Google Analytics is easily the most popular and useful tool for measuring website metrics. It enables you to see who is visiting your website, measure where they’re coming from and better understand overall performance – among many other things (literally hundreds of other metrics).
We’re going to assume that if you’re a small business with a website, you have Google Analytics installed. If you don’t (we’re shaking our heads in disgust), sign up for free right now and get the tracking code installed so you can start measuring important website analytics.
Ready? Let’s get started.
1. Setup – The first step is make sure that Google Analytics is tracking on your website. Head over to the “Admin” tab >> “Tracking Info” >> “Tracking Code”. Here you’ll see some information including an area that says “Status: Receiving Data”. Ok sweet, that means you are successfully gathering data.
2. Add Filters – Now that you’re tracking visitors, it’s time to filter out website traffic that you don’t want to track. For example, you want to filter out your own website visits. Head over to the “Admin” tab >> “Filters” >> “+ Add New Filter”. Name your filter something recognizable (like ‘Office’). Now choose “Exclude” >> “From the IP addresses” >> “That are equal with” and add your ip address (find your ip address here). Click “Save” and you’re done!
3. Enable Demographics – Another useful piece to setup is enabling demographics. Click the “Admin” tab >> “Property Settings” and then scroll down to the demographics section. Click the “On” button. You’ll also need to add a small piece of code to your website but that shouldn’t be too hard since you’ve already setup website tracking code. Once installed and turned on, you can now track male/female, age and more!
4. Setup Conversion Tracking – Now that we’re tracking website visitors to your website, how do we track when they fill out a form? It’s called “Conversion Tracking” or “Goals” in Google Analytics. Click the “Admin” tab >> “+ New Goal” and select the type of goal you want to setup. The easiest setup is to choose “Custom” >> “Destination” and type in the thank you page url after visitors fill out a form.
5. Schedule Reporting – Ok now that we have everything setup, we’ll want to schedule email reporting so you can easily stay on top of your website metrics. Head over to the “Reporting” tab and click on the “Audience” tab in the left hand menu. Now click on the “email” button right below the page title. You’ll see a pop-up to schedule your email reports. We recommend sending a PDF but it’s up to you. If you ever need to adjust email reporting, you may do so by clicking the “Admin” tab >> “Scheduled Emails”.