Introduction:
At present, we are living in a technologically advanced era where different business organizations are largely dependent on online platforms for the development of their business. Various organizations are creating websites to expand their business online, but is it possible to develop a business only by having a website? Not at all, if you don’t know how many visitors are coming to your website, where they are coming from, what they actually want to see, how long they are staying on your website, and whether they are really converting into customers! A trusted and effective tool that collects and analyzes all this information is Google Analytics. This tool will make you aware of the following issues; it will help you understand your website’s performance, analyzes visitor behavior, and help you make strategic decisions.
Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool created by Google, and if you have a Google account, you can often use it for free. This tool is an important part of the Google Marketing Platform, which has now become an essential tool for online business and digital marketing. The Google Analytics tool collects different types of information about the visitors of your website and analyzes their behavior, then provides you with the data. The information you will get includes:
- The number of users who are visiting your website
- Which platforms they are coming from, such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc.
- How long they are staying on the website and which pages they are viewing
- What type of activities they are doing, such as clicks, product purchases, form filling, etc.
So, when you get this information, you can easily understand what problems exist on your website and how those can be solved. As a result, you can improve your content and make your marketing strategies more effective.
Why the use of Google Analytics is important:
- You will know about your website visitors
- You will understand traffic sources
- You will be able to analyze user behavior
- You will be able to identify website weaknesses
- You can create effective marketing plans
- You can improve content, etc.
How Google Analytics works:
Step by step, how Google Analytics works is mentioned below:
- First, you need to create a Google account
- You have to create a profile for your website or app. For that, you need to go to analytics.google.com
- You need to get a Tracking ID or Measurement ID, such as:
- GA4: G-XXXXXXXXXX
- Universal Analytics: UA-XXXXXXXXX-X
- You will be given a JavaScript tracking code, which must be placed inside your website’s <head> tag. When the code is activated, the information it will collect includes:
- IP address (helps to identify location)
- Browser type and version
- Operating system
- Referrer URL (where the user came from)
- User interactions (pages viewed, time, clicks)
- After the code is activated, the collected data is sent to Google’s server and then analyzed and displayed as reports.
- The reports you will get in the dashboard are:
- Audience Report – demographics of visitors (language, country, device)
- Acquisition Report – where they came from
- Behavior Report – which pages they viewed, how long they stayed
- Conversion Report – how many achieved the goal
Main Features:
- Real-time data
- Audience analysis
- Traffic sources
- Behavior analysis
- Conversion tracking
Google Analytics 4:
Google Analytics 4 is Google’s next-generation analytics tool. From 2023, it is being used as the default instead of Universal Analytics. The key advantages of Google Analytics 4 are mentioned below:
- Websites and mobile apps can be tracked together making it easier to understand the user’s journey.
- Events (such as clicks, scrolls, video plays, file downloads, form submissions, etc.) are the basis of tracking.
- In Google Analytics 4, you can create custom reports, dashboards, and exploration charts as you like. Here, you can easily filter specific data based on the type of business.
- Privacy Compliant (GDPR/CCPA Ready):
- According to the GDPR law of the European Union, user data privacy protection is mandatory.
- In GA4:
- IP address is not stored
- AI modeling is used to estimate missing data without cookies
- There are options for user data control and deletion
- That is, data-driven analysis is possible, while remaining compliant with the law.
Benefits of using Google Analytics:
- You can use it completely free. Only for large organizations, there is a paid version called Analytics 360
- You will get accurate and detailed data
- You will be able to make effective business decisions
- You can measure the ROI of digital marketing
- You can check SEO and content performance
Who benefits from it?
- Bloggers: Through this, bloggers will know which of their content is becoming more popular.
- E-commerce businesses: Through this, they will know where their customers are coming from and what they are buying.
- Digital marketers: Through this, they will be able to measure advertising results.
- Small and large businesses: By reviewing its reports, they will be able to bring about strategic improvements in their business.
The conditions of using Google Analytics are:
- Must have a Gmail account
- Must have the ability to install tracking code on the website
- Must have basic knowledge to understand the reports provided by Google Analytics
Important Terms:
- User
- Session
- Bounce rate
- Average session duration
- Traffic source
- Top pages
- Device
The role of Google Analytics in business development:
Suppose you run an online shop. Google Analytics showed—
- Most of the traffic is coming from Facebook ads
- But many are leaving after reaching the Checkout Page
Now you will understand the problem is on that page. Maybe it’s slow or faulty. Fixing it will increase sales. This is the real power of Google Analytics.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, we can say that in the case of online business, a website is very important. If you create a website for your business purpose, then knowing all the detailed issues related to that website is very important for you. Google Analytics will help you in business development by providing information about website users. The topics that Google Analytics makes you aware of are: users’ acquisition, behavior, conversions, demographics and devices, real-time, automation, and insights. Although it is little bit difficult to learn Google Analytics, it is not more difficult to use. If you can use it in the proper way, it will become a powerful tool for digital success in your business.
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