{"id":19487,"date":"2020-10-26T06:23:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T11:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/?p=19487"},"modified":"2020-10-06T14:35:22","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T19:35:22","slug":"google-analytics-beginners-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/google-analytics-beginners-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Most Important Features of Google Analytics [Beginner’s Guide]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you have a website, you need Google Analytics<\/a>. It just might be the most useful free tool that a company has ever made widely available to businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every website is created with certain goals<\/a> in mind. This is true even if you didn\u2019t take the time to sit down and define those specific goals (which is a step worth taking, by the way). If you have a business website, you want the site to help you sell something. If you have a media site, you want to provide articles that inform and entertain a large number of people. No matter your website, you want it to do something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google Analytics is crucial because it enables you to track how well your website accomplishes its goals<\/strong>. It offers a relatively easy way to figure out how people are finding and interacting with your website or if they\u2019re not doing either, as the case may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do any marketing for your website, Google Analytics will help you track what\u2019s working so you can make sure the time and money you spend is paying off. And if your website isn\u2019t getting the kind of traction and interest you were hoping for, it allows you to recognize that sooner versus later so you can step up your efforts or change your approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing you should use Google Analytics is one thing, but once you have it set up<\/a>, what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guide will walk you through five of the most important types of data Google Analytics provides and how you can put it to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

5 Important Data You\u2019ll Find in Google Analytics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re new to using Google Analytics, understand that you won\u2019t see a lot of data immediately it doesn\u2019t work retroactively to show you past analytics. But with time, you\u2019ll have access to all the valuable analytics described here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. How Many People Visit Your Website<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the most important metrics of website success is whether or not anyone is finding your website to begin with. Every other goal you want to accomplish with your website depends on people actually visiting it. That\u2019s why Google Analytics puts traffic data front and center when you log in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Number of Visitors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the main dashboard of Google Analytics, you\u2019ll see Users<\/em> in the top right corner. This is the number of unique visitors that have come to your website in a set amount of time (Google Analytics defaults to showing the past seven days). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Number of Visits<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Just to the right of Users<\/em>, you\u2019ll see Sessions<\/em>, which tells you the number of unique visits to your website in a set time frame. This number will typically be different than the number of visitors because some the people who come to your website will visit more than once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means that having a lower number of users than sessions is a good thing it means people like what they see enough to come spend more time on your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you don\u2019t feel like doing the math to figure out how many of your visitors are repeat visitors, or you want to see data specific to each type of visitor, click on Behavior<\/em> in the Audience <\/em>menu, then select New vs Returning<\/em>. On this page, you can see the breakdown of how much of your traffic came from first-time visitors versus repeat visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also use this page to analyze how different metrics break down between the two types of visitors by using the Secondary Dimension<\/em> dropdown menu. As a note, the Secondary Dimension<\/em> menu is available for many of the different categories we\u2019ll be covering here if you want to slice and dice your data using the categories provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Visits by Page<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Different pages on your website will be more popular<\/a> than others. Knowing which pages people visit the most frequently helps you understand which topics you cover, or which products you sell, are bringing you the most attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see your traffic breakdown by page, look for the Site Content<\/em> section under the Behavior <\/em>menu. Once there, click on All Pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Google Analytics will show you the list of pages on your website in descending order of popularity, with your most visited pages at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visits by Date<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Google Analytics helps you understand what\u2019s happening with your website traffic. Perhaps more importantly, it also helps you figure out why. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the main dashboard, Google Analytics allows you to see how your traffic breaks down by date. You can change the date range you view by clicking on the menu in the bottom left corner (when set to the default view, look for where it says Last 7 Days<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this feature, you can see how traffic trends for your website change over time, or you can hone in to spot specific days, weeks, or months that got an unusually large amount of traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Visits by Hour<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Altering the date range allows you to pull back and see larger trends in your traffic data, but you can also zoom in for the same purpose. You can see the breakdown of traffic on an hour-by-hour basis by clicking Overview<\/em> in the Audience<\/em> menu and choosing hourly. This reveals trends in the times of day people visit your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back on the main dashboard, if you scroll below the top graph, you can even see how many people are on your website at the moment you\u2019re exploring Google Analytics.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. How People Find Your Website<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Every person who visits your website discovered it somewhere. In most cases, people will learn about your site because of the work you do to make it easy to find. The Acquisition<\/em> metrics in Google Analytics show you which of your marketing or promotion efforts are doing the best job to bring people to your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Acquisition<\/em> section of Google Analytics, you\u2019ll see a breakdown of where all your traffic is coming from, divided into four main categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n