Three Useful Google Analytics Reports Your Small Business Needs to See Now

Understanding what is happening with their company’s online presence is one of the biggest challenges small business owners face. Often owners spend more time doing administrative tasks like updating their websites and managing digital marketing instead of doing the work they set out to do when they first opened the doors of their small business.

But there are a few useful Google Analytics reports that can alleviate this problem.

First, What are Google Analytics Reports and Dashboard?

A custom report is data gathered into one view on a Google Analytics dashboard. These reports allow you to choose specific information and decide how it is displayed on a dashboard for quick referencing.

Google provides excellent information about reports and how to set them up in its resources available online here.

Dashboards can also be customized. You can learn how to set those up here, or simply download the following dashboard and report views provided in the sections below.

Yahoo Small Business offers a simple set of reports here if you don’t care to dig too deeply into Google Analytics. But, as professional marketers, we do think it’s important for small business owners to understand their online presence.

Know Your Customer

Every marketer will tell you knowing your customer (or desired customer) is the ultimate starting place for a solid marketing plan. With Google Analytics, you can gather critical information in order to understand not only who your website visitors are but where they are, how they found you, and what they do on your website.

Customer information to track should include:

• Demographic
• Location
• Source (how did they arrive on your site)
• Device (desktop or mobile)

Here is a dashboard with custom customer reports that will help you: 70 Facts About Visitors by Dashboard Junkie

Knowing and understanding this information can help you better tailor your products, advertising messaging, customer service techniques, and online marketing efforts to your customer.

Verify What Works

So much time is wasted reinventing the small business marketing wheel. Small business owners, because they are usually not professional internet marketers, often spend a lot of time trying to figure out what tactics work to draw customer attention online. But there’s a useful GA report for that.

Some of the top digital marketing information to track should include:

• Pageviews – What pages get the most visits?
• Keywords – Google blocks much of this information, but some are still available.
• Behavior – Where did visitors enter, navigate and exit the website.
• Sources and Devices are still important, as well.

Find What’s Broken

It is worth your time to have a website that is as near-flawless as possible. The ease with which your potential customers can access, navigate and interact with your site will directly impact whether they convert into customers. Also, the efficiency of and speed that your website loads on a device will, in part, impact how Google ranks your website in searches.

Some of the information to monitor should include:

• Bounce Rate
• Time on Page
• Bad Internal Link
• 404 Page Visits
• Site Speed

Reviewing reports that can identify opportunities for improvement should be regularly monitored. Use these views to improve your site: Site Performance Dashboard by eConsultancy.

Don’t spend any more time trying to figure out what is happening to your business online. Use these useful Google Analytics reports to better understand your customer, your content, and your site as a whole.