How to use Google Analytics correctly for your website
With Google Analytics you can find out whether your website is successful. This short guide shows you how to set up and use the analysis tool correctly.
Set up Google Analytics correctly
- Sign in to Google Analytics.
- You must provide an account name, your website, and the industry category of your website on the registration page. Choose your desired tracking method. "Universal Analytics" gives you access to the latest functions, but "Classic Analytics" is completely sufficient for many purposes. Click Get Tracking ID below.
- Once you have confirmed the data protection regulations, the administration profile of your "Google Analytics" account opens.
- Under "Tracking information" (this is the start page after successful registration) you will find out your tracking ID directly. Below you will also find the code snippet, which you copy into your website code to have your page analyzed in the future.
- Do not change the snippet code. Copy the snippet and paste it on every website you want to watch. If you insert the code directly before the closing tag, "Google Analytics" also registers short visits by users. However, if you want to shorten the loading times, then put the code at the bottom of the page. Upload the changed files to your server.
- On the "Tracking Information" page, the tracking status changes from "not installed" to "installed" immediately. You should receive information about your website a few hours later.
Google Analytics - the most important functions
You can use Google Analytics in a variety of ways. We describe a few functions.
- The characteristics of your visitors are analyzed under "Reports" -> "Target group". At this point you will find out whether your website is being accessed more and more or which countries your users come from. Server data forwarding can mean that you frequently register visitors from America. You can also get many users from Ireland or Holland through public WLANs (e.g. in Internet cafes).
- Under "Administration" -> "Property" -> "Settings for social content" you can define properties that do not contain your Google Analytics code (e.g. your Facebook or YouTube profile). This is how you can do social tracking. This tells you which social interaction was performed how often and by which people.
- Via "Reports" -> "Radar" you can set notifications. Then you will be notified of major changes regarding certain measured values. Among other things, Google Analytics can draw your attention to new access patterns to your website.
- Under "Reports" -> "Behavior", also observe the behavioral flow of your users. In this way you will learn how users are made aware of your website and how you interact with it.
The best tips for Google Analytics
- If you suspect that some pages of your website are not correctly integrated into your Google Analytics profile, then use the "Google Analytics Debugger" to go on troubleshooting.
- Under "Reports" -> "Dashboards" -> "Private" -> "My Dashboard" you can arrange all important analysis instruments or graphs at a glance and thus better present the data. If you add the analysis instruments via "+ Add widget", you can, for example, display a pie chart that shows the number of visitors by month.
- Under "Manage" -> "Data view" -> "Destinations" you can set up so-called "Destinations". For example, a goal might be that a user plays a video on your site - so you can see how successfully you have set up your site for a goal.
- You can compare your measured values with other measured values. To do this, enter two different measured values in the overviews (eg under "Behavior" -> "Overview") under "compared to".
Another practical tip tells you which alternatives to Google Analytics are available to you.