5 Essential Google Analytics Reports to Improve Your Website Performance

With the rise of online shopping and research, websites needed a way to track user data. Google Analytics was created to do just that. With a tracking code in place, all user interactions can be tracked and vital information collected. You can compare current data with historical information, view your site's performance, view your users' demographics, and even how the changes you've made have affected traffic. It's also easy to track goals, as you can customize the conversions you want Google to record. To help improve your website, here are the 6 most important Google Analytics reports you should use. An increase in new visitors to your site is a good sign that you're generating interest in your business and expanding the reach of your brand. An increase in returning visitors is an even better sign of the health of your website, as it means that users are interested enough in the products and services you offer to return. The mobile performance report shows you how well your site is optimized for mobile devices and where you need to make improvements. The traffic acquisition report will tell you all this and more. Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 and digital marketing evangelist at Google, created this report to solve this exact problem. To prevent that from happening, you can create this custom report, which allows you to analyze by traffic source. It shows the actual navigation pattern through pages, in a way that is easier to analyze than the Behavior Flow report, which can be complex and even misleading. You should use the New vs. Returning reports to analyze the potential of different types of visitors to your website and how they convert into your customers. This is an excellent report to understand which parts of your site are leading users to your most valuable product pages, what are those conversion numbers, how many paths & pages were traveled, etc. The Objectives Overview report makes it easy to analyze whether the organization's objectives are being met and how other areas could be improved. Andrew Kolodgie of The House Guys adds: “Depending on where you are in the lifecycle of your website, certain Google Analytics reports will provide more or less value. Google Analytics offers a wealth of reports and tools that allow you to discover everything imaginable about how visitors interact with your website, but these four reports will allow you to create a solid foundation of understanding that will help you serve customers and improve your business. You need to take the time to show your customers how to use GA, how to find these reports, and read the data appropriately.