website analytics Archives - Resourceful Business

Have you ever wondered what percentage of your website visitors are returning, how long they stay on your website or what pages they look at while they are there? Google Analytics (GA) tracks a multitude of statistics like these, yet according to BuiltWith, only 7.8 percent of the 370 million websites on the Internet use Google Analytics. Given what Google Analytics can do, the percentage is shockingly low, but understandable too. Although GA has long provided a treasure trove of information about a website and its traffic, for business owners, it’s not been an intuitive interface to tackle. Now, there’s the incredibly user-friendly Google Data Studio.

Google Data Studio, still in beta, is a new tool that pulls data from your Google ecosystem, Google Analytics or AdWords as examples, into visual dashboards. We took a spin with Google Data Studio to see if we could put together a quick, informative, visual report pulling key information from website data in GA. It was a breeze.

Now you can create a remarkable, easy to understand snapshot of your website traffic using Google Data Studio. You’ll quickly see the value of the data as you grow your business and marketing efforts. You’ll need to connect Google Analytics to your website first, and then you’re ready to begin.

Step 1: Sign up for Google Data Studio

Go to Google Data Studio and signup for free using your Google account. Use the same Google account linked to your website Google Analytics because Google Data Studio does not replace GA, but rather provides more user-friendly dashboards for viewing the data. Once you login to Data Studio, you will see a dashboard, and there are several pre-built templates which are set up to help you visualize data from many different sources including Google Analytics. You can completely customize and create your own report, but we grabbed the Google Analytics template for Acme Marketing – [Sample] Acme Marketing Website – as a starting point.

Step 2. Select your data source for the Google Data Studio report

When you click on the Acme Marketing Google Analytics template, a turquoise and gray sample report pops up. In the top right of the screen, there is an icon which gives you the option to “Make a copy of this report.” Copy it and you will see a pop-up screen “Create new report.”

The Acme Marketing report uses sample data. To populate your report with your own website data, you will need to connect the Google Analytics data for your website.

In the pop-up window, look to the right where it says New Data Source, then:

Click on [Sample] Google Analytics Data
Click the blue CREATE NEW DATA SOURCE
In the left sidebar menu entitled Connectors, choose Google Analytics
Pick the relevant Account, (website) Property and View
Click the CONNECT button in the top right-hand corner
Click the ADD TO REPORT button in the top right-hand corner
Under the New Data Source section, your website Property is now listed, so you can CREATE REPORT

You’re connected!

Only 7.8 percent of the 370 million websites on the Internet use Google Analytics. – BuiltWith

Step 3. Customize the Google Data Studio report layout, theme, and elements

First things first – name your report in the top left of the screen near the Data Studio icon by typing over the words Copy of [Sample] Acme Marketing Website
Pick your date range by clicking the calendar dates in the top right of the report and select date range in the right sidebar
Click and delete sample elements such as the Acme Marketing logo on the top left and the note centered at the top, “SAMPLE REPORT – MAKE A COPY TO EDIT.”
Add your own graphic or text elements. Here are two examples. Add a logo by clicking the image icon in the top menu (a square with a mountain) and drag out a square or rectangular space with your cursor. Click Select a file in the right sidebar under DATA and choose your logo from your computer files. The logo will be sized and put in the outlined space. To add text, click the text icon in the top menu (a box with a “T”), draw out a square or rectangle with the cursor and type in your text. Customize your Text Properties in the right sidebar.

If you want to add more data views, you can either delete and replace what is in the sample report, or:

Add a blank page to the report with the “+Add a page” option on the top left of the menu.
Add custom elements

Here’s another quick example:

Choose the Table icon on the top menu
Drag out a rectangular or square shape with your cursor
Immediately the table is populated with default source data, so in the right sidebar menu, click the green Source button under Dimensions
Choose whichever data dimension you want to see
Need a shorter table? Drag the lower border up and fewer entries will show.
Prefer a different visualization? Repeat these steps choosing a different option besides Table or change your data source.

You can continue to add pages or visual dashboards that are useful to you. All of the elements of the report can be stylized to match your brand colors by clicking on them and using the STYLE options in the right sidebar. Your report is automatically saved because you are in the Google cloud ecosystem. Plus, all of the features you are used to with Google Docs such as sharing and download as PDF are either available or coming soon.

The best part? Once you create the report you want, you can change the date range each month and refresh the report for an updated view.

We’re loving the new Google Data Studio as an intuitive, interactive interface to view essential Google Analytics data for a website. Give it a try and tell us your thoughts in the comments!

Every business strategy, from marketing to manufacturing, is spun around improving customer satisfaction. This truism is no news to us, but the notable fact is that it applies to even our business website and content. Why? Because if you wish to build a customer-centric company, your website – the face of your company, should reflect the same.

You need a strong content management system (CMS) which makes it possible for your website to adapt to and evolve with your customers’ ever-changing tastes and preferences. Especially if you are a startup, you have to make sure that you are picking the right CMS for your company since, for most startups, the major conversion point from a lead to a customer is the website.

A content management system can indeed help you effectively create and manage your digital content, and it can provide an interface for all your employees to collaborate within; some of the most famous ones include WordPress and Joomla (see more). The type of content management system you choose for your company can make or break your whole marketing setup, which makes it absolutely crucial to select the right CMS.

Here are a few basic questions you need to ask yourself to ensure that you pick the right content management system:

1. Can you edit the content easily?

Before investing in a tool, it is paramount that you find out how easy the CMS is to work with, especially for content editing. Check to see if you can easily insert images, update texts, upload documents etc. It is also important to check if it’s easy to add new web pages. Why? Your website needs to change with the demands, requirements, and trends, and the CMS should make that easy for you. Ask your web partner to give you a thorough demo of the CMS so that you can get firsthand experience before investing in it and thereby make an informed choice to purchase.

Here’s the takeaway: Make sure that the CMS is very intuitive and friendly to use for both the tech and non-tech employees.

2. Is it SEO-friendly?

One of the most important points to remember is don’t choose a CMS which can negatively impact your efforts to search-optimize your content.

Here are some things you must keep in mind:

The CMS must allow you to add unique titles and labels for your post, tailored to suit the content of the page and also SEO optimized.
The URLs the CMS generates for your web pages should be neat and simple, instead of www.abc.com/page189$XZ2–that’s not good for your SEO.
Your platform must be able to integrate with other SEO optimization tools.

3. Did you check to see how secure the platform is?

Hire a web designer or a tech expert to analyze the potential security issues and see if your CMS can address them or can accommodate tools that can address them. For example, if someone hacks your website, what actions will the CMS company take? To clarify the security issues, you should also take the time to read the online reviews about your CMS company, get in touch with previous users and get a first-hand opinion if possible.

For example, if the existing users tell you that they are having to constantly upgrade their system with security code patches, that’s not a very good sign and you probably should consider a different CMS company.

4. Does the CMS require any licensing fees?

There might be some costs you are neglecting, and for a startup, that might not bode well.

For some CMS platforms, a one-time fee or a licensing fee may be required to use the product unconditionally, which in many cases is reasonable. But for some platforms, you might incur additional charges whenever you want to update or upgrade, and you must keep such costs in mind before picking out a platform. In some cases, even adding additional plugins and extensions might cost you. Make sure you know how much cost the CMS platform might incur now and in the future too.

5. Will the CMS work with your server or technical configurations?

Not all website hosters are compatible with all content management systems. You must make sure that your CMS will work perfectly with your IT configurations. If you are not adept at doing so, hire a freelancer to help you check whether the CMS is compatible with your web server, because obviously you shouldn’t end up spending your dollars on a tool that might not even work for you.

In many cases, your IT configurations block out a number of websites, especially those that seem like personal blogs. Check to see these limitations first. For example, some IT departments block-out the majority of the WordPress blogs and in such cases, you won’t be able to access the platform using your office IT configurations. Not good!

6. Can the CMS accommodate web analytics?

If you are running a business, you need metrics to measure your progress. That makes it extremely important to ensure that your CMS will accommodate the tracking and measuring of your performance. You must check to see if it can integrate with analytics tools like Google Webmaster and Google Analytics.

To measure your lead generation and lead activity and understand how you are doing and what changes you might need to implement, your CMS must also be able to integrate with lead generation tools.

Final Thoughts

Here’s the takeaway. Selecting the right content management system requires two things:

List your needs, requirements and business goals
Strip down the CMS feature by feature and review each one to understand how well it fits with the above list

About Niraj Ranjan Rout

Niraj is the CEO and Founder of Hiver, an app that turns Gmail into a powerful customer support and collaboration tool. Read more about Hiver in Business Insider, Inc., Hubspot, and Lifehack.

Follow Niraj on Twitter @nirajr

Tag: website analytics

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