When I tell people that I work in SEO + Analytics, I get a lot of side eyes and blank stares.
After the initial moment of silence, most people launch directly into questions about Google Analytics.
Like, Why is it so d#%$@ confusing?
From what I can tell, there are a million reasons why Google Analytics is so confusing:
- There are more than 27 million websites that use Google Analytics.
- Google Analytics is a difficult tool to learn. In fact, 89% of marketers say they want to improve their knowledge of Google Analytics.
- Between metrics and dimensions, there are more than 500 unique pieces of data you can access using Google Analytics.
Digging into Google Analytics Reporting to find and extract the metrics that matter to your business is time-consuming and overwhelming.
So overwhelming that even though most websites have Google Analytics, most website owners never log into it.
And this, my friends, is a tragedy.
How can you grow your business if you don’t even know where you are starting from?
This is why we have created a one-page, time-saving, easy-to-understand, Google Analytics Dashboard, customized for you.
You call it a life saver.
We call it our Friends Plan.
Because we are friends, we give you what you need to make data-driven decisions and we make it super easy to see exactly how your traffic is growing, which content is engaging, and what to do next.
The Metrics that Matter
The dashboard starts with the Metrics that Matter to Google (and to me!)
Sessions
This is traffic. We want to see this number getting higher month over month.
Sessions are a very clear indicator of the SEO health of your site (and your business). This is one metric that I watch closely with every client.
Avg. Session Duration
This is a strong quality signal to google. From Google’s perspective, if users are spending time on your site then the content must be high quality (otherwise they would leave, see bounce rate). The average attention span of a user on the internet is 12 seconds, so if a site can grab the users attention and entice them to read an article, to click through a gallery or to watch a video, then the content must be good.
The average session duration across the internet is literally seconds, a good goal is 2-3 minutes, now this isn’t a lot of time either but it is enough time for users to learn something and to send positive signals to Google.
Pages/Session
This is similar to Avg. Session Duration, this is a sign of quality. If users click around and read multiple pages on your site then Google will assume that you are an expert and have authority. The average across the internet is 1 page/session, meaning users land on a page and then bounce back to the Search Results page or another site.
A good goal is to have the Pages / Session above 2.
Pro Tip: One way to increase your Pages/Session is to make it SUPER easy for users to find similar pages on your site so think about adding links in your content and having related posts easy to find and click on.
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of people who arrive at your site and leave without viewing another page. A bounce rate below 70% is a good goal.
Bounce rate is another quality rating. If users don’t stick around on the site, they didn’t find the answer they were looking for easily.
Session Trends
This is a quick visual of traffic month over month. The key here is that traffic increases over time.
The next three widgets are similar.
They help you determine what is working within your current marketing strategy and what you should invest more in.
Where is your traffic coming from?
Ideally Organic/Google traffic should be the highest piece of the pie, followed by Direct. Direct Traffic comes from users who already know you and type in the URL directly into the browser. Organic and Direct traffic work together, once a user finds you from Google, they likely become direct traffic.
The rest of the pie should be somewhat balanced. The big idea is to have users coming to the site from multiple sources.
What is driving engagement?
Engagement this is important and is directly related to the Metrics that Matter above. We don’t just want traffic to pop on the site and bounce quickly, we want traffic that binges your content like I binged Bridgerton on Netflix.
Engagement leads to clients.
Social Traffic
Social is a part of every marketing strategy. There are roughly 2.8 billion active users on Facebook alone. If you want to reach more people, then you need to go where they are.
But. You don’t have to be everywhere — you must measure what is working and invest more time and money there.
What are people actually reading on the site?
We look at it from two different angles.
We want to see what is the most popular, what is getting the most views and what pages are users spending the most time on. Remember if users are spending time on the site and are engaged with it, Google is going to assume that your site is valuable and they should rank it higher so that more people find it.
Our purpose at Clapping Dog Media is to take the overwhelming and confusing parts of Google Analytics and make it understandable and empowering.
If you can track and understand a few key metrics then you can make informed strategic decisions to grow your business.
So are you ready to be friends?
Sign up and receive this easy to read Google Analytics Dashboards customized for YOUR business every month.