At Silverscape, we keep a close eye on the results of our website (and our client sites) and we love to teach others how to read the Ouija Board of Google Analytics. It’s certainly not breaking news that a website is a key part of any successful business today. What does tend to be overlooked is how much information is available to monitoring the success or weaknesses of your company’s website.

The following are five of my favorite helpful things about Google Analytics and how they could be helpful for you.

5. The GA dashboard packs a strong punch of useful info from a single screen. Knowing how many people are on your site, how they got there and a quick overview of your traffic trends is a fast way to see how your site is running. Think of the GA Dashboard view as the five-minute oil check for your website.

4. Seeing how your website stacks up against your competitors is an important gauge of success. So, unless you’re sneaky enough to know how to look at your competitors Analytics account, the Benchmark tool is the next best thing for showing you how your site compares to the rest.

3. Getting a detailed overview of who is on your site, is one of the areas where you can really start to spot user trends. Some of my favorite things to look at in the visitor sections are average number of pages viewed and the time on the site; you can even see the domains of who visited you for tracking leads. Whether you want people to spend a lot of time and browse, or be able to get directly to what they are looking for, these stats are key.

2. Ever wonder which site pages are most popular and if there are some that don’t get the attention they deserve? This content area of GA is for you. This area not only tells you which pages are most popular but you can view and overlay of your website to see where people click. This can really give you an idea how people are using the site. Seeing if users are selecting areas you want them to and finding the information you think is most important can be seen through this view.

1. Have an ecommerce site? GA helps you can track everything from conversion rates to average dollar amounts per sale. This is a quick, easy way to track how online sales are going and it only takes a few clicks of the mouse!

These are just a few of the reasons why tracking your website analytics are key. If you feel lost and alone in the world of analytics, Contact Us and we will help you!

Read more about using analytics in our blog "Creating a Marketing Strategy for YOUR audience"