custom project Website
Personalize your website and have a little fun with Google Analytics!
Re-Building My Website
It's not a perfect re-build but it'll give you the tools to tackle your own project. Fair warning - the video is long as it covers logo creation (through Canva), icon selection (through Flaticon) and a very basic tagging of your website with Google Analytics.
Intro to Google Analytics
We won't dive too deep into the details. In summary, Google Analytics is a free service provided by Google that allows you to track website traffic. There are limits to what you can track but many businesses find it extremely useful to know:
How many users visit your site per day?
What time of day carried the most traffic?
How users reached your site (computer or mobile)?
Additional details for businesses selling products
Google Analytics is an awesome tool but it does require a bit of experience to truly leverage it when making business decisions. For our purposes, it's nice to know which pages get the most attention so we can continue to make popular content or fix any issues that may be occurring.
Don't worry, we won't dive too deep into Google Analytics, but it'll be nice to get a little exposure.
Great resources
Canva | www.canva.com
Favicon | www.flaticon.com
Color Hunt | https://colorhunt.co | Great source for color scheme selection
Custom Site Name | Google Domains
As we've mentioned in previous videos, you can personalize your website by purchasing a domain (website name). The process is simple and built into the process.
Once you've completed your site, the image below illustrates where you can 'click' to make your purchase. Best part is - it all works together. Once you've made your purchase, everything is automatically linked.
This is exclusive to users who chose to build a website using BOTH Google Sites and Google Domains.
Important Note on Google Analytics
No one on our team is a master of Google Analytics. Google offers a great resource for general questions. It can be found here. In addition, Google Analytics Academy offers free coursework on the subject. You can complete the training and earn certificates. Google Analytics Academy can be found here.
Follow Up
If you've successfully added the tracking code to your website, you can use templates to auto generate reports. Not going to lie... it's pretty cool. If you followed along with the video, you should have your analytics account set up. Log in to your account here or through a quick google search of google analytics.
From the main page (on the left-hand side)
Click the dropdown under Customization
Select Dashboards
The next screen will look like this. In the center - select one of the three options:
Audiences Overview
Acquisitions Overview
Behaviors Overview
That's it! (insert eye roll here)
You may be asked to accept the terms of Google Data Studio but the information automatically connects and a prebuilt template will be generated using your website data. The image below is a screenshot of some of our web traffic data obtained using this simple process.
It might seem intimidating but all we did was follow the few steps in our video and Google did the rest (thankfully). We hope it helps!
This of course is introductory, but its a great way to get started with Google Analytics!
What's next?
Get started! Use the tools. Do some research. Discover. Get creative. Most importantly - share these resources with the people you care about. You never know who may be looking to learn and develop their ideas. Help as many people as you can. Ultimately, that's what it's all about!