I love the Internet because it has amazing tools for everyone. If you have the desire to research a subject, any search engine will dig up more than enough results to whet your appetite. Often the information you seek is complex and you can be overwhelmed with results. It’s not that the answer you seek doesn’t exist, but it can be buried in too much noise. There aren’t enough hours in the day to sift through all of the data and it’s frustrating trying to find the right information.
When there is too much data and not enough insights, Google Analytics is a tool that can help solve that problem. Google Analytics provides website owners the tool to seek actionable insights from digital properties to make smart decisions that will improve your business. If you haven’t considered installing a web traffic tool to track visitor behavior on your business website here are some reasons why Google Analytics might be the tool for you.
It’s Free
One of the reasons Google Analytics is the go-to web analytic tool of choice for most website owners is the fact that it is free and it plays so well with other Google tools. If you use Google Adsense or Google Adwords, Google Analytics integrates with those utilities quite seamlessly. Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics tool installed on websites today. On their most recent public usage report, they said Google Analytics is installed on more than 10 million websites today.
There are some limitations to the free Google Analytics implementation if your site exceeds 10 million hits. With traffic like that, Google can’t promise that they will keep track of the overflow. Google does offer an enterprise solution at $150,000 a year with a 1 billion hit limit. For most business website owners, the free solution will be more than plenty to track your website data.
It’s Widely Supported
One of the advantages of using the most popular web analytics tool is that you essentially have unlimited resources for help and support. If you’re new to Google Analytics using the Google Analytics Learn Center is a great way to get started. If you have any specific questions about the tool, Google also has a great community of users to help answer any questions that you may have.
If you feel up for the challenge you can even take a test to be Google Analytics Individual Qualified. The test costs $50, and is made up of 70 questions with a 90 minute time limit to complete. You can pause the test anytime as long as you complete it within 120 hours of beginning. The test can be a little challenging, especially for beginners. Google Analytics Test is a website that provides a free training resource to prepare you for the official qualification test.
It’s Frequently Updated
Google Analytics is a product that is essential to Google’s business model. In the past year, Google Analytics has launched numerous new features which are often announced and documented on their blog. In addition to product updates from Google, there are a plethora of channels to receive Google Analytics updates. Below is a list of their social media accounts you should follow to keep current on analytics.
- Google Analytics Google+ Page – The Google Analytics Google+ page often features tips and tricks from well-known web analytic professionals. If you’re unsure who to follow in the analytic space, they often mention people who are leading the industry.
- Google Analytics Twitter Page – If you don’t have time to read long articles and prefer tips on the go, following Google Analytics’ Twitter account is the way to go. The analytics team tweets tips and trends in bite- sized messages a few times a day.
- Google Analytics Facebook Page – For those who spend a lot of time on Facebook you can also “like” their Facebook page. I find that they don’t update as often as their other social networks, but it is nice to follow the page as an additional channel to stay current.
- Google Analytics on Pinterest – A picture is worth a thousand words. Even though Google Analytics doesn’t have an official Google Analytics Pinterest account, people have pinned some amazing information about it in graphical format.
