{"id":2139,"date":"2021-07-01T13:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T17:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/?p=2139"},"modified":"2022-06-06T01:58:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T05:58:37","slug":"what-is-google-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/2021\/07\/what-is-google-analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Google Analytics?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/analytics.google.com\/analytics\/web\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Analytics<\/a>&nbsp;is a free web analytics service provided by Google, allowing you to monitor the performance of your website, gaining valuable insights to improve your user experience for your customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This popular Google marketing platform has been around for years, a staple for many SEO specialists, but equally as popular for those managing their own websites. Oh, and guess what? It\u2019s free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, with that being said, this blog post will discuss Google Analytics in more detail, including what it is, the different statistics and insights the platform offers, and why you should definitely add this tool to your arsenal if you haven\u2019t already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-track-popular-metrics\">Track popular metrics&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To begin with, Google Analytics allows you to track popular metrics, including traffic to your website (and the sources of this traffic), session duration, bounce rate, active users, and referrals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Understanding these metrics allows you to see what is working on your site, and what isn\u2019t working quite so well. Over time, tracking these metrics allows you to make changes where necessary, improving user experience and thus increasing leads and potentially sales, if selling products (digital or physical).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-gain-insight-on-individual-pages\">Gain insight on individual pages&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Second, when using the popular marketing tool, you can also gain insight into individual pages. For example, if you have one page that is performing particularly poorly, then you can analyze this in more detail. You may find the session duration is low as a result of slow loading times, or perhaps, your content just needs a refresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For maximum insight, you should pair your analytical efforts with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/2021\/04\/28\/what-is-google-search-console\/\">Google search console<\/a>, broadening your understanding and allowing you to better understand your website and each individual page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-better-understand-your-audience-with-google-analytics\">Better understand your audience with Google Analytics&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, Google Analytics allows you to better understand your audience. For example, you can see where your traffic comes from, including what country, what devices your audience uses, and even what time of day is most popular for those visiting your website (alongside many other analytics).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Begin using Google Analytics today and see improvements to your website tomorrow, thanks to the powerful insights available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google Analytics&nbsp;is a free web analytics service provided by Google, allowing you to monitor the performance of your website, gaining valuable insights to improve your user experience for your customers&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-website-optimization"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2141,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions\/2141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jarodthornton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}