GROUP REPORT

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

I. BACKGROUND OF GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Google Analytics is one of the most popular Web Analytics platforms to

monitor website and mobile application traffic.

According to BuildWith Trends data as on 2015 September, Google Analytics is

being used in 59% of the total websites across the globe.We can understand its
importance from the fact that the following web analytics platforms; Quantcast
Measurement and Facebook Domain Insights, are only used by 4% of the
users.There’s no doubt that Google Analytics is one of the most preferred web
analytics platform used by businesses and service providers in Dubai, just as in
other cities within UAE. It has become a de facto standard to track the online
performance and gain meaningful insights about a website’s performance.

Google Analytics (GA) dominates the world of website statistics. from its
genesis following the acquisition of Urchin, to the emergence of Universal
Analytics more recently.

In March 2005, Google acquired the web statistics analysis program Urchin
and, in November, it introduced the first version of Google Analytics. Urchin
was initially developed in 1998 and gradually revolutionised the way customers
came to engage with their new online medium. “It made the intangible packets
of traffic flying invisibly all over the world very tangible”, wrote Director of
Engineering, Paul Muret, before the Urchin product was officially discontinued
in March 2012.

Phil Mui, the former Group Project Manager of Google Analytics, explains how
Google’s initial version sought to democratise advanced web analytics to the
masses. “The primary focus was to make sure that not only people who are
willing to pay a million dollars or more on analytics products are able to get
access to a very decent set of tools to understand the behaviours of online
browsers”, he said at a conference in New York 2011.
Google realised the infinite potential of data to create a better experience for
web users. “By liberating this tool we could empower companies of all sizes to
become smarter and more effective online”, remarked Muret. “We assigned
considerable resources to our online solution and released it to the public for
free since grown beyond anything that we could have expected”.

II. GOOGLE ANALYTICS & ITS IMPORTANCE

Website analytics provide users with the actual reports and analytics on
how their site visitors behave once on your website; who they are by their age,
gender, location, etc.; how they landed on your site (traffic source); the most
popular content on your site; your total conversions; and so on. With this
information in hand, you can plan fully informed business strategies and grow
their business faster.
there are the major reasons why website analytics are important for business
growth.

1. Get to Know customer's Visitors Well and Enhance User Experience

When it comes to making big (or small) business decisions, it's
important to ensure your decision doesn't hurt your existing customers,
but rather enhances their user experience. It's more rewarding if it can
attract more new users. So, to make a safe and informed decision, you'll
need to know your visitors first.

MonsterInsights is the best WordPress Analytics plugin. Get it for free!

When you know who your site visitors are by their age, gender,
geographic location, interest topics, etc., you can take proper measures to
enhance their user experience. Similarly, when you learn about the
technology (device, operating system, and browsers) they're using to
browse your site, you can test your site's compatibility with those
technologies and make necessary improvements.

For example, let's consider how the popular website analytics tool
MonsterInsights helps you improve your site's overall user
experience.Device breakdown: If a large section of your visitors are using
mobile device, it's a clear message that you should make your site
 mobile-friendly. Language and location: You can see where most of your
users are located and create translations for your site if it's required. Age
and Interest Categories: When you identify the actual age and interest
group as your larger section of audience, you can customize your site so
as to make it more useful to them. know-your-website-visitors-with-
monsterinsights
With these improvements, you can make your site audience stay longer
and ultimately turn them into customers.

2. Know Your Best Content and Focus on It

Website analytics tools like Google Analytics and MonsterInsights
show you exactly which content gets the most visits, average duration,
and bounce rate for the individual pages, so you can analyze, and
optimize, for better engagement.
view-top-pages-posts-with-monsterinsights
You can add more call to action (CTA) buttons, purchase links, etc. on
the top pages of your site and boost your conversions.
Similarly, you can update the top landing pages with the latest
information or revamp their whole design and structure to make them
look fresh and updated.
In addition, you can learn what type of content works and what doesn't.
That way, you can focus on the type of content getting more visits to
boost your site engagement and gain more customers.

3. It Helps Your Site's SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most crucial
aspects in determining your business growth. The more organic traffic
your business site receives, the more leads and conversions it gains.
Website analytics help your site's SEO in various ways. By knowing your
visitors' demographics and interests, you can create targeted content and
get better visibility on search engines. Furthermore, you can gain some
insights on backlinks by tracking your referrals.
Moreover, using MonsterInsights and Google Analytics, you can connect
your Analytics account with Google Search Console and track what
search queries are sending you the most traffic. It provides you with the
actual data of total clicks, impressions, average click-through rate (CTR),
and average position.
 Search Console Results in GA
You can also set up site search tracking and track what your visitors are
looking for on your site. Using this option in Google Analytics, you can
compare between your existing content and what users are looking for,
and check whether users' expectations are being met or not. Bonus: It also
provides you with new topic ideas for your blog, if you have one.

III. PROS AND CONS OF GOOGLE ANALYTICS

1. PROS
Increased Visibility: Ultimately, Google Analytics works as a one-stop
shop for all of your website data. It not only allows you to see your
website’s performance across a range of different time scales but also
compare the performance of different channels, platforms, technologies,
demographics and campaigns all in one place!

Decision Maker: One of the biggest pros of using Google Analytics is

the insights you can take from the data. Looking at the site performance
means you can make judgements on what aspects of the site are working
well and which need improvement, allowing you to better tailor your
efforts and maximise its return. Plus, all of these decisions and changes
are made based on real customers on your site as opposed to assumptions
and guesses which were used prior.

It’s Completely Free: Google Analytics is free of charge so everyone

can use it. However, sadly this does have a limit. When your site exceeds
5 million impressions per month, you are required to pay for Google
Analytics 360 which is a hefty $150,000 per year. While that seems like a
lot of money, this is targeted at large corporations as opposed to SMEs.
Plus, when your site reaches 5 million impressions per month, there is an
assumption that you should be able to meet this cost demand. If not, then
I think there is a need to revisit your website usability!

Resources At Hand: For new users, Google Analytics has its very owN
Analytics Acamdemy which works as a hub of information on how to
use the tool. It has four, easy-to-use, step-by-step courses ranging from
beginner to advanced so you won’t be left in the dark with this one!
 It’s Universal: With Google Analytics being a universal tool, means
anyone, anywhere, can jump into your Google Analytics account and
understand how your website is performing. This is particularly attractive
for business owners working with third parties overseas such as
international clients or agencies.

Can Be Used Across Multiple Devices: Another great thing about

Google Analytics is that it is not restricted to just desktop devices. You
can open the tools on any device such as a mobile or tablet as long as it
has an internet connection. Perfect for business owners who are often on
the move wanting to browse the account or need to access it in the
instance of an error on the account.

2. CONS
It’s Still Limited: While Google Analytics offers copious amounts of
information on your website performance, it is still somewhat limited. For
example, the Google Analytics 360 account has much higher data
collection limits, more data importing and product integration options as
well as reporting improvements just to name a few.

Not Entirely Independent: Google’s Analytics tool is arguably the most

reliable and accurate, however, it is still technically Google reporting on
Google’s performance, making it not entirely independent. For example,
when looking at organic traffic in Acquisition reports, this is Google
reporting on how well Google search engines drove users to the site.
While this doesn’t display shiny, gold performance each time, its validity
is questionable.

It’s Complex: Google Analytics can be confusing and overwhelming for

new users. In order to understand all of its complexities, you need to
learn. The issue with this it that is can be fairly time-consuming to sit
through the training, practice the tool and become familiar with where the
information is. So if you have a time frame, it may not be feasible.

Reliability Is Questionable: Google Analytics is known to report things

incorrectly. For example, when using the default channel grouping
 settings within acquisition reports, you will often find traffic is reported
under the wrong source such as social traffic appearing as a referral. This
skews figures making the data less accurate and therefore less reliable.
Similarly, spam and bot traffic are often reported in Google Analytics
causing the same issue. The extra annoyance with incorrect reporting is
that it cannot be deleted, so when you come to analyse and review data
across that specific date range in future, figures will be inaccurate.

Finally, Google Analytics is a vast and informative tool. As a completely

free complement to any E-Commerce business, you’d be foolish to ignore
the sheer volume of data specifically tailored to your site, despite its
notable drawbacks.

IV. TIPS OF GOOGLE ANALYTICS

It is very likely that you have Google Analytics installed on your website,
but just as likely that you don't know what to do with all this data. Here are 10
top tips for how you can use Google Analytics to improve your online
marketing and understand what is happening on your website.
1. Set up your goals
Every website should be built with a purpose, an action you want the user
to accomplish on your site. If it's an e-commerce site, this action is
obviously the user purchasing something. But even a brochure site should
try to get people to fill in a lead form, download a factsheet or fill out a
questionnaire. Tracking these is essential to any successful online
marketing activity. It is only through goals that you can accurately
measure the success or failure of any particular acquisition channel. Just
whatever you do, don't turn on Smart Goals, they'll drown you in
irrelevant stats.
2. Use the "Source/Medium" report over "Channels"
The most common information websites need to know is how many users
they've had and how they got to the website. For this, the majority of
people will use the Channels report. This is because it expresses the
acquisition data in an easy language that anyone can understand.
However, it is a trap and I would strongly encourage everyone to use the
scarier looking Source/Medium report instead. This is because the
Source/Medium report is the actual information being fed into GA,
whereas Channels is GA's attempt to understand and parse that
information into simpler terms. However, if there's ever any errors in
 your tagging or weird quirks of systems, using it can cause unexpected
and unrepresentative figures in Channels.
3. Use Real-Time traffic to test tracking & goals
The Real-Time report in GA is chronically under-utilised. That's
predominantly because it's far more useful to look at an aggregate of
users than what any one user is doing right now. However, one of its best
uses is to test that Analytics is responding to inputs in an expected way.
E.g. You've just made a new Goal. Therefore, you go onto your site and
do what you think should trigger it, you can then check in the Real-Time
report whether that's come through to Analytics or not.
4. Exclude your own traffic
By default, your analytics reports on all users on the site. That's
great, but alas, you visit your own site quite frequently. If you have a
fairly low volume website your own visits can warp your stats greatly!
Fortunately, you can exclude your IP from Analytics to ensure that only
your user's stats appear in the reports. (N.B. when you want to do the
Real Time testing, make sure you temporarily disable this or else you
won't see yourself)
5. Video event tracking
Video plays a significant role in many businesses' content
strategies. You want to be able to report how many people watched and
interacted with your video content. Analytics allows you to report events
such as pressing the play, pause, and rewind buttons on your video
player, as well as recording the time spent interacting.
6. Internal site search
Once a visitor gets to your website, they often can clearly
demonstrate what they want by entering a phrase into the search box on
your website. Analytics can track these searches, and show you the
valuable information of what your visitors are searching for.
7. Use UTM tags in your social activity
Your digital marketing campaign will include a range of activities:
email marketing, placing links on other websites, paid & organic social
posts. You can customise these links to contain additional campaign
information so that you can measure which activities are worthwhile and
generating good results for you.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS: BEST PRACTICES

BEST PRACTICES FOR GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics is an amazing tool that helps SEOs, Marketers, Business
Owners and companies as a whole understand how people are interacting with a
website. This free tool tracks users from when they first visit a site all the way
through their exit, it can even tell if the user comes back. It is a must for any
website and can really help in targeting online
Google's tool Tag Manager is the preferred method to implement all code on a
website. It allows you to pass JavaScript onto a site from the Tag Manager
Interface eliminating the need to edit the actual page or need for ftp access. This
product is amazing and well worth learning
There are three sections to Google Analytics: Accounts, Properties and Views.
It is recommended that two accounts are created to access the information in
your site.

5 example Google Analytics Reports for Your Clients

1. Customer Acquisition report

The Customer Acquisition report offers a simple but crucial
perspective for any online business. This report will show your clients
how their customers are landing on-site and what channels are
contributing the most revenue to their business. Ecommerce data for each
acquisition channel is broken down to total revenue, average order value,
and conversion rate. That way, they can identify what specific channels
they should increase (or decrease) their marketing efforts on.
2. Organic Traffic Landing Page report
Most ecommerce owners will, at the very least, implement a
fundamental search engine optimization strategy with the goal of
boosting organic traffic to their store. In an attempt to control the abuse of
search optimization on all websites, Google does not share the organic
keywords used to arrive at your website
3. Email Assessment report
If your client plans to use email marketing to drive return traffic to
their store, the Email Assessment report will help them understand the
role their campaigns play in sales. By understanding which campaigns
lead to the greatest amount of transactions or revenue, your client has
additional data—aside from open and click-through rates—to optimize
their email marketing efforts.
4. Device Comparison report
 The way people shop online is changing. Mobile users behave
differently than desktop users—they will arrive on your client’s site
through unique channels and will interact with the site in unique ways.
Because of this, it’s important that you help set up your clients for
success from the get-go.

5. Time of Day/Day of Week Transaction report

The Time of Day/Day of Week Transaction report offers your

clients a detailed view of their past week of sales. The report helps
identify which hours of the day, days of the week, and combination of
both lead to their highest levels of sales.