Google Analytics is one of the most valuable tools that Google has created, short of their main service of being a search engine. If you don’t know how to use Google Analytics, it’s time to do some Google Analytics training so that you become comfortable and familiar with the tools on the Google Analytics Dashboard. You’ll learn how to make your site or blog more valuable and powerful.

Why Get Google Analytics Training?

Being trained in the important stuff that Google Analytics offers will help determine what you do next on your site. Are your most engaged readers aged 55-64? Maybe it’s time to focus more on the soon-to-retire demographic. They seem to appreciate your work, give them more. You’ll never know anything about your readers if you don’t do some Google Analytics training.

Key Google Analytics Terms

Before you can learn about a thing, you’ve got to know what the relevant terms mean. Users is probably a term you can understand. Page views refers to the total number of pages viewed, including repeat views of the same pages. A session is a period of time during which a single viewer is actively browsing your site. It can be over a single day or over a week or month. Bounce rate is the percentage of visits that result in someone immediately pushing the back button or going elsewhere. These are the people who didn’t really want to find your site but ended up there anyway. Metrics and dimensions are the terms used to measure the various useful values for your page. Whenever you find another term you don’t understand, look it up.

Familiarize Yourself with the Google Analytics Dashboard

The starting point for all of the knowledge that Google Analytics will give you is the Dashboard. Your Dashboard is the place where you’ll review information about how many people have seen your site and your ads, which keywords were used to find your site, and other details like how long people spend on your site and on which pages. Your dashboard can be customized with widgets that are useful to you, so don’t be intimidated.

Google Analytics Help from Google

The best resource for Google Analytics training is Google themselves. Google offers training videos and other resources which are clear, focused, and let you know exactly how the Analytics tools were meant to be used. Now that you’re a bit more familiar with Google Analytics, the training videos should begin to make sense and be powerful and useful.