Passed on 22 May, 2025
3. Google Analytics
Analytics tools provide loads of data, but they don’t always give easy answers. Dive a little deeper into Google Analytics to understand user behaviour and site performance.
✅ Learning objectivesBy the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:Understand what kinds of data web analytics can give you about search traffic.Evaluate trends in your search traffic.Discover opportunities to make your website more relevant to searchers.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:
Understand what kinds of data web analytics can give you about search traffic.
Evaluate trends in your search traffic.
Discover opportunities to make your website more relevant to searchers.
Web analytics
If you are curious about how your website is performing in search results, Google Analytics can help you find out! Google Analytics is a valuable tool for understanding user behaviour. It can help you to monitor organic and paid searches and can also help you to find out more about your customers based on your website’s search traffic.
Introduction to Google Analytics
Google Analytics gives you insights into both organic and paid search performance, helping you improve your site’s visibility and make your advertising campaigns more effective. Before we dive in, take 5 minutes to watch this introduction to Google Analytics.
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Transcript
Transcript
Know more about your website
Search engines are an important source of traffic for most websites. This means it’s essential to adapt your website to help bring in more visitors.Web analytics can give us insights on search engines and answer questions like…
Web analytics can give us insights on search engines and answer questions like…
Web analytics can give us insights on search engines and answer questions like…
How much traffic is my website getting?
Traffic is the number of visitors to your website.You’ll want to know if you’re getting more or less of that traffic from search engines, including both organic and paid campaigns, over time.
You’ll want to know if you’re getting more or less of that traffic from search engines, including both organic and paid campaigns, over time.
You’ll want to know if you’re getting more or less of that traffic from search engines, including both organic and paid campaigns, over time.
What are visitors doing on my website?
Analytics can let you know what visitors to your website interact with most or least.It’s important to understand what all of those searchers actually do after they get to your website.
It’s important to understand what all of those searchers actually do after they get to your website.
It’s important to understand what all of those searchers actually do after they get to your website.
How can I improve my website?
And most importantly, how can you improve your website to ensure both organic and paid campaigns are effectively bringing in visitors who are interested in your products and services?Use the tools you have learnt throughout the modules to analyse where your website may need improvement.
Use the tools you have learnt throughout the modules to analyse where your website may need improvement.
Use the tools you have learnt throughout the modules to analyse where your website may need improvement.
Organic traffic from search engines
No matter which web analytics tool you use, you can track how many visitors come to your website from different search engines through organic (unpaid) search results – unpaid listings that appear naturally based on relevance.
Agency access
If you’re paying an agency or consultant to maintain your website, ask them for access to your website’s analytics.When you have access, one of the first things you’ll want to check out is how your traffic from search engines is trending over time.
When you have access, one of the first things you’ll want to check out is how your traffic from search engines is trending over time.
When you have access, one of the first things you’ll want to check out is how your traffic from search engines is trending over time.
Digging deeper
Whether your search engine traffic is growing or slowing, it’s important to understand why. For example, high traffic with a low conversion rate could indicate a problem.It’s important to analyse data to uncover what’s working and where there’s room to improve.
It’s important to analyse data to uncover what’s working and where there’s room to improve.
It’s important to analyse data to uncover what’s working and where there’s room to improve.
Google Analytics
If you use Google Analytics, you can learn which keywords people typed into Google to find your site. This data comes from Google Search Console, which integrates with Google Analytics to provide deeper insights.
Guest house scenario
Imagine you’re running a guest house. You might see that people are searching for things you wouldn’t have expected, like ‘luxury guest houses in Glasgow’ or ‘cheap Glasgow bed and breakfast’ to find your website.
What are searchers searching for?
This insight helps you understand what visitors are really looking for, allowing you to create content and pages that meet their needs. It can also guide paid campaigns by helping you target the right keywords and audiences. Tools like Google Trends reveal broader search patterns to refine your strategy.
Declining website traffic
Let’s say you’re noticing that you used to be getting more traffic for a certain search term, but that traffic has been gradually declining.What can you do to turn things around?
What can you do to turn things around?
What can you do to turn things around?
Increased website traffic
What about the opposite scenario? Maybe you’ve found that you’re getting more traffic from people searching for keywords around that luxury guest house theme.
Not all traffic is good traffic
You need to make sure that your conversion rates are in balance with your traffic. What we mean by this is that a high traffic rate (lots of visits) and low conversion rate (not many sales) will give you a high bounce rate (lots of visitors leaving your website). Understand if this may be negatively impacting your site. This will be covered in more detail later in this lesson.
How Google Analytics uses AI
With AI-powered tools in Google Analytics, you can get fast answers to questions about your data, predict user behaviour, and tap into powerful modelling capabilities.
Built-in automation
Discover what Google Analytics can do by checking out the features listed below.
Predictive capabilities
Google Analytics uses your data to predict user actions, like purchases or when users might stop engaging with your site. These insights can help improve both organic content strategies and paid campaigns by identifying high-value audiences and optimising performance.
Proactive insights
Analytics spots trends, changes, and opportunities in your data and highlights them for you, so you can take action faster.
Respecting privacy
Privacy-safe modelling fills gaps in the customer journey using consented user data. This gives you a clearer view of customer behaviour and conversions without relying on personally identifiable information (PII), helping reduce security and compliance risks.
Answers to your questions
Use the search bar to ask questions in plain language and quickly find the data, reports, or insights you need.
The importance of web analytics
Once you’ve improved your site content, you can use web analytics to show you the impact of your work. For example, if your content is relevant to searches about guest houses, Google Analytics can show you what content is resulting in more visitors reaching your website.
More than traffic
While tracking the number of visitors from search is important, it’s only one piece of the puzzle.
Even more important than the amount of traffic you’re getting is the quality of the traffic that you’re getting.You don’t want to attract lots of people to your website if nobody’s going to book a stay at your guest house.
You don’t want to attract lots of people to your website if nobody’s going to book a stay at your guest house.
You don’t want to attract lots of people to your website if nobody’s going to book a stay at your guest house.
Conversions
Explore what drives conversions, whether from organic or paid sources. Paid campaigns can amplify traffic, and web analytics helps identify how these visitors engage and convert.In this case, by convert, we mean the number of visitors who become customers.
In this case, by convert, we mean the number of visitors who become customers.
In this case, by convert, we mean the number of visitors who become customers.
Low engagement
Imagine you’re getting more traffic, but visitors aren’t engaging with your content, not signing up for your email newsletter, or not reserving their rooms.You’ll want to investigate why.
You’ll want to investigate why.
You’ll want to investigate why.
Web analytics
You can use web analytics to identify the problem. Visitors are landing on your homepage and it doesn’t have essential information about location or booking options.This means you now know where to apply your SEO efforts so you get more traffic and more of that traffic becomes your customers.
This means you now know where to apply your SEO efforts so you get more traffic and more of that traffic becomes your customers.
This means you now know where to apply your SEO efforts so you get more traffic and more of that traffic becomes your customers.
SEO efforts
Web analytics are a great way to start when you want to boost your SEO effort performance. They help you measure traffic from search engines, where you might be able to make improvements and the impact of changes you’re making to your website.
Paid search campaigns
Paid search campaigns can complement your SEO efforts by targeting specific audiences with ads. Use web analytics to track the performance of your campaigns, analyse conversions, and refine your ad spend for better results.
Get set to research
To give you some inspiration for the activity, read this article from Google’s blog, The Keyword:Four ways Google Analytics delivers actionable insights for your business
Four ways Google Analytics delivers actionable insights for your business
Four ways Google Analytics delivers actionable insights for your business
✅ ActivityWhen it comes to metrics, every business and every individual will have different focus areas they want to explore.Take five minutes to make some notes about the metrics that interest you.Check the items off as you go.Consider which metrics will be the most beneficial for you to learn more about. Will you start by exploring your conversions? Your revenue? Your website visitors’ engagement times? Consider your options and make a shortlist of your top three metrics to explore later.Once you’ve identified which metrics to explore, make a note of what these metrics tell you. Are there any other metrics which would complement them to give you a more complete picture?
Activity
When it comes to metrics, every business and every individual will have different focus areas they want to explore.Take five minutes to make some notes about the metrics that interest you.
Take five minutes to make some notes about the metrics that interest you.
Take five minutes to make some notes about the metrics that interest you.
Consider which metrics will be the most beneficial for you to learn more about. Will you start by exploring your conversions? Your revenue? Your website visitors’ engagement times? Consider your options and make a shortlist of your top three metrics to explore later.
Once you’ve identified which metrics to explore, make a note of what these metrics tell you. Are there any other metrics which would complement them to give you a more complete picture?
Download PDF
Download PDF
Check your knowledge
It's time for you to check and reflect on what you've learned so far.You must complete the knowledge check to move to the next lesson.
You must complete the knowledge check to move to the next lesson.
You must complete the knowledge check to move to the next lesson.
Question 1 of 2
A conversion can be a micro conversion or a macro conversion. A micro conversion is when someone completes an action on your website, like adding something to their cart for checkout.Why is it helpful to track micro conversions?
Why is it helpful to track micro conversions?
Why is it helpful to track micro conversions?
Micro conversions indicate how well your website is performing.
Micro conversions indicate how many people are opening your email newsletters.
Micro conversions indicate how many macro conversions could take place.
Micro conversions indicate how popular your website is.
Show Answer
Show Answer
Not quite.Micro conversions indicate how many macro conversions could take place. For example, if a micro conversion is when a visitor to your site adds something to their cart for checkout, a macro conversion is when they complete that purchase transaction.This is important because if you have noticeably fewer macro conversions than micro conversions, you may need to explore ways to simplify your purchase or checkout process.
Micro conversions indicate how many macro conversions could take place. For example, if a micro conversion is when a visitor to your site adds something to their cart for checkout, a macro conversion is when they complete that purchase transaction.This is important because if you have noticeably fewer macro conversions than micro conversions, you may need to explore ways to simplify your purchase or checkout process.
This is important because if you have noticeably fewer macro conversions than micro conversions, you may need to explore ways to simplify your purchase or checkout process.
This is important because if you have noticeably fewer macro conversions than micro conversions, you may need to explore ways to simplify your purchase or checkout process.
Question 2 of 2
If you were running a guest house, how could you use analytics to measure traffic coming to your website from organic search results?In other words, what can you learn from analytics reports?
In other words, what can you learn from analytics reports?
In other words, what can you learn from analytics reports?
Which search engines visitors use.
How traffic is trending over time.
How relevant the content is for keywords.
How many visitors are using mobile devices.
Show Answer
Show Answer
Almost.Analytics can tell you a lot of interesting information about your organic search performance.It won’t tell you explicitly whether your site’s content is relevant to your keywords. To understand that, you can look at information such as how long visitors spend on your site, or the bounce rate, to see whether your site is giving your customers the information they’re looking for.
Analytics can tell you a lot of interesting information about your organic search performance.It won’t tell you explicitly whether your site’s content is relevant to your keywords. To understand that, you can look at information such as how long visitors spend on your site, or the bounce rate, to see whether your site is giving your customers the information they’re looking for.
It won’t tell you explicitly whether your site’s content is relevant to your keywords. To understand that, you can look at information such as how long visitors spend on your site, or the bounce rate, to see whether your site is giving your customers the information they’re looking for.
It won’t tell you explicitly whether your site’s content is relevant to your keywords. To understand that, you can look at information such as how long visitors spend on your site, or the bounce rate, to see whether your site is giving your customers the information they’re looking for.
Lesson complete
Great job!You’ve explored Google Analytics and Search Console to monitor and analyse site performance. Next, learn how Google Ads can use this data to optimise campaigns and boost ROI.Head to the next lesson to find out more about Google Ads.
You’ve explored Google Analytics and Search Console to monitor and analyse site performance. Next, learn how Google Ads can use this data to optimise campaigns and boost ROI.Head to the next lesson to find out more about Google Ads.
Head to the next lesson to find out more about Google Ads.
Head to the next lesson to find out more about Google Ads.