Using Google Analytics to increase your conversions with Vicki Jakes

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Vicki Jakes who is an online marketing and website optimisation consultant helping small businesses sell more stuff via their websites. We talk all about Google Analytics and how you can learn to love your data to help you increase conversions!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

 

Google Analytics is a free tool that Google gives everyone that you can use to track activity on your website.You can then understand how many people are coming to your website, where they have come from and what content they have clicked on.Google Analytics is built by developers, for developers.Try to check your analytics weekly or just after you have run a specific campaign.The first report you should be checking on a weekly basis is the audience overview report – this will tell you how many people have come to your site.Google Analytics can detect if people have returned to your site or if they are a new user.A visit to your website is called a session – Google Analytics can tell you how many sessions per user.Pageviews is how many of your individual URLs have been viewed such as blog posts, product pages, privacy pages etc.It is important to track your page views to see how long people are staying on your site and what pages they are viewing.If you want to increase the amount of page views per customer, this could be done by making your pages more engaging and more ‘sticky’.Another way to increase the amount of time people spend on your website is to add recommendations at the bottom of blog posts to take users to other blog posts.Keep an eye on your average session duration – how long someone is spending on your website.Have a look at your mobile report – this will show the type of device users are using to access your site. Make sure you are optimising your website for where most of your traffic is coming from (mobile).Over half of all website traffic comes from mobile!Your acquisition report will tell you where your traffic has come from – search engines, other websites, and social media.Tracking where your traffic comes from is so important so you can make sure you are spending your time in the right places to drive more traffic to your website.You can see what people are looking at on your website via your behaviour report.Your website should be organic – you should be re-writing content and trying new things all the time.The only comparison for website traffic should be your own. The metrics you apply to your site are relative to the amount of effort you are driving there.You can have small traffic numbers and make a lot of money – don’t think you have to have hundreds or thousands of visitors to be successful.Landing pages are great for campaigns so you can direct your traffic to them during campaigns to convert customers.You can still track your lead page traffic by connecting any third-party providers to your Google Analytics.

 

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

 

Google Analytics helps us to validate all our marketing activities and track what is working and what is not so we can keep on improving and increasing conversions.

 

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

 

An introduction to Vicki – 09:00What is Google Analytics? – 26:59Using Google Analytics to find out who is visiting your website – 28:13How to make a website page ‘sticky’ – 33:20Using Google Analytics to find out where your website traffic has come from – 37:00Using Google Analytics to find out what people are looking at on your website – 42:50How many visitors should I be getting to my website?...

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Vicki Jakes who is an online marketing and website optimisation consultant helping small businesses sell more stuff via their websites. We talk all about Google Analytics and how you can learn to love your data to help you increase conversions!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

 

Google Analytics is a free tool that Google gives everyone that you can use to track activity on your website.You can then understand how many people are coming to your website, where they have come from and what content they have clicked on.Google Analytics is built by developers, for developers.Try to check your analytics weekly or just after you have run a specific campaign.The first report you should be checking on a weekly basis is the audience overview report – this will tell you how many people have come to your site.Google Analytics can detect if people have returned to your site or if they are a new user.A visit to your website is called a session – Google Analytics can tell you how many sessions per user.Pageviews is how many of your individual URLs have been viewed such as blog posts, product pages, privacy pages etc.It is important to track your page views to see how long people are staying on your site and what pages they are viewing.If you want to increase the amount of page views per customer, this could be done by making your pages more engaging and more ‘sticky’.Another way to increase the amount of time people spend on your website is to add recommendations at the bottom of blog posts to take users to other blog posts.Keep an eye on your average session duration – how long someone is spending on your website.Have a look at your mobile report – this will show the type of device users are using to access your site. Make sure you are optimising your website for where most of your traffic is coming from (mobile).Over half of all website traffic comes from mobile!Your acquisition report will tell you where your traffic has come from – search engines, other websites, and social media.Tracking where your traffic comes from is so important so you can make sure you are spending your time in the right places to drive more traffic to your website.You can see what people are looking at on your website via your behaviour report.Your website should be organic – you should be re-writing content and trying new things all the time.The only comparison for website traffic should be your own. The metrics you apply to your site are relative to the amount of effort you are driving there.You can have small traffic numbers and make a lot of money – don’t think you have to have hundreds or thousands of visitors to be successful.Landing pages are great for campaigns so you can direct your traffic to them during campaigns to convert customers.You can still track your lead page traffic by connecting any third-party providers to your Google Analytics.

 

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

 

Google Analytics helps us to validate all our marketing activities and track what is working and what is not so we can keep on improving and increasing conversions.

 

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

 

An introduction to Vicki – 09:00What is Google Analytics? – 26:59Using Google Analytics to find out who is visiting your website – 28:13How to make a website page ‘sticky’ – 33:20Using Google Analytics to find out where your website traffic has come from – 37:00Using Google Analytics to find out what people are looking at on your website – 42:50How many visitors should I be getting to my website? 48:40Should I use landing pages? 51:10

 

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

 

Check Vicki out!

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