This article is summary the lesson that I have learned at The Digital Garage (Online marketing course provided by Google). This is only a note, you can see and learn directly there.

This is dedicated for you as small business owner who want to improve your search marketing (SEO and SEM). You can improve your online marketing by analyzing your website or landing page with web analytics tools. By using this analytics tools, you can see, measure, track your visitors digital journey from where they are coming, what did they do on your site, whether they download your content or confirm their order (buy the product), and so on.

Once you measure and track them, you will know which part of your strategy must be improved.

Now, let's read the notes.

What is web analytics?

Web analytics is about using the data you can collect to give you insights about your business.

Metrics

Through web analytics you can see a metric. The metric means anything you can count and see. For examples: page views per visitor, time spent on page, unique visitor, returning visitor, earning, etc.

Another term in analytics is conversion.

The examples of conversion are:

- Visitor confirm an order.
- Visitor download your content.
- Visitor fill a contact form,
- etc.

In other word the conversion is you goal.

Conversion rate

Web analytics tools can tell you conversion rate. Conversion rate means the number of visitors visit your page and then convert on one of your goals.

Dimension

The next term is dimension. Dimension is type of data you can use to describe something you're tracking with words.

The examples of dimension are:

- Device type.
- What browser visitors use.
- Visitor location.
- and so on.

Let's take a look the relationship between metrics and dimensions.

You are comparing two metrics of conversions (such as a number of download and earnings), then you breaking them down by geographics location of visitor. So, the geographics location of the visitor is called a dimension.

The function of metrics, conversions, and dimensions is to make you easier to find answer to particular questions. In the case above, you can answer the question like " which location are people buying the product?"

Another example of business questions,"What time of the day most people are visiting your page?".

To answer this question, you can choose metric and dimension below:

- Metric = a number of visitors.
- Dimension = hour of day

So, you can take your visitor metric and break it down by hour of day dimension to obtain the answer.

How to install the analytics tool on your website? 

You can copy a particular code that is given by the tool and paste it to your website. Once you done it, these tool will track your website activity. Then you can answer some questions by choose the appropriate metrics and dimensions.

Recap of web analytics tool

- Metrics are measurable and numerical data (by quantity).
- Conversions are data on how many visitors have completed a desired action on your site (your goal).
- Dimensions are groups of user data that can be used to generate report or answer the questions (an attribute of a user or a session).
- You can track and measure what visitors do on your site and use this data to help you achieve your goal with web analytics.