There is a reason that Google Analytics is a popular free tool to use in order to measure the success of your marketing efforts. It allows you to view the volume of traffic to your website, track where your users come from and where they go. It will also help you learn why your visitors are coming to your site at any specific period of time.

Using Google Analytics does not have to be difficult. However, there are many aspects of it that are often overlooked. Here are a few tricks to use in order to make sure you are getting the most out of Google Analytics.

Segmenting Your Audience

One tool that is often overlooked is segmenting your audience. Chances are that you have several targeted audiences visiting your website and distinguishing between them is important. In order to implement this tool; select segments from the admin page in order to create customized segments to help define your different audiences. These segments can be named whatever you want and allow you to distinguish between language, sex, age, location, etc.

Measuring Speed

One of the SEO ranking factors is your site’s download speed. This speed can deter new users if it is too slow. To check your speed using Google Analytics, go to behavior, then site speed, then overview. You can also see how individual pages of your site perform by visiting the page timings section. This will help you identify any issues with your download speeds.

Finding Browser Differences

Different browsers may have your site configured differently. Google analytics will allow you to check your speed across the different browsers. Go to audience, then technology, then browser, and operating system in order to see the load times and the bounce rates for each of the browsers visiting your site.

Real Time Snapshots

Go to real time then overview in order to see a snapshot of your site’s metrics when they are happening. You can learn how many users are on your site at the time, how they got to your site, as well as where they are coming from.

View Behavior Flows

Go to the behavior flow tab and then to behavior flow in order to see a complicated map of the behaviors of your users. You can narrow this chart down using the drop down menu that is available to look at different variables. These charts can provide a sense of how and why people visit and use your site.