7 Key Questions Google Analytics Can Answer

7 Key Questions Google Analytics Can Answer

Ask anyone with a website if Google Analytics is a valuable tool, and chances are they’ll answer with an emphatic “Yes!” Ask them specifically why and you may face some confusion.

Google Analytics sounds confusing, looks confusing, and quite frankly – it is confusing. Luckily, you don’t need to understand every nook and cranny to derive benefit from this free tool. Here we’ve outlined 7 practical, key questions that Google Analytics can answer.

Question 1: Where are my users coming from?

Audience ↠ Geo ↠ Location

Google Analytics Location

Here you can determine which sub continent, continent, country, and city your website visitors are viewing from.

Suppose you own an eCommerce business in the U.S. and have noticed a large portion of your users are based in Australia. Adding a ‘$4.99 shipping to Australia!’ badge to your website could really up those users’ conversions.

Question 2: What exactly are users doing on my website?

Behavior ↠ Behavior Flow

Questions Google Analytics Behavior Flow

At first glance this page looks a bit confusing (especially since it’s in a much different format than Google Analytics’ typical pie charts and lists) but it’s worth taking a moment to learn.

The Behavior Flow report gives you a visual on which pages users enter your website on and where they navigate to next. If you see certain pages with a high drop-off rate (red), it’s a tell tale sign that something needs to be reevaluated on that page.

It could be that the previous page presented it as something different than it actually is, perhaps it has an error or slow load time, or maybe they found what they were looking for and continued on their way.

Question 3: Which devices are users accessing my site with?

Audience ↠ Mobile ↠ Overview

Devices Google Analytics

Is your website mobile-friendly? If your website users are anything like the ones shown above, you could be losing more than 30% of potential customers with an unoptimized web design! See how you fare in Google’s mobile-friendly test.

Question 4: How many users are on my website right now?

Real Time ↠ Overview

Users Now Google Analytics

If you’re curious if anyone’s viewing your website at this very moment, this is the place to look. You can also find details on which pages they’re viewing, where the users are located, and which website source referred them over.

Question 5: Which kind of traffic has the highest conversion rate?

Conversions ↠ Model Comparison Tool

Traffic with Conversion Google Analytics

The Model Comparison Tool is a great way to determine where to allocate your marketing budget. It shows which channels your target audience comes from and you can even drill down further into each channel for specific sources (Facebook, Google, etc.). Without this kind of data, you could be funneling your money into a black hole.

Question 6: Which of my web pages are people landing on first?

Behavior ↠ Landing Page

Google Analytics Landing Pages

Which pages are users finding your website from? If you’ve never checked out your landing pages, it’s possible one of your pages is ranking high for a particular keyword and bringing in the majority of your traffic.

Question 7: Which of my web pages are turning away users?

Behavior ↠ Site Content ↠ Content Drilldown

If certain pages are attracting the wrong users or delivering a negative first impression, you can identify them by their high bounce rate. A bounce rate is marked by the percentage of users who leave your website after viewing only one page.

A high bounce rate can mean:

  • Your preview in search engine results (title and meta tag) for that page is an inaccurate description of the actual content.
  • The page has an error or an extended load time.
  • You’re attracting the wrong audience to this page.
  • The page is designed poorly and is difficult to navigate.
  • Best case scenario: the user finds exactly what they were looking for and leaves. For example, a user searches ‘contact OSC Web Design’, lands on our contact page, finds our phone number and calls us. In this case they’re still converting.

With the practical questions listed above, you can begin utilizing Google Analytics for your business right now. So what are you waiting for? No additional training required!

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