Increasingly intense competition in the digital era makes business people have to rack their brains so that their business does not get evicted and continues to exist in the market. One way to maintain business continuity is to create a qualified promotion strategy. This strategy can be in the form of digital marketing or the use of SEO services.
But Eerzedka Friends need to know that Digital Marketing and SEO Optimization through the WordPress SEO plugin are not enough. Tools are needed to monitor the performance of campaigns that are being and have been run. Well, one of the reliable tools for website owners in helping manage and monitor campaign performance is Google Analytics.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics at a glance, this tool is a software made by Google that is used to monitor and analyze website performance. Google Analytics works to collect data from users of a website through browser cookies. Because this tool is made by Google, it is very easy to combine it with other Google tools such as Google Search Console, Google Data Studio, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, and others.
Then is the position of Google Analytics on the sustainability of the website really important? So, to answer this question, let's take a look at the discussion in this article!
Why is analytics important for websites?
Currently Google Analytics has become a very popular tool and has been used by more than 27 million websites. Want to know the reason why so many websites use Google Analytics? Come on, see more in the discussion below!
1. Make it easier to implement marketing funnels
For Eerzedka Friends who don't know about the Marketing Funnel, here's a little explanation. Marketing Funnel is a concept that describes various processes and stages from customers before they finally buy products on our sales website.
The term often associated with the Marketing Funnel is the customer journey. By understanding the customer journey, it will be easier for the marketing team to determine the next action plan to increase sales conversions.
Through Google Analytics, we can see the value of various marketing-related metrics such as new users, pageviews, daily active users, pages / sessions, CTR, and others.
The following will describe a few sample study cases so that Erzedka Friends can understand more. For example a financial company obtains data from Google Analytics as follows:
- The number of registered users is 410,000 in 2021 and 250,000 in 2020.
- The number of active users in 2021 is 70,000 and in 2020 is 90,000.
- The number of phone verified users in 2021 and 2020 is 294,000 and 207,000.
- The number of request order users in 2021 was 118,000 while in 2020 there were 109,000.
So, from the data obtained through Google Analytics, the marketing team will then analyze the data using the Marketing Funnel concept. Like a design visualization below.
From the funnel above, it's easier for the marketing team to read that request orders are the process that loses the most customers. Most customers choose to leave the website and do not continue the transaction after going through the request order process. Now, by understanding this, it will be easier to determine the next steps to prevent user loss.
2. Make it easier to find out the User Flow of Website Visitors
Apart from helping to read and understand the user funnel, it turns out that the reason a website needs Google Analytics is to find out user flow. This user flow is very useful in reading the flow of a visitor's journey when stopping at a website. Which pages are more frequently visited by users can also be known.
For example, from the user flow that is read through Google Analytics, it is known that visitors are used to stopping at the testimonial page first before they visit the product purchase page, then a strategy that can be taken is to place a link to the testimonial page on social media.
That way, your brand will not be impressed to promote openly. But to be honest, placing a link to the website's testimonial page on social media can increase sales conversions. Because visitors often stop by the testimonial page first before deciding to shop.
3. Know the Value of User Retention
If the meaning of Churn Rate is the percentage of users who decide to unsubscribe from a brand or company, then the Retention Rate is the opposite.
Retention Rate describes the number of users who remain loyal to use your product. If the Retention Rate is high, it can be ascertained if the promotion strategy is successful. Then how do you find out the value of User Retention?
Google Analytics has a metric called “User Loss”. This metric represents the number of users who have not visited the website in a long time. By comparing the value of user loss and new users at a certain time period, the User Retention figure will be known easily. Therefore, websites need Google Analytics to monitor User Retention.
4. Easier to Distinguish Between Loyal Users and Not
The next reason why websites need Google Analytics is related to Loyal Users. This refers because Google Analytics has a metric called Returning User. The Returning User metric is able to provide an overview of how many visitors visit the website and then return in the next time period.
The Returning User metric in Google Analytics is able to perfectly define Loyal Users. So by monitoring the growth of Returning Users, a company can also assess how many Loyal Users it has and what strategies are to maintain them.
5. Connected with Google Ads and Search Console
One of the advantages possessed by Google Analytics and highly favored by digital marketers is that it is connected to Google Ads and Search Console. So you can apply the adage "once rowed, two or three islands exceeded".
Because by using Google Analytics, apart from observing digital marketing performance and user flow, you can also observe the performance of Google Ads and keywords in Search Console. Companies will find it easier to prevent SEO mistakes and perform On Page SEO optimization.
6. Can Connect with Firebase
The next reason why websites need Google Analytics is because it can be easily connected to Firebase. Firebase is a useful Google service to make it easier for developers to grow their business. Through the various advantages of Firebase, such as predicting, forecasting, and cloud messaging, companies really need this one tool.
Well, Google Analytics users certainly don't need to worry because Firebase can connect easily without going through intermediaries. Very interesting, right?
7. Connect Easily with Google Data Studio for Data Visualization Needs
Apart from Google Ads, Search Console, and Firebase, it turns out that Google Analytics can also be connected to Google Data Studio, you know! For Eerzedka Friends who are new to the world of data, Google Data Studio is a free visualization tool provided by Google.
Apart from Google Analytics, actually Google Data Studio can also be connected to various other types of databases such as BigQuery, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Google Cloud Storage, to Microsoft SQL Server.
8. Can Provide Various Insights for Companies
To develop a business, of course, the right branding, promotion and user acquisition strategies are needed. But it will be in vain if the strategy that has been implemented is not monitored and re-evaluated.
Therefore, every certain period of time (once a month or once a quarter) the company needs an insight in the form of monitoring results on the campaign performance analysis that has been carried out.
Well, one of the advantages of Google Analytics that can answer these needs is to provide insights in various segments automatically as shown in the image below.
By capturing data through Google UTM which is attached to the tracking of each campaign, Google Analytics can create insights for business needs. Like the "Demographics" insight to find out the location with the most users to the age of the users. Then there is the "User Acquisition" insight to find out the comparison of revenue that companies get from Organic (SEO) and paid campaigns (paid search or FB Ads).
In addition, there is also an insight "Traffic Analysis" which is useful for knowing the monthly trend of the increase in website visitors. There is also an "E-commerce" insight specifically provided for business website owners to monitor top products by revenue, revenue trends, and others.
9. Data from Google Analytics can be Converted into Various Formats Easily
The reason the website needs Google Analytics next is because data sourced from Google Analytics can be easily converted in various formats. This data can be converted into Excel, CSV, Google Sheets, and PDF formats.
10. Know the Performance of Core Web Vitals
One of the other advantages of Google Analytics is that it provides the need for analysis of web vitals. Web Vitals is actually a combination of various indicator metrics determined by Google to measure website performance.
Core Web Vitals can be a very important reference for developing websites. In Google Analytics, you can find metrics for Web Vitals on the Behavior – Event – Top Event menu. Metrics from Web Vitals that can be monitored through Google Analytics include CLS, FCP, LCP, and FID.
Actually there are other tools that you can use to measure the performance of Web Vitals. The tool is GTMetrix. But GTMetrix can only be used to measure web vitals metrics and does not cover other digital marketing metrics. That is the reason why many websites need Google Analytics rather than other tools.
11. Provide Metrics Library
Moving on to the next reason why a website needs Google Analytics, namely because it is equipped with a metrics library. The growing popularity of Google Analytics has made many website owners flock to learn this tool.
But don't worry, because Google Analytics provides complete and easy-to-understand resources or libraries for learning digital marketing metrics. Eerzedka Friends can find library features in the latest version of Google Analytics, GA4.
12. Make it easier to make visitor segmentation
Visitor segmentation is very important in a business because it is influential in determining the target market and the success of the campaign. For example, a futsal shoe company, of course, has a target market for men aged less than 50 years who like and are active in sports. So, to ensure that the promotion strategy is right on target, a user segmentation strategy is needed.
To be able to segment website visitors, at least Erzedka Friends requires some data such as Users Behavior (Pages / Session, Peak Hour, Best Day, Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, and others), Users Demographic (Age, Gender, and Location), and Technographic (Device Category).
13. Knowing the company's goals and achievements
The following point is one of the important facts why websites need Google Analytics. When a business company launches a particular campaign, the marketing team and data team must work together to monitor campaign performance. If the performance of the campaign is still below the goals that have been set, it is certain that the strategy being implemented is less effective.
So the company needs to overhaul the vision, mission and pain points of the core value of the product. As well as having to redefine marketing strategies that are considered effective, efficient, and capable of being used to achieve goals.
In the following, a study case explanation will be presented so that Eerzedka Friends understand more about Goals in Google Analytics. For example, a company has a target to get 1000 new users in April. So, at the end of March, companies can set up Google Analytics with goals of 1,000 new users in one month.
At the end of April or early May, the company monitors the achievement of goals through Google Analytics and finds out whether targets have been achieved 100%, over-achieved, or even under-achieved.
14. Knowing the Website Pages Most Visited by Users
The last reason why websites need Google Analytics is because it can be used to find out the popular pages that are most frequently visited by users. Google Analytics provides various metrics to measure this, such as the metric Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, Avg. Session Duration, and Avg. Time on Page.
By knowing the popular pages most visited by users, companies can monetize by offering advertisements.
Conclusion
Every business website owner must have a dream that their business will always grow and sales conversions continue to increase. Various methods have been used, from using SEO services, digital marketing, paid promotions (Facebook Ads, Google Ads), to endorsement by influencers.
Laymen in the website field often study hard to understand WordPress SEO for beginners so that their brand awareness and loyal users increase. However, it needs to be understood that all these efforts will feel useless if they are not balanced with efforts to monitor the performance of the campaigns and promotions that are being carried out.
Therefore, Google Analytics is here to answer this problem. Google Analytics is a software made by Google that is used to monitor and analyze website performance.
Some of the reasons why many websites choose to use Google Analytics are making it easier to implement marketing funnels, knowing user flow from website visitors, knowing the value of user retention, making it easier to distinguish between loyal and non-loyal users, connecting with Google ads, search console, firebase, and so on. google datastudio.
In addition, Google Analytics can also provide various insights for companies, find out core web vitals performance, convert data into various formats, provide metrics libraries, make it easier to segment visitors, find out company goals and achievements, and find out which website pages are most visited by users. .