Last week I showed you how to install Google Analytics. Next, I was planning to show you how to handle the data and what you should be looking for.
But then I’d be advising you to make the same mistake I’ve made many times before. Jumping in before you’ve answered a few fundamental questions properly.
I’m the one who always espouses strategy and having a good idea of what you’re doing before you do it.
Why does your website exist?
Think about it. ‘Because we have to be on the Internet’ is not an acceptable answer.
Here are a few possibles:
- To sell your products or services online
- To extend your business away from its local focus
- To establish yourself as an authority in your area of expertise
- To engage more effectively with your customers and prospects
But don’t restrict yourself to the above. Really work out why you’re putting all this effort into your web presence.
Are you creating the content that will enable your website to do what you want it to?
What are the most important parts of your website?
This one is really for those of you who have a website or blog that already has plenty of content and is satisfying your answers to ‘Why does your site exist?’.
One thing you’ve found out if you’ve done any delving around in Google Analytics is that there’s no shortage of data! There’s so much that you can easily get lost.
Make a list of the most important pages on your website, the ones that have been written to help you achieve your website’s goals.
You’ll be looking into these later with Google Analytics.
What do you need to know about the traffic coming to your website?
I also want to know about my readers. I can find out a lot about them by finding out which are the most important parts of Writing For SEO for them.
What do you know about the people visiting your website? Are they interested in the sections that will lead to more sales, for example? Are there pages that people just aren’t interested in?
Soon, I’ll be showing you how to find the information you need amongst the data Google Analytics is collecting for you.