Google Analytics for Pet Sitters Explained: The 5 Sections You Need To Watch

If you do not know Google Analytics, you do not know SEO.

When people talk about SEO (search engine optimization) rarely, if ever, are they talking about Google Analytics. Why is that?

It’s extremely important to begin the discussion with this fact:

SEO is not about keywords. SEO is not about meta tags.

SEO is about creating a wonderful user experience for every visitor who lands on your website.

Yes, you need to consider keywords. Yes, you need to implement proper meta tags.

But those are simply the means to the end. And that’s only a small fraction of the whole.

The bigger picture you’ll need to consider is HOW each visitor interacts with your pages and WHAT each is doing throughout your site.

You can determine that complete picture by understanding your Google Analytics reports.

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Google Analytics Explained for You

Did you know that approaching any part of your website marketing without first comparing it to your stats is like shooting in the dark.

You are missing a big part of the whole picture. And it’s this missing part that will give you all the specific answers you are looking for.

Not getting enough traffic to your website? Analytics can show you what the biggest reason for that is.

Getting traffic but no one is calling? Analytics can give you the changes or adjustments you’ll want to make.

Google Analytics is Google’s free, extremely powerful, insight tool. Place the code on your website once, and you will have a completely full and detailed picture of how your pet business website is operating.

You will know for certain how it is viewed from the eye’s of Google, and you will see the complete behavior patterns of all your visitors.

Are Your Friends and Family Giving You The Right Advice?

Here’s the thing…

It’s fine and natural to ask friends, family and colleagues to weigh in on the design, look, and feel of your website.

But even that is only one small part of the whole picture.

I can’t tell you how often I am asked to evaluate a pet website and my first impression is not the best.

However, after looking at the Analytics, would you believe that the website is showing up in Google, the visitors are spending time on the website, interacting with the pages, and making contact with the owner.

That’s the win. And something you simply can not determine only from looking at the website layout and design.

I have also seen plenty of pretty websites that are struggling to stay afloat.

Your Google Analytics results will determine what changes, adjustments or improvements you need to make on your website based on how Google currently views your site, and how each visitor is engaging with your web pages.

You need the complete picture so you’ll know what is working and what is not.

Here are the 5 most important part of Google Analytics that you should pay attention to (and why)!

1. Bounce Rate. This is the number of single-page visits. In other words, your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who landed on a page of your website and left without clicking to any second page.

Naturally, you’ll want your bounce rate percentage on the lower side.

Every industry has its own bounce rate standard.

If your bounce rate is under 50% you are in perfect shape. If your bounce rate is in the 60% or 70% range, you can work to get that lowered.

If your bounce rate is high, this suggests that the majority of your visitors are not engaging with your website. You’ll want to take a closer look at the layout and design of your home page and other popular pages to see what first impression it is making.

2. Sessions. This number tells you the total number of times users (or visitors) have accessed your website in any given time frame.

If your number of sessions is on the lower side, this could be one obvious reason you may not be getting calls or leads from your site. If, however, your number of sessions is average or above average, and you are still not receiving a good amount of calls or leads, it’s time to look at your website layout, structure or design.

If your sessions number is low, this means you are not landing in Google as often as you should (and this takes one approach of action).

If your sessions number is higher, this means that you are successfully gaining traffic and your focus needs to be on strategic adjustments to your website pages. Those changes will assist in converting more of your visitors into potential clients.

3. Pages/Session. This statistic shows you the average number of pages each visitor is viewing on your website.

If your pages per session is at or close to 2, you are well within the average for our industry.

If your pages per session is on the low end, you would want to take a close look at your on-page design and layout. You may need to create more pages (blog posts or other forms of content) or look to add more content and resources to your current pages.

4. Average Session Duration. This number shows you the average length of time that each visitor is spending on your website, in minutes.

If your number here is close to or above 2:00 (2 minutes), you are in perfect shape. If your number is below the 1-minute mark, you have some work to do.

You can increase the average time spent on your website by adding unique, valuable content to your pages. This can be in the form of posts, answering questions, creating videos, and more.

The more time a visitor spends on your website means they are more likely to connect with you and make contact.

5. Mobile Overview. In this section, you will be able to see at a glance exactly what percentage of your visitors are viewing your website from their desktop computer versus from a mobile device (including tablet and phone).

With each passing month, you can be certain that more and more of your potential clients will be accessing your website via a mobile device.

This is so important, in fact, that Google rewards websites that are “mobile-friendly” by taking that into consideration as part of their overall SEO signals that they look for.

You may be surprised to learn that up to 50% of your current users are accessing your pages through a mobile device. You may also be currently at only 15%, for example.

Knowing for certain will show you how quickly you’ll want to make sure your website is fully optimized and ready for mobile users.

Join Us For Our Free Online Training Session on Google Analytics

Want an in-depth look into all of this? Want to discover what industry averages are? Want to hear what adjustments you could be making today to improve your website rankings?

Join us for a full and deeper look into how Google Analytics can change your business.

Click Here to register for your free training session!

It takes place Tuesday, November 11, 2014 at 1pm EST.

Hope to see you there.

Over To You

What is your current feelings about Google Analytics? Do you have it installed on your website? What questions would you like answered?

Leave your questions and comments in the area below.