Hiya Reader,
If you’ve ever logged into Google Analytics and immediately thought ✨ absolutely not ✨
…this email is for you 😂
When I recommend that clients & students set up some kind of website traffic data tracking (like Google Analytics or Fathom), they're usually pretty excited at the idea.
Thinking "WAIT, so I can *actually* SEE how people are finding me???? And I don't have to GUESS or ASSUME?????"
But the excitement quickly runs dry after they setup Google Analytics & log into the dashboard.
LIKE WHAT IN THE HELL HOLE IS THIS.
You’re hit with a screen full of numbers, charts, tabs, and lingo that only a data scientist can decode.
And your brain goes: cool cool cool I’ll come back to this (literally) never.
Totally normal LOL
Google Analytics is a LOT to take in.
(Fun fact: Google Analytics is how my YouTube channel got enough subscribers to get monetized back in 2021. ONE video about setting up GA4 took off. And here I am now, almost 2 million views later!)
Soooooo I decided it was finally time to create a NEW & UPDATED Google Analytics dashboard overview video.
The video walks you through exactly how I navigate Google Analytics as a business owner.
I point out my FAVORITE reports to look at, and WHY they're important, including examples of what you can actually DO with this information.
Because, TBH, you don't actually have to understand everything in there for it to be useful.
You really only need to answer a few core questions:
- Where is my website traffic coming from?
- Which channels are actually doing something?
- What pages are people landing on?
- Are people sticking around to read the content on the page?
And the best place to answer those questions?
👉 Traffic Acquisition
This report tells you how people are finding you:
- Organic search (Google, Bing, etc.)
- Organic social (Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, etc.)
- Referral traffic (other websites linking to you, but sometimes social gets lumped in here)
- Direct traffic (typing in your URL or mystery traffic Google can’t fully track)
Which helps you realize things IMPORTANT marketing insights like:
❤️🔥 “Okay, organic search is driving the most traffic”
❤️🔥 “Wow, people from Pinterest stay way longer than people from Instagram”
❤️🔥 "Hmmmm, I'm spending a ton of time on Threads but getting VERY little website traffic from it..."
And all of this helps you make smarter decisions about where to spend your time & resources.
Because in this world, we need LESS people burnt out.
And more good hearted humans making BOMB ASS MONEY because the people at the top, don't give a fuck about us. We need to lean DEEPER into our zones of genius. And we need each other. But we can ONLY do that, if we learn to use our time, resources, and money wisely.
Which is why I'm so damn passionate about SEO & helping business owners take it into their OWN hands.
And it's also why I'm committed to being a business owner doing things MY way...
Which is what I use data to help me figure out!
>> Watch the full Google Analytics walkthrough video here 🎥
This is intentionally beginner-friendly.
And it's basically a 18-min workshop on getting the JUICE out of Google Analytics.
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👇 Action step for this week:
Set a 10-minute timer and LOOK AT YOUR WEBSITE'S DATA.
It's got a story that it wants to tell you.
NOTE: Idc if you look at Google Analytics, Fathom, or your website platforms built-in data. Just look at SOMETHING.
If you are using Google Analytics:
- Log into your account
- Go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition
- Set your date range to Last 30 or 90 days
-
Answer these 3 questions (write them down somewhere):
- What is my top traffic source?
- What source has the highest engagement time?
- Does this data match where I’m spending most of my marketing energy?
That’s it.
Allow yourself to marinate with the data and the numbers.
And then make decisions accordingly.
If you wanna dive deeper into your SEO Data and combine Google Analytics with Google Search Console numbers in ONE place, checkout the SEO Data Dashboard.
It'll help you *finally* understand what your data is telling you so you can make decisions and start improving your SEO TODAY.
>> GET THE SEO DATA DASHBOARD HERE
