In our daily routine we monitor several Google Analytics accounts for our clients and we can’t say it enough: Knowledge is power. How to implement and read Google Analytics at the basic level is something that is quite easy, regardless of the CMS (content management system) you are using for your website. (If you are starting check this article from Google)

However, getting what you really want to know about your website from Google Analytics, requires a more complex implementation and a bit more knowledge.

Just so we are clear on what we mean by Basic Level Implementation, when we deliver a new project this is what we include in our Basic GA Implementation Package:

Basic Google Analytics Implementation Package

1. GA Account User Setup
2. GA Basic Tracking Code Installation
   The basic GA tracking code will be populated and provided for implementation across your site.
3. Views Setup (3)
   A maximum of 3 standard views (Default, Raw/Unfiltered Test) will be created for your property
4. Basic Filters Setup (3)
   A maximum of 3 basic or common filters will be applied to your property.eg: excluding internal traffic data, filters to re-write urls to be consistent etc.
5. Basic Conversion Goals Setup (3)
   A maximum of 3 conversion goals relevant to your website will be identified & setup.
6. Funnel Setup
   Funnels will be setup & configured for applicable conversion goals.
7. GA Implementation Review
   A thorough audit will be carried out post implementation in order to verify and finalize the tracking setup to ensure accurate and reliable analytics data.
8. Integration with other Google Products
   GA will be linked to other Google Products like Google Webmasters, Adwords & Adsense if available
9. Custom Dashboard Setup (1)
   A dashboard will be setup based on your business conversion goals.

(If you can’t implement it by yourself buy the get the basic implementation package and we’ll do it for you and teach you how to read it)

Let’s face it, knowing how many visitors and how much time they spend on your website (Basic Implementation) is better than not knowing any of it, but knowing the demographic (age) their interest in your market (in-market segments) where they land( landing/entry pages) and where they exit (exit pages) your website gives you a whole different level of knowledge and power. Once you have a clear idea of those metrics you can take action to improve.

One step forward, getting to know what are the keywords and keyword phrases that convert into subscribers, leads, or paying clients gives you a whole different level of control towards your marketing spent.

Google analytics can and should also be integrated with Google Adwords which allows you to create PPC campaigns to generate visitors to your website but also to generate phone calls (inbound leads) to your sales team (Yes you can track phone-leads and exclude most calls from suppliers and job-seekers).

Also Google Analytics allows you to track the clicks and leads coming from your Mailchimp email marketing campaigns so that you know what piece of content performs best.

If you are using Worpress and a basic server package (shared server I personally like Fatcow ), you don’t have much server power so you also want to be rather careful on how you implement Google Analytics code on your pages. Why? because GA tracking code generates dynamic calls and dynamic calls require server power every time a visitor display your website. This means that the more dynamic calls you have the more time it will take a visitor to fully load and display your website. The equation is very straight forward Higher Page Load time Lower amount of visitors and often lower conversion. If your website is loading in more than 4.0sec you need to act now (test it with this tool it’s free Pingdom SpeedTest)