“I’m not sure if I’m getting to the right reports in Google Analytics”

“I don’t know how to read my reports. I can only interpret the basics like referrals and demographics.”

“This is just too complicated! How do I get more out of this without ALL THE NUMBERS?!”

These are just some of the many rants I hear out there from business owners (like you!) regarding Google Analytics. And I get it. One one hand, the tool is free, but on the other, it can be complex when you are starting out. There is some configuration setup required and if you are the one playing analyst for your business, you need to know specifically where to look to find the reports relevant to you. This specific reporting not only should give you answers, but lead you to make smart decisions that impact the components of your business:

your target audience
the effectiveness of the content you are producing
if you products/services are working at high capacity

These are some among many things.

To give all of you suffering with Google Analytics some credit, not all of us are to do deep data analysis (just like not everyone is made for skydive or squashing snails in your vegetable garden).

For the below Case Study, I helped Nat the Website Superhero some information on what type of content she should be creating for her blog.

Here is the full case study:

Business Name: Website Superhero - Natalia Real (http://website-superhero.com/)

Who is Nat and what is her business about?

Nat is a WordPress web designer/developer who helps world-changers amplify their impact and make more money with strategic websites. She also teaches entrepreneurs and DIYers how to maintain their websites themselves, protecting them from hackers and the white screen of death while saving them over $1k per year.

Nat wanted to know what type of content she should be creating to increase the traffic on her site? But first...

What were her short term goals when she came to build this report for her?

She wanted insights to help her brainstorm the products and services she should create in 2016 for maximum business growth, and to help plan her blog content over the next several months with topics that are actually attracting ideal clients to her website (as opposed to blog posts that may be interesting but don’t contribute to her bottom line in any way).

What other things did she want to know about?

Nat blogs regularly but she wasn’t sure which topics were resonating most with her client base and attracting potential leads to look at her services. She felt her content was bringing in a large client base, but she didn’t understand why they weren’t viewing her services and products.

So, what insights did we uncover?

First, I confirmed with her that her broader blog topics (for example, free stock images, PDF management, and hosting guides) were attracting a wider audience that then wasn’t sticking around (i.e. they would view the specific blog posts and then leave her site). The data proved her above suspicions to be true. I suggested maybe more intentionally targeting this larger audience, potentially with a service or product geared toward them.

I also established what type of content enticed users to click through to her services or at least stick around on her site longer. For example, I clarified that video and audio content didn’t vary much in traffic from plain text content (regular blog posts).

We also identified that her 5-Day Superclean your Website Challenge was very successful in not only getting users to opt-in but also getting them to continue clicking through and looking at other offers on her site. I recommended doing a similar challenge connected to a paid service or product, since users seemed to really respond to this format of content.

In conclusion, what did my recommendations lead Nat to do?

Based off the analysis, Nat feels more confident about her upcoming product ideas for the new year, focusing on the content she knows will interest her possible clients to purchase.
She calmly creates content around topics she now knows engage her users, which means she’s more likely to turn those readers into subscribers and paying clients.
After reading and discussing the results of her reports, her perspective on her potential clients and who is coming to her website. Instead of it being tunnel vision, she can step out and get a grasp of the possible directions she can take her business ideas.

In addition, she is now ready to track any variations in data once she implements some of the above changes. This will lock her success in the future because she will be able to directly compare numbers in 6 months.

My recommendation with this case study is to take it and consider what key questions you'd like answered for your own site traffic. Are they similar to the ones discussed above? Please share your questions in the comment section below.

Ready for Day 7? We will be learning about a quick tip to use while starting to analyze your data

Day 6 - Case Study: Redefining Your Content Strategy using Google Analytics