Google Analytics has been about since 2005 – the advantage of a quick Google search! It is a detailed tool which allows you to track behaviour on your website. There is a lot of information available on Google Analytics. You can delve down and do comparisons, put in secondary dimensions to compare traffic by device used etc. For the most part and at a top level most businesses are interested in the following:
- How many people visited their website – within a particular period
- How people got to their website – social media link, organic search, click from another website
- The most visited pages on your website
- And perhaps very important where people leave a website.
The information gleaned from Google Analytics should be reviewed regularly and should be used to help businesses focus on those tools driving traffic to the site. It should also be used to improve the users experience on a website, if there is a large exodus on the cart or check out page, then you need to check why and improve it. And of course, there is also the added benefit of integrating with other Google tools – Ads, Search Console etc.
Google Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 – GA4 for those of you that like abbreviations, are generally embedded into the header of your website code or connect through your Google Tag Manager. You do need a Gmail account to set it up or access an account that has already been setup. It’s important to note that there are different levels of users in Google Analytics. If you are the owner of the website, you would be well served to have “Administrator” access i.e. over all access, which allows you to add and remove other users.
Why are we writing about this now? For the last year or two Google has been encouraging users to move to Google Analytics 4. In the cookie-less world which we are entering & where hopefully web sites will feel less bloated or overweight, GA4 promises to work with and without cookies.
If the new cookie policy has started impacting on your traffic readings now would be a good time to consider GA4. All new accounts have the option of setting up as GA4 and so now is a good time to adopt and understand the new dashboard and measurement tools!
If you want to find out more about how to setup GA4 look no further than https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9744165?hl=en
For those of you that may not have checked your analytics in a while you can log in at https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/
Update from Google
Google Analytics 4 is our next-generation measurement solution, and is replacing Universal Analytics. On 1 July 2023, Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits. If you still rely on Universal Analytics, we recommend that you complete your move to Google Analytics 4.
For those of you who would prefer an alternative – hard to get a good one without paying check out
https://heap.io/pricing – free to a point
Updated 19/04/2022