Using Google Analytics to really measure your KPIs

Google Analytics can give you the information you need to objectively measure your website’s KPIs. You can use them to monitor, analyze, and optimize user behaviors. But there is so much information available, what do you really need to know?

Let’s go through some of the metrics and KPIs that can help you monitor and strategize to achieve your marketing and website goals.

Sessions and Users

This tells you how your website traffic develops and is considered a fundamental basis for monitoring. It indicates the number of sessions and users in the considered period. Each visitor at the outset is referred to as a user. Then, there is a distinction made between new users and returning visitors. Additionally, each user who visits the website also generates a session and cuts off after 30 minutes of inactivity. Monitoring this activity is the cornerstone of all further analysis.

New and Returning Visitors

This is about how often users return to the website. This is useful as these two user groups often differ significantly in their website behavior. As a general rule, returning visitors already have an increased interest in the website content or brand and can be guided to the desired target actions with the help of dynamic, individualized content. You can analyze the behavior of new and returning visitors in more detail to gain valuable insights on how to improve the performance of the website. With the benefit of remarketing, you can increase the number of returning visitors.

Bounce Rate

This describes the percentage of session sin, which a single page on the website was visited. The bounce rate is an excellent indicator of whether the user finds the content desirable and worthy to explore. If this is not the case, the visitor often leaves the website without further interaction and bounces. A low bounce rate usually correlates with a higher average session duration and a higher number of pages viewed per session.

Goal Conversion Rate

A conversion is the execution of the desired target action by the website visitor – online purchase, newsletter subscription, or contact registration. It is possible to create a maximum of 20 target actions that can be tracked from the time they are made. You can analyze them from different viewpoints, such as geolocations, product categories, or landing pages.

Time on Page

The time on page reveals how long visitors have, on average, remained on an individual page or URL. Like the bounce rate, it is an excellent indicator of the quality of the traffic on a page. It signifies how well the visitor’s needs are met. You can see the average of all pages and segregate for the individual pages to quickly identify the most valuable content for the users on the website.

Average Page Load Time

The average page load time or speed is undoubtedly a critical success factor for your website performance. Users click off the site when there are long load times. Search engines factor in load time when ranking for organic searches. Short mobile load times are essential for success in the ever-increasing market of using phones to access content and shopping. Measure the data volume to optimize loading times. To truly optimize this KPI, make sure you analyze the page speed for individual pages and countries in detail.

Organic vs. Paid Session

If you have a high amount of organic sessions, it suggests you have a good SEO focus. If you have a higher paid session, this indicates that your traffic is through search engine advertising (SEA). It’s interesting to compare the number of clicks (organic traffic) and Google Ads (paid traffic) to see what is working and what isn’t. You can play around with your SEO and SEA to monitor any changes in the traffic.

Average Session Duration

This can indicate and assess the quality of the generated traffic. These figures can be separated into organic and paid sessions.  It gives you a better indication of what strategies are working (the longer the session and lower bounce rate – the higher quality of user and probability of conversion).

Top Search Queries

A direct comparison of the most frequent organic and paid search queries or keywords can lead to valuable insights. To get the most out of this indicator, compare and analyze the most common organic and paid searches in detail. But be aware you have to link your Google Analytics account to Google Ads and the Google Search Console to obtain the search queries data directly. This is something you may need help with.

There you have it, a quick and easy guide to some of the more critical Google Analytics data to help you monitor, and measure your KPIs.

Why not chat with us now, and we can set you up with a low cost, high converting website ready to go – complete with Google Analytics to easily measure your KPIs for your site. All you need to do is sit back and watch the money roll in.