How to Track your Website performance in Google Analytics

Yes, Most of us know Google Analytics can track our website performance. There are various paid and free Analytics tools are available. But it is always recommended for a beginner to get started with Google Analytics tool rather than going for Paid tools.

Now let’s start with basics.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free tool which collects data and compiles into useful reports. The three main components involved in Google Analytics are Acquisition, Behaviour and conversion.

Track website performance in Google Analytics

To track the website performance in Google Analytics, you need to follow these steps. They are

1. Getting started with Google Analytics

First you need to create a Google Analytics account for your website.

Enter your website URL and get a JavaScript code. Then insert that JavaScript code in your website.

Once you inserted tracking code in your website, then it’ll collect information about how the user interacted with that page.

2. Reports and Key Metrics

There are five reports are inside Google Analytics. Inside that report, you’ll find various performance metrics.

The Reports are

i) Real Time Report

In Real time reports, you can find real time number of visitors in your website. The Geographical Locations of the visitors. The particular page that a visitor is viewing, conversions and traffic sources.

ii) Audience Report

In Audience Reports, you can see Characteristics of your users like age, gender, where they’re from. Their interests, how engaged they are, whether they’re new or returning users and what technology they’re using.

iii) Acquisition Report

Acquisition reports shows you which channel brought users to your website. This could includes different marketing channels such as Organic, Cost-Per-Click, Referral, Social and Others.

iv) Behavior Report

Behaviour Report shows you how people are engaged with your site. Which pages they viewed, their landing & exit pages. With additional implementation, you can even track what your users searched for on your site and whether they’ve interacted with specific elements.

5. Conversions Report

In Conversions Report, you can track your website goals based on your Business Objectives.

Some of the useful and Important metrics are Users, New users, sessions, No of Sessions per user, Page views, Page views per session, Average session duration and Bounce rate.

3. Set SMART Goals

Set SMART Goals for your website. For an eg, Set goal of increasing overall 10% traffic in next quarter. Bringing our current monthly average of 10,000 visits to 11,000 average visits per month.

Here I have entered Increased Time Duration as a Goal.

Then you can compare expected performance with actual performance .

4. Page Speed Insights and Suggestions

Page loading speed is the main factor which determines the bounce rate of your website. If the page loading speed is between 0-3 secs it is considered to be a good website, it’ll have only less bounce rate, people are more likely to stay inside the website.

With the help of Page Speed Insights, you can view the reports and insights on page speed and suggestions to increase the page loading speed of your website.

5. Behavior Flow Visualization

Behavior flow visualization shows the flow of users drop off on each stage of the page visit. It’ll help in finding the content, quality and engagement for your website.

These are the most important ways to track your website performance using Google Analytics.

To learn more about Google Analytics, they’re offering free certification course with a free demo, please use that resource. Click here Google Analytics Academy.

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Cheers,

Sujithbeno