Websites are popularly used by individuals and businesses to relay and collect information. Companies use websites to tell their visitors about who they are and what they do. E-Commerce platforms like Amazon use websites to sell goods to customers. Websites are also a way of collecting information from visitors through contact forms.
When running a website, it is more important for you to know more about its visitors. You should get insights like the pages where visitors spend the most time, the page that receives more clicks, the devices that different site visitors use, and more. These insights can help you know more about your website visitors and identify any issues with your website that need to be improved.
Google Analytics, Web Analytics Tool developed by Google can help you to gain insights about your website visitors. You can also use it to create a Dashboard for tracking such insights and generate Reports. This article will discuss how you can set up Google Analytics Dashboards and Reports.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
- An active Google Analytics account.
Introduction to Google Analytics
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Google Analytics is a free Tracking Tool provided by Google that helps you to know how visitors use your website. For example, suppose you run an E-Commerce store and you need to know the number of people who visit your website. You can use Google Analytics to know the number of visitors to your website, the devices they are using, where they are coming from, and more.
Google Analytics gives you information about user behavior, which means that it is very important for businesses. The following are some of the ways through which you can benefit from Google Analytics:
- Measure the performance of your website.
- Determine whether your Marketing Efforts are bearing fruits.
- Know the type of content to create or the type of products to list on your website.
- Segment users based on factors like Age, Country, Gender, Device, etc.
- Optimize the pages of your website to boost its performance.
For more information about Google Analytics, click here to check out their official website.
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Steps to Set up an Impeccable Google Analytics Dashboard
A Google Analytics Dashboard can help you track all the Metrics for your business from a single page. In this section, you will be getting to know how to set up a Google Analytics Dashboard from scratch.
To create a new Google Analytics Dashboard, follow the steps given below:
- Step 1: Log into your Google Analytics Account.
- Step 2: Open the website profile for which the Dashboard is to be created.
- Step 3: Click the “Customization” navigation link shown in the left navigation bar. Once you expand the Customization option, you’ll now see four distinct options to create your Google Analytics Dashboard/Report.
- Step 4: Click the “Dashboards” option.
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- Step 4: Click the “Dashboards” option.
- Step 5: This will open up a new page as shown below:
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- Step 6: Click the “CREATE” button under Dashboards. The “Create Dashboard” window will be opened as shown below.
- Step 7: You now have two options for creating a Google Analytics Dashboard. You can either create a new Dashboard or use a pre-built template. To use a pre-existing template, click the “Import from Gallery” button. To create a new blank dashboard, type a name for the Dashboard in the “Untitled Dashboard” section” and click the “Create Dashboard” button.
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- Step 8: A new window will pop up asking you to add a Widget to the Dashboard. The Widgets are the individual boxes of data that will make up the Dashboard. Let’s start with the average page load time. Select this Metric from the “Show the Following Metric” drop-down arrow. The Widget Title” field will be filled automatically.
- Step 9: Click the “Save” button. The Widget will be added to the Dashboard.
1) Adding Multiple Widgets
You have added only a single Widget to the Dashboard. It’s time to add more. Follow the steps given below:
- Step 1: To add a new Widget to the Dashboard, click the “+ Add Widget” button shown on the Dashboard.
- Step 2: The “Add a Widget” window will be opened. Follow the same steps to add a new Widget of choice to the Dashboard. You can choose to add a Table, a Geomap, a Pie Chart, a Bar Chart, and other types of Widgets to your Google Analytics Dashboard from the same window. For example, to add a map that shows the number of your web visitors from different countries, choose “GeoMap”.
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2) Adding a New Segment
You can add a Segment to filter your results and change the data that is being displayed on the Dashboard. By default, the Dashboard will show information for all users. However, a Segment will help you to filter the users. For example, to display data about only the users who made a purchase on the website, follow the steps given below:
- Step 1: Click the “+ Add Segment” button on the Google Analytics Dashboard.
- Step 2: A new window will be opened. Scroll downwards and click the checkbox for the Segment name to activate it.
- Step 3: Click the “Apply” button. The data displayed on your Google Analytics Dashboard will be filtered to show data for users who made a purchase only.
- Step 4: To create a new Segment, click the “Create Segment” button.
- Step 5: A new window will pop up where you can give the Segment a name and set its parameters.
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Steps to Create a Custom Report in Google Analytics
To create a Custom Report in Google Analytics, follow the steps given below:
- Step 1: Click the “Custom Reports” option located under “Customization” and “Dashboards”.
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- Step 2: To use a pre-existing template, click the “Import from Gallery” option. To create a new Report from scratch, click the “New Custom Report” button.
- Step 3: A new window will pop up where you can add the details of the Report.
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- Step 4: Once done, click the “Save” button to create the Report. The Report will then be created.
Limitations of Google Analytics Dashboard & Reports
The following are some cons of Google Analytics Dashboard and Reports:
- Google Analytics doesn’t track specific or detailed data, hence, its Google Analytics Dashboards and Reports don’t display in-depth insights.
- Its user interface is not appealing and one may take some time to get what they are looking for.
- There is no adequate guide or documentation on how to use Google Analytics, hence, one may take some time to learn how to use it.
- Users may face challenges when they need to transfer data from Google Analytics to another platform for Analytics. It doesn’t have connectors to many Data Analysis platforms.
Conclusion
In this article, you learned about Google Analytics and some of its offerings. You have also learned how to set up Google Analytics Dashboards and Reports from scratch.
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Share your experience of learning about building Google Analytics Dashboards and Reports! Let us know in the comments section below!
Skilled in freelance writing within the data industry, Nicholas is passionate about unraveling the complexities of data integration and data analysis through informative content for those delving deeper into these subjects. He has written more than 150+ blogs on databases, processes, and tutorials that help data practitioners solve their day-to-day problems.
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