google analytics

[foodaddict]

I don't think I'm using google analytics to its full advantage (e.g. i'm not acting on any of the data, most like, "oh interesting...this is where my traffic comes from...".

How have people been using their google analytics pages? Do you think it's worthwhile to hire someone to set up reports for me to figure out what we should be looking for to increase conversion rates etc.?

[yahi]

once you establish a baseline for normal traffic patterns analytics is good for seeing the impact of your site changes

[Just Confused]

I do exactly as you describe as well. I check it out every so often to get a sense of where things are headed. I don't think there is any magic solution that you are missing.

It is like any other business challenge; there is information presented to everyone all the time. We all do these 3 steps i) take in the raw data, ii) then perform some sort of analytical thinking with it, and finally iii) we act on the decisions about what to do with it. It is the quality of step 2 that separates the "smart" people from the "Darwins". But it is step 3 the separates the successful from the wannabes. For example you can do all sorts of comparisons and you notice something like you're getting a geographic response from the east or west coast of Canada or maybe getting lots of traffic but the bounce rate is nearly 100%. Figuring out why you are popular in those coastal towns or determining why you are getting so much unqualified traffic is the innovative part. The fun part (for me and maybe that's the successful part??) is developing some theories and then taking action to test them and capitalize on any advantage you discover from your test.

A lot of it leads to tweaking your Google ads for text and language, or aqdjusting budget, or the having appropriate "sizzle" of your website graphics/sounds, or sometimes even the complementary non-Internet marketing campaigns you're doing at the same time.

[flafson]

If you are using Google Adwords with it then you can get some nice conclusions to help you tweak things.
There is an option built in Adwords that tells you exactly what people typed in when they reached you. Many times you can see words inside that you know you don't want to pay for those searches.
The most common example is this, say you are buying the broad keyword "skin care" and through some messing with the info you find that some people clicked your ad when they searched for "free skin care"
This tells you that you wasted money because there is no way someone who is looking for a free solution will pay money for your product. So then you go and you add a negative keyword "-free"

Another example might be that Jaguar can be both an animal and a car. If you are trying to sell Jaguar cars and someone is looking for info on the animal, you don't want them to find you so you might put a different negative keyword to help you do that.

Another nice thing i found to help me differentiate between sources is add a tag to a link i put somewhere. I have a few domains that redirect traffic to my website so if you own oops.ca and your main site is abc.ca so i would put a redirect on the oops domain to abc.ca/?SID=oops-ca
Then when i check Analytics for landing page, it will group all the visitors who came from that specific source. It doesn't work for probably most sources since it will pick up on it's own that it was referred to you by XYZ site.

[ebusinesstutor]

The key thing I do with Google Analytics is to track conversions, not traffic. Traffic is useless unless it converts to a sale or signups.

If advertising source #1 sends you 10,000 visitors but only 5 sales and source #2 sends you 1,000 visitors with 25 sales, #2 is better even though it send less traffic.

You use the Goals function for this in Google Analytics. If you need help with this, PM me.

[Icedawn]

I'm with you OP, I'm pretty bad at making use of our analytics. One thing we've just started doing though? Easy A/B testing where we're trying out a few different "calls to action" and using our conversion data from Google to assess which call to action to use.

[flafson]

The key thing I do with Google Analytics is to track conversions, not traffic. Traffic is useless unless it converts to a sale or signups.

If advertising source #1 sends you 10,000 visitors but only 5 sales and source #2 sends you 1,000 visitors with 25 sales, #2 is better even though it send less traffic.

You use the Goals function for this in Google Analytics. If you need help with this, PM me.

It depends alot on what you do. I have no way of knowing that because my service is physical.

[george benjamin]

You should give Click Web Analytics a try: https://www.getclicky.com. The best general analytics software out there for people with basic and advanced needs. Learning curve is small, real time, much better UI and user flow. Using Clicky instead of Google Analytics was one of the best things I did in the past month. No more wrestling with reports, no more trying to find reports, no more trying to wait 6-8 hours for data.

[foodaddict]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I just got the ecommerce function to work and it is so interesting to see where people are coming in from.

[yahi]

no more trying to wait 6-8 hours for data.

You can set the date range to 'today' instead of wait for the actual day to roll over