The standard version of Google Analytics is completely free to use. However, Google does offer a premium product called Google Analytics 360 (previously Google Analytics Premium), which costs US$150,000.

There’s no reason to pay for Google Analytics 360 unless you’re starting to hit some of the limits of the free version such as max hits, sample size and exported rows of data

Experienced Google Analytics consultants can take you from strategy through implementation and beyond, teaching you how to pull a report, and make recommendations for configurations that would benefit your business. In a nutshell, they help you make sense of all that data and how to put it to best use to help you achieve your business growth goals.

There are several different ways to add Google Analytics to your website. Which one you choose will depend on your website structure and your comfort level when working with code. Google provides step by step instructions here 

Check your Google reports: Log in to your Google account and select the Reporting tab. Click on the Date widget on the right hand side of the dashboard and adjust the date range to the current date. It can take up to 24 hours for data to show up in your account after installing the code on your website.

Use the “View Source” feature to find the tracking code: Verify that the tracking code was installed correctly: right click on your web page and select the “View Source” feature. Search for the code snippet on the top of the page, before the closing </head> tag.

Although the methods for doing so differ – and if you have a website built with a web builder like Wix or Square Space you may need to install a specialist app – any website should be able to accommodate and run Google Analytics.

The amount of data that can be collected, extracted and analyzed by Google Analytics is huge, and its capabilities are still growing. In very basic terms, if it is happening on your website GA can track it. What can it do specifically? All of this and more:

• Learn how visitors use your site, where they go and which pages attract the most visitors.
• Find out which of your online campaigns bring the most traffic and conversions.
• Determine where your website visitors are located, what devices they use, what languages they speak and other very useful demographic information.
• Learn what people are searching for on your site.
• Visualize what people click on the most.
• Uncover your top content.
• Identify your worst performing pages.

And that is all just for starters. At first glance, Google Analytics seems very complicated, and learning to make the best use of the data it offers does come with something of a steeper learning curve. The basics however are not difficult to master. If you want to get the most out of GA though, a little expert help will go a long way.

The Real Time Report provides data about visitors’ activity on your website only seconds after it actually occurred. You can see:

• Number of visitors on your website
• Visitors’ geographic location
• The traffic sources that referred them to your website
• Goal conversions that have just occurred​

The Audience Report provides an overview of the number of visitors that have visited your website, how long they spent and the percentage of new vs. returning visitors. You can gain the following insights through this report:

• Demographics: Age and gender of your site’s viewers.
• Interest: Visitors’ areas of interest.
• Behavior: New and returning visitors, frequency of visits.
• Technology: Browsers, operating system and network used by viewers.
• Mobile: Desktop, tablets and mobile devices used by viewers.
• Visitor Flow: How visitors move through your site.​

In Google Analytics, conversions are known as “goals”. They are the specific, measurable actions that users take on your website. If you want to be able to leverage Google Analytics’ conversion reports, you need to set up, at the very least, a basic goal.

Though it may be immensely rewarding to see an influx of traffic to your website, what matters most is whether or not you can convert that traffic.

Yes, it is possible to manage and track your accomplishments of Google AdSense by using Google Analytics.

Benchmarking is an insightful tool in Google Analytics that compares your site’s performance to previous results and to your industry’s average. It provides valuable context to your business, gives insights into industry trends, and helps to compare your indicators to competitors.

If used correctly, interpreting the data within analytics can save you money by making you realize which marketing channels are working, and which ones need improvement, or can be dropped.

There’s a tool in Google Analytics called Keyword Column, where you can see the traffic that is coming from organic and paid sources.

Both are equally essential when measuring the site performance, however, their importance relies upon the quantity of components like a high leave rate of a contact page/thanks page or a channel’s end page.

The global site tag (gtag.js) provides a framework for streamlined web page tagging – giving you better control while making implementation easier.

By using gtag.js, you will be able to benefit from the latest measurement features and integrations as they become available.

The bounce rate in Google Analytics represents a single-page session. More technically, Google Analytics defines the bounce rate as a user that sent a single request to the Google Analytics server during their session.

This is because some custom events in Google Analytics can also send requests to the server even if a user only visits one page.

Google Analytics attributes conversions on a last-interaction model. This means the last source that led people to your website before a conversion occurs is credited with that conversion.

Despite the massive advantages, Google Analytics does have some disadvantages to its use. Firstly, visitors can block their tracking within their browser settings, you need to have customization in order to get the maximum value and Analytics samples data for higher traffic websites.

It’s one thing to know how many people are visiting your site, and another thing to know how they are getting there. This information can be found pretty easily in your dashboard under ‘Acquisition > Channels.’