e-commerce transactions. Google Analytics will not automatically establish your goals for you. Goals can be established for your site in the Administration Panel under 'View.' Goals are very broadly defined and can be e-commerce transactions, or lead captures from submissions or reservations.
Goals with a dollar value illustrate the strengths and weakness in the pages of the sites. The Conversion Overview will enable you to drill down in your goal conversions and well as learn more about your customer's path.
How — The Basics
So how do you get started?
Create your account by logging on to Google Analytics. In the upper right corner, login or create an account if you don't have one.
Then select either website or mobile app. You will provide account name — typically the name of your business. Then set up the URL. Select either HTTP or HTTPS — start with HTTP if your site switches between HTTP and HTTPS.
Then select an industry category. This is an important step as it enables Google to set benchmarks for your site and compare your site's performance with others in the same industry.
Then select the reporting country and time zone. While not a critical issue, consider the time zone you select to be permanent. Though it can be changed, it will not retroactively change the data. Leave everything checked as these resources can become invaluable. You can read the 'ReadMore' to learn how Google uses your data.
Next, select 'Get Tracking ID'. Review terms and services, and select 'I accept'.
Now you will install your tracking tag. Select 'Tracking Info' and then 'Tracking Code'. The tracking code is a snippet of unique code that you will need to copy and paste to every page of your site that you want to be tracked by Google Analytics.
Copy your tracking code just below the ad> on your HTML page. Then go to 'Google Tag Manager.' You can select the link to learn more about this. Click on 'Status'. Here Google will let you know whether you are receiving data.
Note:
Here's how to install the Google Analytics tracking tag on your Wordpress pages.
Here's how to install the Google Analytics tracking code onto your HubSpot pages.
Creating a View
It is considered a best practice that the first 'View' you create is a Master View. A Master View contains an unfiltered history of the analytics, sort of like a backup.
Creating a Filter
Google applies filters to your data before it presents it to you in your reports.
The most important filter to start with is excluding yourself and your employees from appearing in your data. You do not want your data appearing along with that of your users.
Create a filter that excludes the IP addresses for yourself. If you do not know you IP address, simply do a Google search for 'what is my IP address?'. You will need to exclude the IP address for each computer used by yourself and your employees for work. These will need to be added individually.
From the Admin Panel, select the 'Default View'. From the drop-down menu, select 'Add Filter' and give it a name (such as Exclude Employees). Next, you have the option to select from a predefined filter or a custom filter.
A predefined filter acts as a template for what you'd like to do. Select 'predefined' and choose from the drop-down menu. Select 'Exclude or Include only'. In this case, you will select traffic from the IP addresses and then select the appropriate expression. Enter the data to exclude, such as an IP address. Then 'Save.'
From this point moving forward, all of the data in the default view is going to exclude any data that is excluded by this filter, but it is not going to historically exclude data.
It is very common to add multiple filters. However, filter order matters. Filter order affects the subsequent results. Filter order matters because the output of one becomes the input of the next. Explore the filters to see what is most relevant to your organization's goals.
Note: If you want to include/exclude two things, you are essentially creating an 'or' Filter. Go to Filter Field, then filter pattern. Type the first term to exclude then the pipe symbol (|) and the second term.
Output
Google Analytics makes printing or sharing your analytics reports very easy. In the top right corner, you have the option of printing or sharing your report. It can also be saved and edited.
Moving Forward
Google Analytics offers numerous reports, as well as data segmentation options, which are beyond the scope of this article. Find the reports that most closely align with your needs.
With the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, formerly Google Analytics for premium users, Google's analytics is only getting more advanced. Google Analytics 360 provides analytical data that companies can be used to track return on investment (ROI) and marketing indicators.
Further Reading
Getting Started With Google Analytics For Beginners
For a deep dive into Google Analytics, read Google Analytics for Web Designers and Developers.
For tutorials for beginners can be found on Google Analytics for Beginners.
If you are a novice to coding, I recommend Moms can: Code and CodeNewbie.
Follow me on Twitter.
Posted 22nd May, 2014 by Aliysa
Do you know how many people are visiting your site? Where they are arriving from, where they are leaving? There's a free tool that can provide you with this info, and so much more. Google Analytics. It's the most widely used analytics application, and for good reason. Whether you're new to it, or you need to brush up on your analytical skills, here's an overview and how-to guide.
Behavior Overview
Some pages will be more important to your organization than others. On the Behavior Overview page, individual page performance will help you identify which pages are bringing in the most traffic. It will also provide you with an overview of your site's technical performance, such as the bounce rate.
If you are working in e-commerce, pages such as the home page, product pages, search results, the shopping cart, check out, and the thank you page, will be critical pages on your site to track.
However, if you're a museum you may want to track pages for education, exhibition, and programming. You may also be interested in targeting geography to get a better idea of your target audience. Museums, as well as restaurants, diners, and cafes, will want to prioritize the local search optimization.
Conversion Overview
For Business impact reports, it is necessary to configure goals or e-commerce transactions. Google Analytics will not automatically establish your goals for you. Goals can be established for your site in the Administration Panel under 'View.' Goals are very broadly defined and can be e-commerce transactions, or lead captures from submissions or reservations.
Goals with a dollar value illustrate the strengths and weakness in the pages of the sites. The Conversion Overview will enable you to drill down in your goal conversions and well as learn more about your customer's path.
How — The Basics
So how do you get started?
Create your account by logging on to Google Analytics. In the upper right corner, login or create an account if you don't have one.
Then select either website or mobile app. You will provide account name — typically the name of your business. Then set up the URL. Select either HTTP or HTTPS — start with HTTP if your site switches between HTTP and HTTPS.
Then select an industry category. This is an important step as it enables Google to set benchmarks for your site and compare your site's performance with others in the same industry.
Then select the reporting country and time zone. While not a critical issue, consider the time zone you select to be permanent. Though it can be changed, it will not retroactively change the data. Leave everything checked as these resources can become invaluable. You can read the 'ReadMore' to learn how Google uses your data.
Next, select 'Get Tracking ID'. Review terms and services, and select 'I accept'.
Now you will install your tracking tag. Select 'Tracking Info' and then 'Tracking Code'. The tracking code is a snippet of unique code that you will need to copy and paste to every page of your site that you want to be tracked by Google Analytics.
Copy your tracking code just below the ad> on your HTML page. Then go to 'Google Tag Manager.' You can select the link to learn more about this. Click on 'Status'. Here Google will let you know whether you are receiving data.
Note:
Here's how to install the Google Analytics tracking tag on your Wordpress pages.
Here's how to install the Google Analytics tracking code onto your HubSpot pages.
Creating a View
It is considered a best practice that the first 'View' you create is a Master View. A Master View contains an unfiltered history of the analytics, sort of like a backup.
Creating a Filter
Google applies filters to your data before it presents it to you in your reports.
The most important filter to start with is excluding yourself and your employees from appearing in your data. You do not want your data appearing along with that of your users.
Create a filter that excludes the IP addresses for yourself. If you do not know you IP address, simply do a Google search for 'what is my IP address?'. You will need to exclude the IP address for each computer used by yourself and your employees for work. These will need to be added individually.
From the Admin Panel, select the 'Default View'. From the drop-down menu, select 'Add Filter' and give it a name (such as Exclude Employees). Next, you have the option to select from a predefined filter or a custom filter.
A predefined filter acts as a template for what you'd like to do. Select 'predefined' and choose from the drop-down menu. Select 'Exclude or Include only'. In this case, you will select traffic from the IP addresses and then select the appropriate expression. Enter the data to exclude, such as an IP address. Then 'Save.'
From this point moving forward, all of the data in the default view is going to exclude any data that is excluded by this filter, but it is not going to historically exclude data.
It is very common to add multiple filters. However, filter order matters. Filter order affects the subsequent results. Filter order matters because the output of one becomes the input of the next. Explore the filters to see what is most relevant to your organization's goals.
Note: If you want to include/exclude two things, you are essentially creating an 'or' Filter. Go to Filter Field, then filter pattern. Type the first term to exclude then the pipe symbol (|) and the second term.
Output
Google Analytics makes printing or sharing your analytics reports very easy. In the top right corner, you have the option of printing or sharing your report. It can also be saved and edited.
Moving Forward
Google Analytics offers numerous reports, as well as data segmentation options, which are beyond the scope of this article. Find the reports that most closely align with your needs.
With the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, formerly Google Analytics for premium users, Google's analytics is only getting more advanced. Google Analytics 360 provides analytical data that companies can be used to track return on investment (ROI) and marketing indicators.
Further Reading
Getting Started With Google Analytics For Beginners
For a deep dive into Google Analytics, read Google Analytics for Web Designers and Developers.
For tutorials for beginners can be found on Google Analytics for Beginners.
If you are a novice to coding, I recommend Moms can: Code and CodeNewbie.
Follow me on Twitter.
Posted 22nd May, 2014 by Aliysa
Do you know how many people are visiting your site? Where they are arriving from, where they are leaving? There's a free tool that can provide you with this info, and so much more. Google Analytics. It's the most widely used analytics application, and for good reason. Whether you're new to it, or you need to brush up on your analytical skills, here's an overview and how-to guide.
Google Analytics provides you with the answers to how your site is performing, by tracking the behaviour of your visitors. By interpreting this data you can better understand where you're going right, and where you're going wrong, and adapt accordingly. For instance, your sites bounce rate - the proportion of visitors who visit just a single page and then leave - may be high. This data could mean users aren't finding your content interesting, or you're not internally linking to other pages on your site successfully. To counteract, you may redefine your content strategy, or improve your sites navigation and internal linking. There are many, many other statistics that can be used to indicate your performance.
Getting Started With Google Analytics App
How to setup
_Note: this setup guide is for classic Google Analytics, not universal analytics. For info on setting up universal analytics see Google's documentation, or install this WordPress plugin._
First of all, you need to add your unique Analytics tracking to your site. After creating a Google Analytics account (it's pretty straight-forward), grab your tracking code - about 8 lines of code - from Admin > Tracking info > Tracking code. You'll need to add this snippet into each page (right before the closing tag) or into your page header. If this goes way over your head, get a webmaster or developer to add it for you.
Ragdoll Avalanche 2. Comment Box is loading comments. The content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Ragdoll Avalanche II is a simple flash game in which you control a ragdoll dodging falling spikes. It#39s the sequel to Ragdoll Avalanche I (duh!), which isn#39t w. Rag doll avalanche 2watermelon gaming.
If you're a WordPress-er, you can do this by adding the snippet to your theme's header.php file (In the admin go to Appearance > Editor > Header) directly after the < body > tag. Alternatively there are a number of plugins to easily do this, so you don't have to get into the code. You can also add your tracking code through functions.php, but this is slightly more advanced and only recommended if you have a degree of coding know-how.
Once you've added the tracking code it can take up to a day or two for Google to recognise it. You can check if Google is receiving data from the page where you grabbed the code snippet.
Google Analytics is packed full of features and functions, check out Google's feature list and interface map to familiarise yourself with the application.
What Next?
Getting Started With Google Analytics Tutorial
Customise the Dashboard
For a quick overview of your sites data, use the dashboard. The dashboard is the start point you're directed to upon signing in, and can be fully customised in terms of metrics shown, how the data is displayed, page layout and timescale. By default Google includes the most popular reports here e.g. Unique visitors, bounce rate and the worldwide visitor map. If there's any metrics you deem to be of real importance or significance to your site, it's a good idea to add them to your dashboard.
Add Custom Reports
Through the Customisation tab you can create and monitor custom reports. This is a brilliant feature for grouping together specific dimensions and metrics that are relevant to your site, which can be easily viewed from one place. You can customise how the data is displayed and easily share reports with others.
Setup Goals
To get the most out of Google Analytics you need to track what really matters - your goals. These might be metrics like downloads, newsletter signups, leads or even the duration that a user is on your site (for instance, if you're a blogger, high durations may signify that your content is of real interest).
To setup a goal navigate to the Admin tab, select Goals and then +New Goal. Name your goal something easy to understand and interpret e.g. ‘Newsletter sign ups.' Next you have 4 goal types to choose from:
- Destination: The goal is triggered when a user visits a certain page, e.g. a transaction complete confirmation page.
- Duration: The goal is triggered when a user stays on your site for a certain period of time e.g. more than 2 minutes 30 seconds.
- Pages/Screens per visit: The goal is triggered when a user visits a certain number of pages in one session e.g. more than 5 pages.
- Event: The goal is triggered when a user performs an action or elicits an event e.g. downloads a PDF, uses social media buttons. This is more complicated, as you need to setup the events within Google Analytics too. It involves adding a bit of code to the element you want to track. You can track pretty much anything you want using events.This guide provides a great indepth insight into goals and how to create them.
Configure Custom Alerts
You might not have time to check Analytics in depth all the time, and that's understandable. However, should something drastic happen to your site, for instance, referrals significantly drop, you'll want to know straight away. It could be due to a number of reasons, for instance a change to Google's search algorithm (which has hit many sites hard in the past); it's important that an issue is highlighted and diagnosed as soon as possible. This is where the Intelligence Events tab comes in. Here alerts are generated whenever your sites statistical data strays from the norm - automatic alerts are provided, but you can also set custom alerts for predefined variations.
The great thing about custom alerts is, not only can you set specific variables to monitor, but you can also opt in for email or text message notifications when an alert is triggered. To create a custom alert, go to the Admin tab and select Custom Alerts from View. From here you can specify your alert conditions, so you can easily monitor your most important metrics.
Create Custom Campaigns
Through the Acquisition > Campaigns section of Reporting, it's possible to track the performance of your campaigns (e.g. Adwords) to gauge the value of your efforts and what can be done to enhance them. By creating custom campaigns, you're able to monitor the resulting traffic from specific campaigns and elements.
To create custom campaigns you need to add UTM parameters to your link URLs. URM parameters are a globally recognised format that you've more than likely seen before.
Here's an example of a URL with UTM parameters:
![Alerts](/assets/uploads/blog/legacy/utm-parameters2.jpg)- Source = Newsletter
- Medium = Email
- Campaign = April email
All it involves is adding a tracking code to a URL which will not affect the link destination, it just provides Google Analytics with information about the source, medium and campaign name of the traffic, and optional parameters about the campaign content and term. And to make it even easier, Google provide a URL builder tool for custom campaigns. The information you add will display in Google Analytics and can help you determine the performance of anything such as email newsletters, banners ads offsite and onsite.
- *
There's a lot to Google Analytics - more than just the features mentioned. Another noteworthy feature is e-commerce tracking. Once setup it provides detailed information about your products, transactions and time to purchase, which helps you gain a better understanding of how your online business performs and how customers interact with your site. Setting up e-commerce tracking is a bit trickier and less ‘non-developer' friendly, but you can find step-by-step guides through Google's support pages.
A recurring word throughout this post has been ‘custom,' and this reflects exactly what Google Analytics is all about - customisation. Google Analytics really is a limitless analytical tool - it can be as indepth as you want it to be. It's an asset to your site as it gives comprehensive indicators to how you're performing, which can shape the future direction you take.
Getting Started With Google Analytics For Dummies
Categories: Tips