What Do Dealers Need to Know About Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free web analytics service offered by Google which tracks and reports your website traffic. It is now the most widely used web analytics service on the internet.

The online platform can help dealerships to track and review their website by providing insightful data about page views, time spent on each page, referral sources, geographic location of visitors and much more.

Google Analytics’ approach is to show high-level, dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into the report set for those who have a broader understanding of the platform. Taking the time to engage in even the most basic top level analysis can really help dealers to understand the way in which potential customers are using their website.

Where Are My Website Visitors Coming From?

The reporting system within Google Analytics allows users to see where visitors are coming from, these are known as referrals and can be of huge benefit to dealers. Monitoring referrals can help dealers to identify whether more people are landing on their website from Google, AutoTrader, Facebook or any other search engine or portal. This in turn helps to identify where dealers should be advertising to bring more traffic to their website and subsequently drive more sales and profit.

Which of My Pages Are Performing Badly?

It is also a good idea for dealers to know which of their website pages are performing poorly so that they can make changes to freshen things up and encourage more user engagement. The funnel visualisation option from Google Analytics gives users the ability to view the customer journey on their website and is a great way to learn about how people navigate your site. By taking note of this process regularly, alterations can be made to prompt browsers to view the pages that you want them to view in order to create more interest in certain vehicle types for example.

How Long Do Users Stay on My Site For?

Google Analytics can even provide a complete rundown of how long browsers stay on any given page before navigating away, which is incredibly helpful when gauging interest levels in your stock and also for working out whether your web page is engaging to visitors. This gives dealers the chance to improve their pages in order to increase viewing time, a higher amount of time spent on a page suggests that users are engaging with your content, however if it’s generally just a few seconds then it shows that there is plenty of room for improvement.

Are Local People Browsing My Website?

Another incredibly handy feature of the Google Analytics dashboard is that dealers can find out where in the world their website visitors are located. This might seem irrelevant but if most of your views are coming from Aberdeen when your dealership is in Watford then it makes it less likely that these potential clients are ever going to visit your forecourt (although obviously there are anomalies where customers will drive huge distances to get their car!) This can be addressed by boosting posts on social media to your locality and including nearby place names and landmarks in your website metadata. Getting local people onto your website is imperative as these are the most likely to come to your dealership, buy a car and boost your profits.

How Do I Measure The Success of My Site?

Dealers can also use Google Analytics to track conversions (also known as goals). Goals might include lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file. All of which are important to analysing how your website is performing in terms of fulfilling its purpose of driving leads and sales into the business.

Car Dealers don’t have to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerburg to get a lot out of Google Analytics. It is an easy to use platform, designed to help businesses gain important insights into their online presence. There are also many internet based tutorials, e-books and guides on how to get to grips with the most popular website analysis tool on the web.

If you want to learn how to use Google Analytics effectively to accelerate your profits get in touch with the Click Dealer team today by emailing marketing@clickdealer.co.uk or calling us on 01782 904 715