Google Analytics. Site and Ads analytics

When promoting a site on the Internet, a webmaster, SEO specialist, or advertising specialist must have reliable information about the use of the site. Trackers, sometimes incorrectly called counters, are often used for these purposes. Today there are quite a few “counters”, both paid and free, however, they are far from equal in their capabilities and effectiveness of use.

This course covers a wide range of issues related to setting up and using the most popular analytical system on the Internet. The course explains in detail the tracking of sites with using Google Analytics, which are one of the most powerful and incredibly flexible systems for analyzing the performance of a website, and that is why most large and well-known web resources use it Google Analytics.

This course doesn't just teach you about Google capabilities Analytics, but most of all, equips students with the skills to use these tools and correctly interpret Google Analytics' extensive reports.

Today it is not enough to have a beautiful website on the Internet. A website, no matter how good and expensive it may be, is completely useless to anyone if no visitors come to it. Promotion activities can only be structured correctly with the help of analytics systems.

The course covers, among other things, the most complex tools and functionality of Google Analytics:

• Segmentation using view filters and advanced segments
• Analyst work cases
• Google Tag manager
• Setting up event tracking using GTM
• Benchmarking reports
• Some questions from the Google Analytics Certification exam

The course is designed for students who are starting to use Google Analytics to analyze your site.

The course is intended for company employees responsible for the effectiveness of traffic from marketing channels, agency employees running client websites, owners of their own online businesses, freelancers, and startup initiators.

The course program complies with the professional standard "Internet Marketing Specialist".

Google Analytics. Site and Ads analytics

When promoting a site on the Internet, a webmaster, SEO specialist, or advertising specialist must have reliable information about the use of the site. Trackers, sometimes incorrectly called counters, are often used for these purposes. Today there are quite a few “counters”, both paid and free, however, they are far from equal in their capabilities and effectiveness of use.

This course covers a wide range of issues related to setting up and using the most popular analytical system on the Internet. The course examines in detail the tracking of sites using Google Analytics, which is one of the most powerful and incredibly flexible systems for analyzing the performance of a website, and that is why most large and well-known web resources use Google Analytics.

This course not only talks about the capabilities of Google Analytics, but above all, it gives students the skills to use these tools and correctly interpret extensive Google Analytics reports.

Today it is not enough to have a beautiful website on the Internet. A website, no matter how good and expensive it may be, is completely useless to anyone if no visitors come to it. Promotion activities can only be structured correctly with the help of analytics systems.

The course covers, among other things, the most complex tools and functionality of Google Analytics:

• Segmentation using view filters and advanced segments
• Analyst work cases
• Google Tag manager
• Setting up event tracking using GTM
• Benchmarking reports
• Some questions from the Google Analytics Certification exam

The course is designed for students who are starting to use Google Analytics to analyze your site.

The course is intended for company employees responsible for the effectiveness of traffic from marketing channels, agency employees running client websites, owners of their own online businesses, freelancers, and startup initiators.

The course program complies with the professional standard "Internet Marketing Specialist".

Web analytics allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of a website and collect information about visits to Internet resources. Based on the information collected, decisions are made on the development and promotion of the site. Our Google Analytics training course barks detailed information about the Internet statistics system, which is recognized as one of the best in the world.

What is Google Analytics?

The project began its work in 2005, becoming a continuation of the Urchin Software Corpopration system. This service allows you to track the flow of visitors. Information is collected on the server using a counter.

This system has a number of capabilities and many tools that will help you collect information about the site. Training Google Analytics using video lessons will allow you to work with the best tool to analyze traffic to an Internet resource.

Benefits of the service

• Popularity. It is used by experienced webmasters to determine the flow of visitors to a resource. It is popular among both small businesses and large corporations.
• Convenient and multilingual interface. GA supports many languages, and all documentation can be translated into the language you need.
• Change toolbar settings. You can adjust settings in the system by setting the priority of importance in reports. This makes working in the system much easier.

Advantages of video courses on Google Analytics on our website

To get acquainted, we suggest watching video tutorials on Google system Analytics. They explain in detail every step of working with the service. After watching, you will have no questions left.

Video tutorials are the easiest and most quick way master this useful program. On the website you can not only find lessons for working in the system and quickly master it, but also complete a full Google Analytics training course.

Google Analytics is one of the most effective online tools that can help you understand the behavior of your customers and, as a result, make decisions in your business. We offer you a list of free materials on Google Analytics. Here you will find lessons from Analytics Academy, YouTube videos, specialized blog articles, and much more. To regularly receive fresh content from Google Analytics, we recommend subscribing to their Twitter account @GoogleAnalytics.

Instructions for Beginners

Google Analytics Help Center. If you are just about to start working with this service, you should visit the Google Analytics Help Center. Here you will find many short instructions about getting started with the tool, account management and other introductory topics.

A Guide to Google Analytics for Absolute Beginners. Moz's blog offers an extensive guide to using Google Analytics for absolute beginners. Here you will read about why you actually need this tool, how to use it and solve common problems.

Google Analytics for e-commerce: a guide for beginners. The Shopify blog has another good guide to Google Analytics for beginners. Here you will learn how to set up Google Analytics for your online store, understand the reports and find a few more useful things about working with this tool to attract sales.

Google Analytics Academy

Google Analytics Academy

Google's Analytics Academy offers free online courses on Google Analytics and other data analytics tools. Here you can also prepare for the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) exam and gain an industry-recognized qualification. Here are some current courses:

• Fundamentals of digital analytics. This course, which, by the way, is available in Russian, gives a general understanding of how digital analytics can improve business performance.
• E-commerce analytics: from data to solutions. This course will teach you how to plan various online calculations and how to practically navigate Google Analytics to improve your e-commerce business performance.
• Google Analytics Principles. In this course, you will understand how data is collected, transformed, and organized in Google Analytics. This will help you hone your campaign execution process and discover valuable new ideas for your business.
• Google Tag Manager Basics. In this course, you'll learn how Google Tag Manager can make working with tags easier for marketers, analysts, and developers.
• Fundamentals of Mobile Device Analytics. This course will give you an understanding of how Google data Analytics can help make your mobile offering more effective.

Google Analytics on YouTube

Google Analytics YouTube channel offers a variety of videos on various data analytics topics. Here are some useful playlists:

• Analytics and E-commerce. Here are four short videos on Google Analytics on how to track transactions, identify top spenders, create conversion funnels, and create a site search option.
• Analytics and AdWords. These eight videos will teach you how to harness the power of keyword optimization, improve location and targeting features, increase your return on investment, and more.
• Attracting conversions with Google Analytics. These fifteen short videos will show you how to work with data in a way that drives conversions.

Google Analytics Blog

Materials on the Google Analytics blog cover a wide range of topics - from new features of the tool and analytics tips to current events in the industry. Articles use topic tags to make it easy to find the information you need. Here are some recent useful posts:

• Happy 10th Birthday, Google Analytics! Google Analytics recently celebrated 10 years since its launch. This post is about the main stages of tool development.
• Update “The Customer Journey to Online Purchase”- new ideas for marketing channels. Here you will find the highlights of the functionality of the updated Customer Journey to Online Purchase - Google tool Analytics, which allows you to track the online behavior of customers using infographics.
• Check data in real time with Google Tag Assistant Recordings. This material will help you effectively use Google Tag Assistant Recordings - a tool that allows you to quickly check or diagnose a site, analyze implementation Google code Analytics and troubleshoot quickly.

Do you also quietly hate Google Analytics?

So you are not alone! For most entrepreneurs 95% Google Analytics panels- it's a mystery. No, even a monster that only specially trained people can cope with!

Do you have a similar relationship?

If you didn't have the time, energy or patience to deal with this before powerful tool, read this post now! And you will understand that everything is much easier than it seems :)

10 minutes - and you're in the know!

Why Google Analytics is the best gift for your online business?

Imagine the situation: you are planning your budget. Write down everything you will spend money on in the next few months. But at the same time, you don’t even know approximately how much what you want to buy costs... Absurd? Still would. Of course you don't do that.

Without Google Analytics, working with a website is very similar to the situation described above. Now you will understand everything yourself.

So. Go to the Google Analytics panel.

You will see the main navigation on the left side of the screen.

There are 8 sections here. But first of all pay attention to these 3:

• Audience;
• Traffic sources;
• Behavior.

Today we will talk only about them. I hope it's a little easier now :)

These 3 categories are the most important for the promotion and success of your website. Why? They will help you understand Who reads your content How visitors find your site and which pages they visit more often.

Begin!

1. Section "Audience"

This contains information about who is already reading your site: geography, demographics, interests, behavior and much more.

What useful information will you get from this section?

a) Where does your audience live?

Very often this indicator is ignored. But I advise you to use any information about your audience. How?

Imagine:

• Foreigners can also become your clients. Add examples regarding these countries to your articles, or dedicate a separate post to them. People are attracted to “close” information. And it will bring you new subscribers, clients and, possibly, an international business (after a while, but still).
• By finding out which countries are particularly interested in your products, you can prepare in advance for payment issues (in the case of foreign currency).
• If you are hosting outdoor events, this information will help you choose a city or country for your next one. Or he’ll come up with an idea for a new international project.

To find out geography of your readers, go to the panels sequentially:

Audience – Geography – Location

Pay attention to those countries where the bulk of your audience gathers. Adjust content or add new products specifically for them.

b) What does your website look like on mobile devices?

Google recently announced that mobile search has officially surpassed desktop and laptop searches.

Therefore, it’s time to think: what does your website look like on tablets and smartphones?

If you use a template for your site, be sure to test it! Log in from your phone and look carefully at each section. Saving time at this stage can become a costly mistake in the future.

To find How is traffic distributed on your site? between mobiles, tablets and computers, go to the "Browse" category:

Audience - Mobile devices- Review

If many people use a phone to access your site, make sure it is ready for these readers. There is a convenient one for this Test Google. It will help you check how optimized your site is for mobile phones.

Just enter your website address in this field :

If somewhere your site is not displaying correctly, you can easily determine this. Pay attention to these data:

• Bounce Rate– this is the percentage of visits to one page (i.e. the visitor entered the page and immediately left, without going to other sections);
• Pages/session— average number of pages viewed during one visit;
• Average session duration— how long the reader was on your site before leaving.

These indicators should be approximately the same for different devices.

If bounce rate for one of them it is off the charts - urgently look for the reason! Perhaps one of the pages is currently working against you...

c) How many readers regularly visit your site?

When talking about subscribers, entrepreneurs often use the word “loyalty.” Because in this main secret turning new visitors into regular readers and customers. And there are plenty of ways to influence loyalty. you will find several simple and effective techniques.

But how do you know how many readers are already regularly visiting your site (i.e., loyal)? The answer is again hidden in Google Analytics.

To do this, you just need to go to the “Audience” section. On the Audience Overview page, you'll see a pie chart:

In percentage terms, new (green) and regular (blue) visitors to your site are indicated here.

To find out how deeply readers are surfing your site, check out the New and Returning section:

Audience - Behavior - New and Returning

Here you will find information about the number of sessions, the number of new and returning users, as well as bounce rates, browsing depth (pages/session), average session duration, etc.

If your site is still young, the percentage of new visitors to the table will be significantly higher. This is fine. But over time, by attracting people to the site through email or social networks, you will be able to equalize these indicators.

How is session duration information useful?

The main thing you need to remember is that average session length tells you the amount of time a visitor is willing to spend on your site in the future!

How will this affect your experience on the site?

If people often visit you for a couple of minutes, do not publish very long posts/articles/videos. Most likely, the person will stop in the middle, close the page and return to his business. Therefore all important information (about the product, about promotions) place at the beginning of the page or in short videos. Just imagine how this will affect conversions! Where else would you get such valuable advice?

Quickly find out the average session duration can be found in the “Engagement” subsection:

Audience – Behavior – Engagement

Most new visitors will spend little time on the site. This is normal and typical behavior on the Internet. Remember when you yourself spent more than 2 minutes on an unfamiliar resource?

A little advice: If the other day you came across a site that hooked you for 10 minutes or longer, be sure to note (or better yet, write down): what could influence you so much? And implement it on your website immediately, since it works so cool!

But there is one important indicator that you definitely need to keep an eye on: viewing time. over 60 seconds must exceed 10%. If this percentage is lower, then you should think about a new strategy for attracting visitors to your site.

2. Traffic source

In this section you will learn: How and where do people come to your site?

There are many ways. For example, they may find you through a Google search, click on your post in their social media feed, follow a link from another site, or write the name of the site in address bar browser.

How will this information help your business?

a) KWhich sources bring more visitors?

So that you immediately understand what we mean we'll talk, I'll give you short review main traffic sources:

• Organic search– the visitor saw your site in the results Google search and came to you.
• Paid search– traffic from Google AdWords, from paid ads on your site. This section will not appear if your Analytics data is not synced with AdWords.
• Social media- relatively new feature Google Analytics. Reflects the number of visitors who came from social networks.
• Links on other sites– visitors came to you via a link from another site.
• Direct links– readers enter the site address themselves or go through a bookmark in the browser. As the site grows, this figure should increase.

The most valuable indicators for you will be organic search, transitions from social networks and direct links:

• Organic search will tell you how good your content is. .
• The number of clicks from social networks will reflect how much your material subscribers love it.
• Direct links will show how they evaluate content of your site bloggers, media, other sites and entrepreneurs.

Data on these sources can be found here:

Traffic sources – All traffic – Source/channel

Compare different traffic sources. Determine the best one. And now analyze the data, which I already mentioned above: bounce rate, number of pages per session, average session duration, etc.

This approach will give you a more complete understanding of the situation. But the main thing: don’t forget to adjust your work if you don’t like some indicators.

For example, if high bounce rate by organic traffic, i.e. Google searches show your site to the wrong people. Review your list of keywords and optimize your content.

If low session duration for traffic from social networks - add graphics to the site. These visitors are accustomed to a lot of visual content. Therefore, insert attractive pictures for them, dilute long texts with bright images. And, perhaps, social traffic will soon become your best source.

By the way, if you want to know how to quickly make cool pictures, read.

b) Which posts work better than others?

For an entrepreneur, such information will help improve the overall strategy, content and get more traffic.

It’s interesting that the same material works differently depending on the source (website, social network).

For example, a post that was well supported by the audience on social networks may be ignored by organic search. But add keywords, index it - and you are already shining in Google results!

How to determine which content performed better(for each traffic source)?

In the Traffic Source section, select any of the sources (for example, organic search) and the main parameter (for example, Login Page).

Here you will see all the same metrics as on the overview page. Only they are broken down not only into traffic sources, but also into separate pages (links). Now you can determine how many visitors each post or page gave you.

3. Behavior

The previous two sections told you who is visiting your site and where people are coming from. The Behavior category will indicate how much your visitors like your content.

Agree, this is interesting, even if your business does not yet generate much income.

Analyzing the behavior of your readers will help you determine your “golden” content. If you see bad indicators, rewrite the material. It doesn’t matter that you’ve already published it, because your future subscribers haven’t seen it yet!

How will you benefit from this section?

A) What content do your readers particularly enjoy?

Behavior – Site Content – ​​All Pages

Here you can sort the data by the Average View Duration column. To do this, click on the column heading and then on the down arrow that appears. And you will see a list of links to your articles.

Take those that appear first on the list as sample. Re-study them. What was special about them? Maybe you added a vivid visualization or gave a personal example? Use these appointments again. After all, they are the ones that your readers liked the most.

Similarly, study the articles that are at the end of the list. What's wrong with them? Take some time to write them down. It's faster than creating new post from scratch. Plus, you already know what your audience likes. Learn from your own examples. It's very useful and free! :)

Pleasant moment: all data you can save in a convenient format (for example, in an Excel spreadsheet), as in the figure above. You you can edit the saved document: Delete unnecessary columns or rows, comment, create notes and use them in the future.

By the way, you can add a column to your table "Subject". For each article, indicate a different topic (these can correspond to tags or categories on your site). And then sort by this column. And now you can easily determine: What topics appeal to your audience the most?

Look at this table when you don’t know what to devote to the next article. And here you will get the most useful advice!

b) What content should you avoid?

Unfortunately, sooner or later people leave the site. And the most important thing here is to determine the reason!

Did the reader leave because he was in a hurry to get to a meeting? Or did he not like the material? Or maybe an inconvenient design?

To find out, let's create another report:

Behavior – Site Content – ​​Exit Pages

There is a table in front of you again. Sort the data by the Exit Percentage column (click on the column header).

It's a mess... You work so that people stay on the site as long as possible, get used to you (i.e. that same loyalty increases) and buy your product. Means, task No. 1– rewrite the pages that appeared in the top lines!

But I’ll reassure you right away: the site cannot exist without such pages!

People are leaving. It's unavoidable. Visitors often leave registration pages. Then hook them with the main content. Create articles on topics they love. Turn them into regular readers. And sooner or later, the level of loyalty will go off scale so much that they will leave their email, buy your product and even recommend you to their friends.

What should a “normal” yield percentage be?

In our experience, 45-50% yield is normal. The smaller it is, the better.

But if they leave one page more than 50% readers - go to it urgently! Perhaps the menu has moved or the display has become distorted. If visually everything is in order on the page, re-read the text, change the location of the buttons, calls, upload a new video. you will find some more ideas and psychological tricks that will turn your visitors into your fans.

How to reduce the yield percentage?

• Be sure to insert internal links. Indicate links to other useful articles in some posts.

You noticed? I do this regularly in my articles :)

• Add widget with similar articles next to your post.

• Recommend reading new material.

This will help the reader get to know your site better. Show that he will find answers to various questions from you. And subconsciously your site will become a source for him useful information, for which he will come again and again.

Conclusion

Like the engine in a car, your website simply needs the attention and care of its owner. If you take into account all the indicators and respond to failures in a timely manner, both the site and the machine will remain your faithful assistants for a long time.

Don't ignore analytics. She is more of a gift than an extra burden. And it’s not that difficult to figure it out.

Just get started! It's the fastest way to master the tool that cares so much about your business.

Now... Take a deep breath, dive into your Google Analytics dashboard and find out: What's really going on with your site?

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