Google Analytics is one of the most common tools to use when it comes to tracking your website metrics. If you want to know how the site is performing, you can just look at Google Analytics.
Every now and then, you should undertake a Google Analytics audit. Why? You want to be sure you’re getting reliable data. The audit ensures everything is being tracked and measured correctly. It also presents an opportunity to correct your metrics.
Conducting an audit can also reveal some interesting insights. Just what can you learn from a Google Analytics audit?
If you just dropped the Google Analytics code on your webpages, you may not have ticked some of the boxes you should have. Getting the right data hinges on having the right settings.
This is why a Google Analytics audit can provide so many insights into the quality of your data. One particularly important reveal is the breakdown of your traffic.
Take an e-commerce site for example. If you work with gateway payment providers like PayPal, Google Analytics might be tracking traffic coming back to your site as new referrals. If you use several subdomains, your site might also be self-referring.
This can inflate your traffic statistics, giving you an overly optimistic view of how many people are visiting your site.
Another common issue a Google Analytics audit uncovers is incorrect e-commerce data. Your transactions may not be reporting to Google Analytics correctly.
Undertaking the audit not only uncovers the problem but also provides you with a chance to correct it.
Implementing Google Analytics seems fairly simple, but you may have done it wrong.
You dropped the code into the designated place on the page and watched the data roll in. However, the tracking code itself can cause some issues. Google updates tracking codes from time to time, so you may have an outdated code on a page or you may even “lose” the code. In these cases, statistics won’t be reported correctly.
Other issues include incorrect placement of the code and duplicate codes. If a code is duplicated on any page, it will artificially inflate statistics.
The importance of setting goals for your website cannot be understated. What’s the point of tracking anything if you’re not working towards some kind of goal?
It’s possible for goals to be set improperly in Google Analytics. Goal tracking can also be compromised. An audit can reveal any issues here, which could tell a very different story about how close or far you are from achieving your goals.
Another interesting insight you can glean from an audit is which pages on your site are converting. You may even be able to identify high-conversion keywords and phrases.
With this information in hand, you can adjust your content strategy to include more of this type of content.
A Google Analytics audit can also give you some insight into just how well your filters are working. You may think you’re getting accurate data, but one or more of your filters are completely off or configured incorrectly.
Conducting the audit gives you the chance to rework filters to get more reliable data.
Google Analytics doesn’t need to be overly complicated, but you might not be using it as effectively as you thought you were. An audit could show you just how unreliable your data is and how you can improve it.
Do you need a helping hand with Google Analytics? Get started with an audit by consulting the experts.