This topic is going to discuss reporting from Google Analytics.  Managing the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your own website can be a full time job, if you have been tinkering with your SEO you will come to the understanding that SEO is not a "set it and forget it" area of your business.  You can setup your contact page and pretty much not need to touch it again until something with your business changes such as a phone or email etc...  SEO is different.  Going through reports can help you understand what changes you need to work on next.

The “Acquisition” reports are located under the “Acquisition” section in the left-hand navigation. You can use the Acquisition reports to compare the performance of different marketing channels and discover which sources send you the highest quality traffic and conversions. This can help you make better decisions about where to focus your marketing efforts.

The focus of this article is going to be on HOW traffic was sent to your site, referred to as the "Medium" report. Here are some examples of mediums you will see in your report:

• “Organic” is used to identify traffic that arrived on your site through unpaid search like a non-paid Google Search result.
• “CPC” indicates traffic that arrived through a paid search campaign like Google AdWords text ads.
• “Referral” is used for traffic that arrived on your site after the user clicked on a website other than a search engine.
• “Email” represents traffic that came from an email marketing campaign.
• “(none/Direct)” is applied for users that come directly to your site by typing your URL directly into a browser. In your reports, you will see these users have a source of “direct” with a medium of “(none)”.

The majority WebsiteForge customers will see the most traffic from "organic" searches.  This is great news for our WebsiteForge Customers!  Because Organic search results are FREE!

Let's break down a real life example here.

Our top traffic source is "Direct", but we're going to ignore that line for now.  Our second greatest source is Google organic search, which has a relatively low bounce rate compared to other sources. Facebook has a great number of new sessions, but a pretty high bounce rate. Let's do a bit more analysis to understand if this is a problem.

We can click into the comparison view and select the metric “bounce rate” to compare bounce rate for each source/medium combination to the site average. Sure enough, we can see that our Facebook traffic is bouncing at a much higher rate than the site average.

Now that we can see for sure that the bounce rate is really high from this avenue and where they are being directed we can evaluate the content and layout of that landing page to produce a more valuable page being presented to those users.

If you are wanting to rank better organically in the search engines, feel free to contact us and we can help you look over what you've done so far and help you determine what steps to take next!

Google Data Studio is a service from Google that let's you pool data from multiple sources into a data sheet.  It let's you customize the layout of the sheet and even updates the data in real time.  Giving you the ability to create and share relevant information about your website statistics to those that need to see it.

This video shows you how to make a simple report using the Google data studio tools.  The benefit of this tool can be great!  Perhaps you are wanting to keep an eye on some very specific aspects of your website and only want to view that data. 

Creating a report can give you a great looking sheet of data that is interactive and live fed data, only showing you the information you want to see.  You can also share that data with your co-workers.

There are even pre-built templates that you can use to get started.  Take a look at the 3 reasons we love Google Data Studio:

1.Use Multiple Data Sources

At first glance, we thought Data Studio was a nice alternative to the standard dashboard in Google Analytics. While it can pull in data from Google Analytics, the ability to customize and arrange the data takes it to a whole other level. What's more, Data Studio allows you to pull multiple data sources into one place (not just Google Analytics). Some of the data sources that you can bring into Google Data Studio are:

• Google AdWords
• Google Analytics
• Search Console
• YouTube Analytics
• SQL
• Google Sheets
• And More

Data Studio also has many 3rd party “Connectors” that are available to connect with and pull data from. Some of the Connectors are:

• Amazon Seller
• Stripe
• AdStage
• Facebook Ads and Insights
• DoubleClick
• eBay
• Twitter
• And More

Overall there is massive value in being able to view multiple data sources in one place.

2. Google Data Studio is Customizable

Now that you have all of your data, it's time to customize it. Yes! Data Studio gives you the ability to pull your multiple data sources into one customizable dashboard and lay them out in a visually appealing way. Some of the features of the dashboard:

• Ability to pull in multiple data sources and report on the metrics that drive your business ROI
• Brand it by changing colors
• Easy drag and drop elements within the dashboard
• Add and edit text
• Customize data displays as bar graphs, pie charts, and more
• Customize for easily save, email, and/or print PDF's

3. Sharing & Collaboration

Collaboration within Google Data Studio is a complete time saver. Grant access to your team set permissions, and at any moment they can view and contribute on any dashboard. Even if you have that old school team member you can easily save and share the dashboard as a PDF by email or print it.

• Grant access and set permissions
• Edit and save in real-time
• Make a copy of your own
• Share the dashboard by email or print

	Monthly History: This graphs out the unique visitors, number of visits, pages, hits and bandwidth on a month by month basis (see chart).(Good thing they get Unlimited Bandwidth!!! 😵)
	Weekly/Rush Hour Activity: This charts out the activity of your site based on the hours of the day. It will show you the busiest and slowest times that activity is being generated.(see chart)
	Search Keyphrases: This analyzes and displays the keywords or key phrases that users typed in in order to get to your site. This can be a major to tool to utilize if you plan on doing any SEO or promotion for your site.(see chart )
	Favored Browsers: AWstats allows you view your visitor's most used browsers.  Many website owners don't realize how many people use different browsers and therefore do not take into account many things about their website.  Each browser renders website code differntly.  It's a good practice to be aware of how your site appears on multiple browsers.  Especially your most used ones. (see chart)
	Robot/Spider Counter: These are automated programs that enter into websites and follow internal links to seek content and use them as key phrases that may pertain to your websites products. With AWstats, you can track these search engine robots and estimate when your website will be found and be established on the internet.(see chart)

Let me summarize by saying that AWStats is an incredible analytics tool! You can pull data and create graphical and textual displays of your sites activity.  As an added bonus, AWStats offers the ability to export data into an XML format for presentations. WebsiteForge offers you all of this for FREE, you can access it from your "Dashboard", "Sites and Stats" area.

	1. Google https://business.google.com
	2. Yelp https://biz.yelp.com/support/claiming
	3. Bing https://www.bingplaces.com/

If you think about the last search you did looking for a business or service, you may recall seeing the "maps" or "Local" listings before any other listings.  That's because the search engines are looking to try and show you the most relevant information for your area.  As a business owner, you need to make sure you are listed with these places so you are the company that shows up next time someone does a search for your business!  

Here is a brief summary of what each option offers.   Even if your business doesn't have a storefront.  You can claim an area that your business services and that is more useful than not being listed at all.

Google My Business;

Make the most of your free Google listing.

Show up when customers search for your business or businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Google My Business lets you post updates to showcase what's new, respond to reviews to build loyalty and add photos to highlight what makes your business special.

Yelp for Business Owners;

Yelp provides you with a free suite of tools to showcase your business and connect you to the Yelp community.  You can also respond to messages and reviews right from the mobile app!

Bing Places for business;

Get Online Customers for Your Business
Add your business to Bing for free and help online customers discover your business.

1.  SEO experts have put together some Reporing templates and made them available for YOU!  The average joe tends to feel overwhelmed by SEO and Google analytics reports.  These templates are a good way to find useful information from your website. 

2. Here are some great guides to creating your own custom reports.  Having the data about your website is one thing, but having reports make sense of the data is another.  Every site is different and therefore the needs of every site is different.  Be sure you are looking at reports that will help you grow your business.

3. This report can help you a lot!  This will take the keyword data and the traffic data and make a report for you so you can see what keywords are actually driving business.

1. Google Search Console
Google's webmaster tools offer a range of very useful tools as a website owner.  You can submit your Sitemap to Google, ask Google to Crawl your site, get reports of any errors on your site.  You can see an article here about managing your webmaster account regularly
 

Why use Search Console?

Monitor your site's performance in Google Search results:

    Make sure that Google can access your content
    Submit new content for crawling and remove content you don't want to be shown in search results
    Create and monitor content that delivers visually engaging search results
    Maintain your site with minimal disruption to search performance
    Monitor and resolve malware or spam issues so your site stays clean

Discover how Google Search—and the world—sees your site:

    Which queries caused your site to appear in search results?
    Did some queries result in more traffic to your site than others?
    Are your product prices, company contact info, or events highlighted in rich search results?
    Which sites are linking to your website?
    Is your mobile site performing well for visitors searching on mobile?

2. Google Analytics
No matter what your website does or offers you should use a tool like Google Analytics.  There are plenty of free options out there.  be sure the option you choose offers adequate training or support so you can understand the data you're reviewing.  Google Analytics actually has a beginners course and lots of articles to support using it.
I recommend setting some time aside and doing this.  Understanding this data on your site can mean the difference between a good website and a great one.  How you handle the data and make changes to your site can really alter the course of your website.  Flying blind is a bad idea.  And trusting a cheap SEO marketing company is a worse idea.  I have had quite a few business owners trust a cheap SEO company or marketing company with their website only to get a surge of sales and then blacklisted from all Search engines because they used shady methods to achieve a quick and fatal return.

3.Google My Business
If you are a business with a physical location that people can visit I strongly recommend setting up a "Google My Business" page.
Google will show these results usually ahead of other results.  They are based on location and keyword information.  So be sure you fill out the fields and describe your business in detail so that people can find you and understand what you are offering.