Nowadays, Google Analytics is the tool for measuring what people are doing on your website – it’s free, highly sophisticated and easy to install. It has become the choice for cultural organisations too, which is good news as there is a pool of relevant information for museums and others looking at the best ways to make use of this incredible bit of software.

Google Analytics is a big old beast though and it’s very easy to get lost in the depths only to emerge a couple of hours later with nothing but graphs etched on your retina to show for it. So here are ten quick tips to get the most out of your time using Google Analytics.

1. Don’t start with Google Analytics

One of the first things we tell people at our Google Analytics courses is to shut their laptops and don’t even look at the system when you first start. Instead, make a list of the questions you hope to be able to answer. Then figure out how you might go about answering these questions – and only then delve in and start using the software.

2. Understand (a bit) about how Google Analytics works

Don’t panic, I’m not suggesting you need to delve into code. But – understanding that Google Analytics only runs on the pages it is included on and the implication of this is a useful thing to know. Once you know this you’ll appreciate that you can’t (out of the box) measure things like document downloads or clicks which don’t cause a new page to load (instead, you have to use what is called Event Tracking to capture these things). There are some other subtleties too – although it’s rare, visitors who don’t (or can’t) use Javascript won’t be included in your stats, for instance.

3. Save time with automated reports and links

There are a number of reports in Google Analytics that can help you quickly get insights into your data. Firstly, create a few dashboards (under Customization > Dashboards) – either make your own or browse the gallery for examples to use. Secondly, set these up to email you (or your boss!) the reports on a regular basis. Thirdly, use Shortcuts and the search field to quickly jump to reports you need regularly or those that are buried deep in the interface.

4. Share

All across Google Analytics you’ll find the option to either import or share Views, Reports, or Custom Segments. Try searching the web for useful things to import, or ask your cultural heritage peer group for reports that they find particularly useful. The Museums Computer Group (MCG) mailing list is particularly good for all things Google Analytics!

5. Browse the User Explorer

A relatively recent addition to Google Analytics, the User Explorer (Audience > User Explorer) gives you anonymised views into real individual visitors to your site. It’s a fascinating way of getting a feel for what people are actually doing on the site as well as helping understand how people jump between pages looking for specific bits of information.

6. Measure everything (using Custom Campaigns)

If you’re sending out any kind of link into the wild – whether on a poster, a website, a paid ad, a QR code or a newsletter, make sure you can measure individual performance of each campaign. Chances are you won’t ever have time to do so – but be in a position that you can if you need to!

One of the best ways to capture these clicks is to use Custom Campaign Tags. Put simply, you tack on an individual extra bit onto your normal URL and you can then track any clicks all the way through your analytics via Acquisition > Campaigns. There’s a handy URL builder here, or many bits of software like MailChimp can be set up to add these automatically.

7. Connect with Google Search Console

Within the Acquisition > Search Console section you’ll find a bunch of useful reports focused on how people used Google to get to your site. First though, you’ll have to set up and connect to Google Search Console – just follow the instructions to do this – it’s pretty straightforward.  

8. Accept that you’ll find problems that you won’t have time to fix

There are arguably two reasons for querying any stats. Firstly, to provide some high-level (and ultimately quite useless) figures to your boss. Secondly, to delve in deeply and discover which things are working – and which aren’t. The latter is much more fruitful – but it’s also much harder and probably requires time and budget to sort out. Go into the process knowing what you can do, and what you can’t.

9. Get to know the All Pages report

The All Pages report (Behavior > Site Content > All Pages) allows you to not only see which are the most popular pages on your site but also to search for individual ones. If you’re interested in site sections rather than pages, try the Content Drilldown report instead. Provided your site is arranged in a nice neat hierarchy (it should be!) then this will help you discover the big picture areas where people are spending their time.

10. Install the Chrome extension

Once you’ve installed the Chrome extension, you can browse through your site and Google Analytics will overlay click rates, time on page and other useful stats right on top of the relevant bits of the page. It’s an incredibly easy way to get to understand how people are using your site and where any potential issues might be.

Conclusion

There is a huge amount to know about Google Analytics – not only is it a deep and complex tool but Google also keeps adding new functionality all the time. It’s worth subscribing to the Google Analytics blog if you want to keep up to date with the latest changes. More usefully though, keep talking to your peers, colleagues, other museums and social media contacts – there are loads of tips and hints out there about how to make the best use of this incredible free tool.