If you have ever tried to learn a foreign language, you know that it’s a huge undertaking! It takes a lot of intentionality with reading, learning, and practice. For small and large companies, trying to understand Google Analytics reports feels like learning another language. At Spot On Solutions, we want to help exterior services companies not only utilize but understand their Google Analytics reports so they can track and analyze critical data from their websites and those who visit them. We know how valuable your time is and are in the business of making your life easier. For many businesses, the amount of information that these reports provide is extremely valuable, especially when you own an exterior services business. We love helping our clients understand how to read Google Analytics reports so you can make your website more effective and efficient.

How To Read Google Analytic Reports For Exterior Services

The first thing we need to do before getting started is to break down the basics of a Google Analytics report. Every Google Analytics report displays a combination of dimensions and metrics. To gain a greater understanding of what the different reports are telling you, it’s important to understand the dimensions and metrics.

Dimensions: Dimensions are basic attributes of the data that has been collected. One example of a dimension that may be provided for user data, for example, could be ‘State’ – this dimension tells you which states your site users are from. 

Metrics: Metrics are quantitative. An example of a metrics measurement would be the ‘Sessions’ metric. This measurement tells you how many sessions took place on your site over a specific amount of time.

Now that we know what these reports will be made up of, we want to focus on understanding one of them. Typically the first report you are likely to see is called the Audience Overview. This report gives you an overall rundown of the traffic that your website receives. The metrics we highly suggest you focus on from this report are:

• Users: This will include the number of visitors to your site during a selected time period. If after monitoring this number and paying close attention you notice a downward trend, that may mean it’s time to step up your marketing game.
• New Users: The number of new visitors during a specific time period. You are definitely looking for a steady increase on a regular basis.
• Sessions: The number of visits to your website within a specific time period. A session will time out after 30 minutes, if someone has been on your page longer than that or they are refreshing their browser, it counts it as another session for your page, so when evaluating this number, keep that in mind.
• Pageviews: This means the number of pages that have been viewed during a specified amount of time. When you are reviewing this metric, this number really only confirms whether or not viewers are looking at your content. 
• Bounce Rate: Of all the metrics reported we have found that this is one of the most misunderstood because it represents the percentage of sessions that consist of only a one-page view. We recommend not solely judging your website entirely on bounce rate, but definitely pay attention if you find your bounce rate is consistently much higher on mobile but lower on a desktop for example. It could let you know what improvements may be beneficial to make.

Although we only went through this one report, it is good to keep in mind that all the analytics reports in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t know how to understand them. Once you understand them, you can turn them into actionable improvements. If you are ready to learn more or receive help understanding other reports from people who know the language of Google Analytics reports, give Spot On Solutions a call today.