Whether you had your studio’s website built for you by a web designer or you did it all on your own, creating a website for your business isn’t just a set it and forget it type of deal. In addition to updating the site to reflect promotions and new class schedules, there’s also a lot you can learn from tracking the analytics of your website. One easy way to do that? By using Google Analytics to keep tabs on where your visitors are coming from, which of your posts are getting the most traffic, and even garnering information on how and where your site is being shared on social media.
To give you an overview of how using Google Analytics can help inform your small business, we asked Jason L. Bauman, associate at Trinity Insight, an agency dedicated to teaching business owners how to use analytics to their advantage, to break down the how, what and why of using this helpful tool. Here’s what he had to say about everything that Google Analytics has to offer.
WHAT IT IS
At it’s core, Google Analytics provides you with information on the visitors who are coming to your website. “Google Analytics allows you to get a better understanding of your audience,” explains Bauman. “These insights will allow you to guide visitors to the services and products they want, turning them into satisfied (and paying) customers.” Examples of the insights that Google Analytics collects includes where your visitors are coming from (both geographically and how they found your site), time spent on each page of your website, and even the most popular time of day and days of the week that people visit your website.
WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU
So, how does it all work? “Google Analytics will show you how people are finding your website, allowing you to monitor the effectiveness of your campaigns,” Bauman explains. “Once you have analytics properly configured, you’ll be able to use the data to build a better experience for your visitors.” What kind of experiences, you ask? “Businesses can use the data to identify future promotions since analytics makes it easy to find those services that generate a lot of interest but don’t convert into customers,” Bauman says. “If your business depends on signing people up for an email list, you can use analytics to monitor what page a customer was on when they signed up. Other services can use that information to put them in a customized mailing list that will tailor the content they get to the service they seem interested in.”
HOW TO SET IT UP
One of the best things about using Google Analytics (besides the fact that it’s free) is the easy setup process. “First, you’ll need to sign up for a free analytics account through Google and get your UA (Universal Analytics) number,” Bauman says. “Most modern hosting platforms like WordPress, Squarespace and Shopify make adding this code to your personal website easy by either making it an option in the settings, or by having a plugin available to do it for you.” Even if you’re not using one of these platforms, Bauman says adding the code manually is also easy to do. “You’ll need to add the code to each page on your site, which you can accomplish by adding it to your template pages,” he says. “To enable some of the more advanced features, you’ll either want to learn more about configuring Google Analytics, or hire someone to do it for you.” From there, you can start tracking your progress, such as site visits and new/unique visitors, month over month to measure your page performance.
