Practical Uses for Google Analytics

There are so many uses for Analytics it would be impossible to name all of them in a short guide, but we’re going to take a look at some of the best ways you can use Analytics to increase your traffic and income.

Identifying Successful Content

Google Analytics is great for figuring out which pages your visitors are landing on most. Not only that, it will also tell you where they go NEXT. This is useful for finding out which content is most effective at pulling in traffic so you can write more content along the same lines.

Let’s say you see a large portion of your traffic visiting an article on Pinterest marketing. You could write more articles on Pinterest marketing, going more in-depth or covering different angles. Or you could write articles about different types of social media like Facebook or Twitter.

Identifying your key content is important, because you will be able to 

decide:

• What type of content you should write more of

• What kind of content isn’t working, so you don’t waste time on it

• Which topics your visitors are most interested in

• Which articles to focus links on to boost their search rankings

Google Analytics 101

Getting More Search Engine Traffic

Everyone wants more traffic from search engines, but without Analytics is can be hard to figure out where to concentrate your efforts. You can use Analytics to figure out a plan to help boost your search engine positions and attract more traffic. Most of your information for this will come from the acquisition reports. If you go to Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Queries, you’ll discover the keywords people are using to find your site. It will also tell you the position you were in at the time, and how many people clicked when they saw your page on Google.

(Note: This will be more accurate if your site is added to Google  Webmaster Tools and linked to your Analytics account.)

Here are some ways you can use Analytics to get more traffic from search engines:

• Identify successful and unsuccessful content

• Figure out which keywords users are using to find your site

• Find out which keywords you’re ranking near page one for so you 

can get a few more links to boost them to the first page

• Find out which pages are most popular so you can send more people 

to them

• Find out which keywords are getting the highest CTR in search 

results to know which articles might need to be changed (such as 

title or description changes) to get more clicks.

Google Analytics 101

Which Traffic Sources Are Working Best

If you visit your dashboard and go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium, you will find out which sites are sending you the most traffic. This can be helpful in figuring out where to focus your marketing efforts, as well as what you could improve to get more traffic from other sites. It can also let you know if too much of your traffic is coming from a single source, which is dangerous. For example, if most of your traffic is coming from Google and there’s a huge update that drops your rankings, your whole site would be in serious trouble.

Google Analytics 101

Conclusion

Analytics is a complex tool, but that makes it incredibly useful. Yes, it takes a bit of getting used to. It’s not one of those intuitive, at-a-glance tools that put everything right at the fingertips of the average user.

But if you really take the time to delve deep into it, Analytics can really help you boost your traffic, conversions, and income.

Analytics can be used to:

• Track traffic sources

• See which keywords people are using to find your site

• Track conversion results

• Learn what content people want more of

• And much more!

Don’t be like the average Analytics user who installs it on their site and then forgets it other than maybe checking overall traffic numbers now and then. Take the time to learn the different features and how you can use them effectively.

Trust me, you’ll really be glad you did