September 5, 2017

The Top 5 reports every business needs to use when assessing their website

September 5, 2017

The Top 5 reports every business needs to use when assessing their website

The Top 5 reports every business needs to use when assessing their website

Google Analytics is a very powerful tool and can help you to keep track of the success of your website. However, it’s easy to get lost in there when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Luckily, you can solve this problem by setting up some simple, custom reports. That way, you’ll be able to gain great insight into what’s working and what isn’t in regards to your website. Here’s our top five Google Analytics reporting tools for measuring success.

1. Source / Medium Reports

Every referral to a website has an origin, or source. Possible sources include:

Every referral to a website also has a medium. Possible mediums include:

It’s important to know where the traffic to your site is coming from. With this reporting tool you’re able to leverage information about how your visitors are travelling to your site and can optimise accordingly.For example, if your Source / Medium Report showed that cost-per-click was performing extremely well and driving the most traffic to your website, it would be wise to increase your AdWords budget to heighten the leads coming through this medium.

2. Conversion Reports

One of the most important questions you need to ask yourself when assessing your website is, “How is my website creating value for my business?”When it comes to determining the key objectives of your website, conversions should be at the top of your list. If your website isn’t converting, then it’s not adding value. The Conversions reporting tool allows you to see where these conversions are coming from to assess what’s working and what’s not across your website. This includes:

  • Goal completions
  • Goal completion location
  • Goal value
  • Goal conversion rate
  • Total abandonment rate

Using these tools, you’ll gain a greater insight into what goals drive the value through your site. With this information, you’ll be able to redefine your strategies and see greater goal completions to help you achieve your desired results.It also allows you to see which pages are performing the best and creating the highest value for your website. That way, you can optimise these pages to increase conversions.

3. Audience Demographic Reports

With the Audience Demographic reporting tool, you’ll be able to gain valuable insight into your target audience, including:

  • Who is using your website
  • Where they’re from
  • What devices they’re on
  • What browser they’re using

Using these insights, you’ll then be able to shape your messaging accordingly. For example, if the data indicates that 30 to 40 year old women on social media are converting the highest to your website, you could make your next Facebook campaign specific to this audience. That way, you’re improving your chances of driving traffic back to your website by targeting a demographic you know will deliver results for you.

4. Device Reports

Another extremely important factor to consider when assessing your website’s performance is the devices your visitors are using. Are they using a computer? A mobile phone? A tablet? By narrowing down the most popular device used to access your site, you’ll be able to focus your efforts and deliver more concentrated campaigns moving forward. If mobile converts the highest, for example, you can test out turning desktop advertising off and using mobile only. That way, you’ll be able to concentrate your efforts here and see if there’s a noticeable difference to your conversion rate. Then you can adjust your optimisation moving forward for better results.

5. Top Conversion Pathway Reports

There are many different ways to look at data and the Top Conversion Pathway Report gives you a great insight into what channels are driving useful traffic. Allowing you to see how users are engaging with your site over multiple touch points, it gives you a better view of the customer journey to conversion and customers working down the funnel.Sometimes getting the whole story from your analytics is a work in progress. So by showing you evidence of the different methods people use to find a site it really opens eyes to the importance of using different source mediums where it might not be obvious for a varied online marketing strategy. For example, social media can be a doorway for a new user to find your brand and supports paid, organic and direct revenues. While it does have its limitations, as it can only show you the customer journey when the user is logged into the same account, it’s still a good indicator of the value of users who don’t convert straight away.

Want to make the most of your website? Get in touch with Bang Digital today. We have a wealth of knowledge helping our client’s and their website’s succeed using Google Analytics.