As mentioned in previous article "3 Must-Have SEO Tools For Website Health Monitoring", website health monitoring is an important task for digital marketers and they will have to go through all of their clients' accounts everyday to see if anything goes wrong. In today's article, we will dig a little deeper in one of the commonly used SEO tools, Google Analytics.
How Does It Work?
Google Analytics is basically an all-in-one tool allowing users to track and analyse performance data in their website, then converting them into different kinds of reports that give you a complete look into your website's user interaction, user behaviour and conversion. Google Analytics can help you create reports based on the metrics you've set and it will provide relevant insights to help you improve. Moving on, Google Analytics also offers choices of visualisation, as you can create dashboards containing graphs and charts generated from the data you've collected. It is so convenient that Google Analytics provide thorough integration among other Google solutions like Google Ads, Google Search Console, Data Studio, etc. With all these integrations, users can import data easily form all these platforms with just a click on the mouse.
Choose Your Suitable Analytics
In Google Analytics, there are two version, a free version and a paid one called Google Analytics 360. The most obvious difference is that the paid version have more access to different functions. With the essential settings and limited functionality, the free Google Analytics allow users to integrate data from Google Ad, AdSense and Search Console only. Comparatively, Google Analytics 360 provides users with full range of integration of Google tools, including the likes of Campaign Manager 360 and Search Ads 360. On the other hand, the paid version also provides an all-rounded supports with global partner network where the free version could only utilise the self-service help center and community forums for any technical supports. On top of these, only the paid version supplies more customisable tools and provide a wider range of dimensions and metrics for users to operate with.
Which Should You Choose?
Among the two versions of Google Analytics, there are many differences in terms of functionality and access to integration. We would suggest you to first identify your company type and scale of business before you make your decision.
For company type, if your business is more focused on e-commerce and retailing side, more forms of digital marketing strategies would be involved and therefore it is more likely to make use of more integrations. In this case, Google Analytics 360 is more suitable as it can handle more tools and make your analytic process more efficient. Vice versa, the free version would be more suitable if your company belongs to field that does not require too many kinds of marketing tools and only wants to do some basic advertising, the free version that provides essential settings would be sufficient for you.
For scale of business, if your business is a start-up or small to medium-sized, the free version of Google Analytics would come in handy for you. It provides access to the most essential functions and integration with the most used marketing tools by Google, making sure that you can manage your clients' accounts with ease. Whereas if your business is an enterprise with a much larger scale, you should opt for the Google Analytics 360. On top of all the essential functions, the paid version Analytics provide more integrations and more advanced analysis and reports to facilitate your daily operation. In addition, the paid version will make sure your data refreshes every few hours to maintain data accuracy and will also provide personal technical support and other services.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Google Analytics is a very practical tool for you to learn about the user behaviour and actions in a website, thus allowing you to analyse and optimise your website for better performance. Do not forget to do a little research on the functions of the versions of Google Analytics and make the right decision for your business.
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