In Digital Marketing

What will a Google Analytics audit will reveal? Having been in digital marketing for nearly a decade, I am here to preach that how you think users use your website is in no way a reflection of how users actually use your website. If you’re new to this powerful data tool, you may be astounded at how a Google Analytics audit can pave the way to huge business growth. And isn’t that really why you’re here in the first place? You want to make more money, and to do that you need to better understand your customers. A Google Analytics audit is the key to solving this problem.

A Google Analytics audit will reveal what your customers want

Psst! For a broad overview of what Google Analytics can tell do, first read our 7 reasons to install Google Analytics.

My motivation for gushing about the rich customer data waiting to be discovered beneath your website, is that we just completed a Google Analytics audit for a client whose website is:

  • cluttered with irrelevant content and links
  • a terrifying experience for mobile users
  • begging for a complete redesign

If that hits close to home, this blog post is for you.

My team conducted an Analytics audit so that as our client prepares for a website redesign, they have actual data showing them what pages matter to their users. But the Analytics audit doesn’t stop there. The big picture list of what the audit revealed became so long that I decided to write this blog post.

6 things a Google Analytics audit will reveal

  1. What’s unpopular. What are your top exit pages – the pages on which your users leave your site? Once we identify these, we can draw conclusions about what is wrong with the page and how to improve it. Is there too much info? Not enough? Is it clear what we want people to do on the page (submit their email to join a list, for example), and easy to do so? 
  2. Are you mobile friendly? Not sure if users are accessing your site on a mobile device? While a few years ago mobile users were often a small enough percentage of users that we could write them off, today, it is typical for 30-60% of users to browse websites on a mobile device. Does this surprise you? For years, Google warned us to make our websites “mobile friendly” and “responsive” so that the experience of mobile (and tablet) users was pleasant. Now, if your website is not responsive, your website will not show up as high on the search results page. Baaaaad. An audit will reveal what mobile users want to see and do on your site so that you can quickly and easily give them what they want.
  3. Who is sending you traffic? Top referral pages show what other websites (that refer their traffic to you via a link to your site) are sending you traffic. Is this traffic high quality or low quality? Are you getting a lot of spam traffic that needs to be blocked (this cleans up the data, so the results are more meaningful)? Are there certain sites that you want to build an online relationship with to increase the amount of referral traffic? For one client, a recent Google Analytics audit revealed that our monthly blog posts had boosted her organic traffic by 95%. And she reported she had recently signed on three new clients from organic search traffic as a result of those blog posts. Sha-blam!
  4. Where are your customers? Rich, geographic data shows you where your users are coming from in aggregate. Believe it or not, Analytics shows you where users are at the city level. How else can you reliably know where your customers are coming from? With this data in hand, you can launch marketing campaigns targeting your most valuable and interested customers. 
  5. Tortoise or Hare? How long does your website take to load? If your page load speed is greater than four seconds, we can guarantee you are losing customers who bounce off your site before it even loads. Fix those elements that are slowing down your site (it could be wonky code, oversized images, server issues, and the list goes on and on) to create a pleasant user experience. 
  6. What users really want. Using a navigation summary, you can see how users flow through your site, page by page. Yes, this is possible! You’ll find out on which pages people first enter your site, and what pages they go to next and next. Why is this important? You may know which pages are most important to your bottom line, and how you want users to use your site. The data will show if users are using your site the way you want them to. And if they are not (for a lot of sites this is true!), we will work to fix that. We’ll retool your navbar, content, images, and video so that it’s clear to users what they are supposed to do when they arrive on your site. Haven’t thought that far? Oh boy! Let us help you make your website work for you.

We can help convert website visitors to customers! Get to know what we do here.

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