Google Analytics is a service launched by Google in 2005, which helps online businesses analyse the performance of their websites or applications in terms of traffic. It’s great for keeping track of which pages bring in the most traffic, as you can see how many views each page on your website has, not forgetting you can also get a glimpse of how long users were on each page for. Of course you can also see which of the pages aren’t doing so well – so this is great for finding weak points on your website that may need more development to encourage user engagement.
To open a Google Analytics account, you will first need to have a Google account. If you haven’t – click here to create one.
Once you have logged into your Google account, click here to start the setup of your Google Analytics account.
When setting up an account for a website, you will need to enter…
- Account Name – this is the title you wish to give to the account holding the website, so the company title would be
recommended for this… e.g. ‘The Last Hurdle’ - Website Name – copy the title of your website here (this is likely to be the same as the Account Name)
- Website URL – this is simply the web address of your website
- Industry Category – select a category from the drop-down list, e.g. Business and Industrial Markets
- Reporting Time Zone – for this, you will need to select the country you are in. Check the time zone is correct for this e.g. GMT+00:00
Click ‘Get Tracking ID’.
- Account Name – this is the title you wish to give to the
account holding the app, so the company title would be recommended for this… e.g. ‘The Last Hurdle’ - App Name – write the name of your app here
- Industry Category – select a category from the drop-down list, e.g. Business and Industrial Markets
- Reporting Time Zone – for this, you will need to select the country you are in. Check the time zone is correct for this e.g. GMT+00:00
Click ‘Get Tracking ID’.
Google Analytics Standard VS Premium… Which is best for me?
Google Analytics Standard is the free version of the service. The data and charts sourced from your website will be refreshed every 24 hours, although this isn’t that great compared to the Premium version which is refreshed at a maximum of every 4 hours. This means the paid version is more regular and better updated. It really depends on how fresh you are likely to need your data.
In terms of analysing your data of the hits for your website/app, GA Standard has a limit of 10 million hits, meaning that any hits (interactions) after the 10 million will not be analysed, so it wouldn’t be ideal for a website/app expecting tens of thousands of hits. The Premium version has an increased limit of 1,000 million hits, which is perfect for the more popular platforms. We recommend the Standard version for most small-medium sized businesses.
How does Google Analytics link in with Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is another free service from Google that caters to the needs of business owners, web developers and app developers. It was introduced in the same year as Google Analytics, having since then been renamed from ‘Google Webmaster Tools’. Google Console is different to Google Analytics in the way that you can view how many errors were found on your site, which other websites link to it, and whether there are any issues with malware or incoming spam on your pages. Most importantly, it helps you keep track of your site in the Google Search results, and gives you keyword data so is essential for your SEO specialist!
Using the Google Search Console and Google Analytics together can be a recipe for website success, but it can be a little challenging to translate the figures you are looking at into real terms. Google Search Console will focus on how well your target audience will reach your website content, whilst Google Analytics does all the performance tracking of your website. Ideally you need both to get a true picture of how well your website is performing and will enable you to understand, where it needs to improve.
If you have any further queries regarding Google Analytics or Search Console then speak to The Last Hurdle SEO specialists, we are here to make sure your website can be found for the right key phrases by the right people! Call 01604 654545 or email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk