How to use Google Analytics to Increase Traffic to your site

You can use Google Analytics as a tool to drive even more traffic to your site. Google Analytics isn't just used to show where traffic is coming from and to tell statistics about your site. What many people do not know is that you can use Google Analytics to analyse your website and increase your traffic thus bring more visitors to your site.

Firstly you might want to know a bit more about Google Analytics and where it came from. In April 2005 Google acquired Urchin Software Corp. and formed Google Analytics. Google also used and acquired Measure Map and integrated it as part of Google Analytics. Google Analytics shows quite a few statistics and is very useful for web developers, Internet marketers and online business owners. Google used to market this differently and had a premium version of their popular tracking software, which was Urchin but they discontinued this product on March 28 2012.

Google Analytics can not only track visitors coming from different sites. It can track visitors coming from search engines, referring websites, social networks and people that come to the website direct. Its a pretty amazing piece of software, isn't it? And it's completely free to use.

I am sure there is many guides and reports written out there for Google Analytics such as how to use Google Analytics, what it is, etc. But this article is different from the rest. This article will tell you how to actually increase your traffic and guide you step by step on how you can implement these tips onto your website.

Analytics is a great tool to check where the traffic on your website is coming from. You can even go into specifics and tell what city they are from, what browser they are using, how long they are staying on your website. However these are all great things to find out about your site, but the main parts to look at and on Google Analytics for your website are;

• Traffic Sources > Overview - This lets you know how many people have visited your website and which date they visited your website on. It also lets you know the percentage of traffic that was direct, search engine traffic, referral or campaign. You can also use Analytics to track how good your AdWords campaign s doing and if it is worth it for you to carry on paying the AdWords campaign
• Traffic Sources > Sources - Clicking on this tab in the sidebar allows you to see which website is referring the traffic to your site. It helps you to understand where the traffic is coming from so you can focus more on utilizing your time and effort on the top ranking sites.
• Audience > Demographics > Location - Allows you to find out where your visitors are visiting your site from and also how long the average duration is of their visit among other stats. This is good information for you to see which country you want to market your website more to.

An example of the Analytics dashboard

Be sure to keep on checking the on Google Analytics regularly for change of patterns in traffic. Now, that doesn't mean sit on Analytics for 20 hours a day waiting for something to change. Just check it out every week or so to analyse the stats and to see what traffic sources you can focus on.

It can be very beneficial for you if you find out what keywords your users are using to look up your website. On the Analytics dashboard if you first click on Traffic Sources on the Search Engine part, you can find out what keywords your users are using to find your site. It gives you an insight on the keywords that you need to work on and the keywords which you have neglected. 

Make sure you spend more time on the sites that bring you more traffic

This is one of the main things you can do and also one of the most important things you can do. If you spend more time on the websites that bring you more traffic and less time on  the websites that do not bring you any traffic, you are surely going to exceed. You will essentially be eliminating the sites that bring you less traffic. This is like the Pareto principle or more commonly known as the 80/20 rule, it is also used by Tim Ferriss in The Four Hour Workweek. This rule suggests 80% of your traffic would come from the top 20% of the sites that refer you.

Make sure you focus on the top sites that are referring traffic to your site

To check where the traffic is coming from and which sites are giving you the most traffic please follow these steps:

• Select which site you want to see the stats of in the Google Analytics dashboard. Once you have done this click on Traffic Sources
• Once you have done that click on Sources and then click on Referrals.
• You should now see all the sites that have referred you and which sites are directing more traffic towards you. You can also see how long each user is spending that is coming from that specific site and how many of those users are new.
• Check out which sites are outperforming which and focus on the ones that are giving you the most traffic. If Twitter is giving you the most traffic, start focusing more on Twitter. If Facebook is outperforming Google then focus more on Facebook. 
• Start doing more of what is working and less of what isn't working!

Produce more content that is popular with your users

Check out which content is already popular with your users. Logically, the content that your users already find helpful and are viewing the most, they will appreciate it if you produce similar content to it. If you produce more content that is popular it will attract more visitors, which will get more people sharing your content which will then bring you even more visitors.

Here's how to check which content is your most popular:

• To check which pages are the most popular on your site, go onto the Analytics dashboard. 
• Click on the Content tab in to sidebar and then click on Site Content and All Pages
• When you have done this you should be able to view all the stats about your site including which pages are the most visited
• Analyse all the stats. Develop more similar content to the pages that are already popular. 
• You can also create a poll or survey and ask your visitors, what content they want on the site.
• Write more articles and content that is popular
• Share the content on social media websites that is popular

One last thing, you should focus on posting new content on your days that more visitors visit your site. If you post new articles and content on days that are more popular with your visitors, you will surely see an increase in traffic. 

Google Analytics is a great tool to use to analyse where traffic is coming from on your site and how many visitors are visiting your site among many other stats. If you have haven't already got an account with Google Analytics please click here. If you would like to learn more about how to use Google Analytics effectively then please Click Here!

If you have any of your own tips on how to increase you traffic though Google Analytics, please comment below! If you found this article helpful then please share it!