If you have a website and you are looking to grow your business through more traffic and better engagement, there are 3 completely free tools that are crucial when it comes to website measurement.

In this short video, I will take you through  what these 3 tools are, and why it is important to use all of them. 

1. Web Analytics tool (e.g. Google Analytics)

So the first and the most important tool that you will need in order to measure your website is some sort of Web Analytics tool.

The one that is most commonly used by businesses, both small and big, is called Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is generally free, although very large firms with many millions of visits per month have the option to upgrade for the Premium version as well. But if you are a small or medium size business, the free version of Google Analytics will be just fine. 

So what is Google Analytics used for?

So Web Analytics tools such as Google Analytics allow you to measure the following metrics

1. the number of Sessions on your site, also referred as to as Visits. And that basically is the volume of traffic that your get on your site

2. Google Analytics also allows you too se the volume of Users visiting your site, which typically is based on the number of distinct cookies.

3. It also gives you information about Time Spent on site, and that’s I guess self explanatory

4. It also gives you Bounce Rate, which is a rate of visits with no engagement

5. It also gives you number of Conversions (e.g.Transactions) made through your site

6. It also gives you the value of those transactions, and that is called Revenue

7. And it also gives you Conversion Rate, which simply is a ratio of Transactions over Visits, so an important metric when it comes to measuring and optimising your site for better engagement

There are many more metrics in Google Analytics than the ones listed above, but these are the most important ones to consider, especially when you are just starting out with your web reporting.

All of the metrics in Google Analytics can be broken down by the so-called Dimensions, for example:

1. Landing Pages, aka entry page (which basically is the first page visited during a visit)

2. Page (which is a page name viewed, including of the landing page, and any other pages visited during the session)

3. Device Category (allows to see a split by Desktop, Mobile and Tablet devices)

4. Location dimensions, such as Country or City that the user was located in when visiting your site

5. There are also Demographics, so things such as Gender and Age (though bear in mind that these are just estimates, inferred based on those users who did opt in to sharing their personal data, and that is usually limited to only Gmail users)

6. Channel, which basically is the source of that visit, so it would be things such as Organic Search, Paid Search, Facebook, Email and so on

Above are just some of the most commonly used types of dimensions, but as with the metrics, there are many more dimensions available in Google Analytics as well.

2. Google Search Console

The second most important tool that I would strongly recommend that you use is called Google Search Console.

Google Search Console is completely free, whether you get a hundred of a hundred million of visits a month. 

It gives your vast amount of information that you wouldn’t have available anywhere else. And generally Search Console is a tool which can be used not only by SEO teams when optimising the site for better rankings on Google, but it can also be used by Marketing and Commercial teams as means to get extra insight into market trend and customer behaviours on Google, as well use means to come up with new content (e.g. blog) ideas.

There are at least three reasons why you would want to use Google Search Console

1. firstly, it allows you to monitor your organic rankings on Google, so in other words, it allows you to see how often and for which exactly search terms your site is appearing on Google. It also tells you at which position your site if appearing, and which are the pages being ranked.

2. secondly, it allows you to create better content on your site, and one that is likely to attract more traffic. So for example, you may see in Search Console that you are getting many Impressions for a certain keyword, however you are not getting any clicks from that as you are ranking well. So you could either change the content of your existing page that is getting those impressions and add the relevant keywords to it, or you could create a completely new page which would focus around those keywords. Or if you are an commerce business and getting lots of impressions for a given product, it might mean that there is a lot of demand for that product, so you might consider changing your product range and focus more on the products that are getting a lot of impressions

3. it also allows you to spot any technical issues on your site which might be impacting your SEO rankings, that could for instance be broken links, or misaligned content which is difficult for the user to read

So the metrics that you get in Search Console are

1. SEO Impressions, which basically is the number of times that your site appears in the organic search results  on google

2. you also get SEO Clicks, which is the number of Clicks coming from Organic Google clicks

3. you also get SEO position (i.e. organic rank), which is the position on which your site appears on google organic results

4. and finally you also get SEO CTR, which is just a ratio of Clicks over Impressions, and obviously the higher the CTR the better, and generally speaking, the better your position, the better your CTR would also be

So these are the metrics available in Search Console  by default, however if you were to export all of your Search Console data out of the interface, you will also be able to get Count of Keywords and Count of Pages as additional metrics which are very helpful when it comes to measuring your SEO coverage on google. But even just starting by using the interface is ok, and to be honest majority of companies, even the very large ones, don’t really use Search Console properly, so they are missing out on a lot.

In terms of dimensions available in Search Console, these are

• Search Query, which is incredibly powerful source of information, as it allows you to understand the type of keywords that your potential customers are using when browsing the web

• you also get Country dimension (location of the users)

• and Page, which simply is your page name that appears on Google organic results

• and lastly you also get Device

The data is available daily, but if you decide to extract the raw Search Console data using let’s say an API or even just using Google Sheets extension, you will then be able to group the data weekly, monthly and so on.

You will then also be able to create groups of keywords and groups for pages relevant to your business. So let’s say you sell groceries online, you might want to group your keywords into the different product categories.

Why you should use Google Search Console

So there are at least a few important reasons why you would want to incorporate Search Console into your web measurement.

Firstly, it will allow you to monitor your organic rankings on Google, as who doesn’t like free traffic! And I don’t actually just mean average rankings, but rankings for the keywords that really matter to you and your business. That is particularly important when you let’s say work with an SEO agency, and you want to be able to check if they are doing a good job in optimising your rankings.  

Another way you can use Search Console is to create more of relevant content. So you might spot for example in Search Console that you are getting lots of impressions or a certain keyword, but you are not getting any clicks. So what you might want to do is to either create new content which focuses around those highly popular keywords, or you might optimise your existing pages and make sure that they include the keywords that people are searching for. That will give you more coverage, and likely is going to lead to an increase in Clicks.

Search Console is also helpful when it comes to identifying any bugs on the site. The tools will alert you of any issues that might affect your organic rankings, these might be things such as broken links, or misaligned content.

You may also use Search Console data as a way to monitor any changes in the market trends. That is mainly applicable to more established firms with a steady flow of organic traffic. If you are an established business, and your organic rankings remain stable, but you see a drop in SEO traffic, that might be caused by a decline in the search demand. Search Console allows you to really deep dive into your SEO figures and understand the drivers of whatever trend you are seeing in your traffic. You might also use it as means to spot new and emerging opportunities as well. 

3. Google Tag Manager

So the last tool I want to mention is Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager is also free, and it allows you to kind of superpower your reports in Google Analytics. 

So think of Google Analytics as a furnished apartment that you are going to move into. It has all the basic equipment required for your to move in and start living in, so there isn’t a lot of customisation that you will need to do. 

However, if you really want to make the most of this apartment, you will want to add a few bits and pieces that will make it meet your particular needs even better.

So this is what Google Tag Manager does. It allows you to add to your Google Analytics the extra bits and pieces of data that isn’t available in Google Analytics by default. 

That could be things such as tracking of Clicks on your site, whether these are any Clicks or clicks on particular buttons on your site. Also things such as video views, number of Downloads from your site, tracking of Social Shares, or form submits.