Google Analytics serves as a valuable tool for understanding your audience, tracking website visitor behavior, and gaining insights for improvement. While it offers substantial benefits for your business, it also has certain limitations.
What Google Analytics CAN Do
Let You View Site Traffic in Real Time
Google Analytics not only allows you to review past website visitors but also provides real-time insights into the current number of active users on your site. By accessing the Real-Time report, you can observe visitors in real-time, track their interactions, and assess their engagement with your content.
Tell You About Your Site Visitors
While identifying the exact identities of website visitors is not possible, the Audience report in Google Analytics provides valuable insights into various demographics such as age, gender, interests, occupation, and geographic location. This information proves beneficial for targeted email campaigns, online marketing strategies, and the customization of content to better capture their interest.
Show You What Visitors are Clicking On
Google’s In-Page Analytics tool records internal links across your website, revealing the popularity of each link among visitors. This information guides the strategic placement of crucial calls to action and identifies pages that may benefit from updates to enhance user engagement.
Tell You What Site Visitors are Searching for on Your Site
If your website incorporates a search function, Google Analytics’ Site Search feature allows you to observe the terms entered by visitors into the search box and evaluate whether they successfully find the information they seek.
Tell You Whether You Need a Mobile Site
Assuming you already possess a mobile-friendly website; however, if not, the Mobile section of the Audience report will provide insights into the devices your website visitors use. It details the percentage of your audience accessing your site via mobile phones or tablets.
Help You Rank Your Content
In the Behavior section of Google Analytics, select Site Content and then All Pages to display a list of all website pages sorted by popularity. You have the option to sort the list based on the number of page views, average time spent on the page, the number of visitors entering the site through that page, and other metrics.
What Google Analytics CAN’T Do
Track Individual Users
Google Analytics provides valuable insights about the visitors to your website, revealing details such as age, location, and more. However, it does not disclose personally identifiable information such as names, IP addresses, or specific company details about the individuals visiting your site.
Get Historical Information on Site Use
Google Analytics only provides data from the time you begin tracking your website. Unfortunately, you cannot access historical data or view information from the period before Google Analytics was installed.
See What Your Site Visitors Do Elsewhere on the Internet
While Google Analytics offers detailed insights into the actions of your website visitors, such as the pages they visit, the time spent on each page, and the buttons they click, it does not track their activities on other websites once they leave yours.
Track Users That Don’t Want to Be Tracked
When individuals disable cookies or utilize a ‘do-not-track’ browser option or plugin, Google Analytics is unable to track their activity on your website. This is because Google Analytics relies on cookies and JavaScript to monitor website visitors.
