Today I’m happy to have a guest post from a blogger who makes blogging tech stuff easy and applicable , Cinthia from Digimorphosis. She’s taking on one of my favourite geeky business topics: using Google Analytics for your business strategy!

I really do love this, and it’s worth your time to explore. It lets you become a detective in your own business and blog.

The twist? You don’t have to be geeky to use Google Analytics, and you won’t want to hide under your desk after reading this post if you’re not geeky. Cinthia walks you through exactly how to get started.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been setting many intentions for my business in the new year. I don’t mind spending time on my overall business strategy but I do find it hard to take it seriously enough to block out solid time to do it. It is easier to quickly draft a loose plan that seems okay and then go back to spending hours of social media for no real reason.

We are creatures of habit. Whatever we get into the habit of doing becomes easier and easier as we repeat. Starting a new practice is the hardest step, but once we get some momentum, we realize how silly we were for not doing it before. I think most business owners should take their business strategy more seriously and make it a habit to regularly check up.

What do I mean by strategy? Part of it is knowing your direction, your north, your goals, and being adamant about getting there. The other part is being smart in terms of the ‘how’; what actions are you taking today to get to those goals. It isn’t just about what you want but what is needed in your industry and being awake to that need is super important.

So, how can you get clear about your strategy? First, as I mentioned above, understanding your goals. If you haven’t already, write them out, rewrite them out, and make sure you feel them resonating with some meaningfulness within you.

The second step is to do some research and here we are going to use a handy tool called Google Analytics (if you don’t have it installed, check out this post). Now, don’t freak out on me just yet; I know some of you get a bit overwhelmed with Google Analytics, but that’s why I’m here to guide you! I’m going to walk you through how to integrate your analytics data with your business strategy.

Some things to keep in mind before we begin:

• It’s good to have at least 3 months of data, but 6 months is ideal.
• Don’t obsess about single metrics; they don’t tell us much since they can be interpreted many ways. I will point out what metrics are good to focus and how to understand what they are saying.
• Take it slow! Google Analytics isn’t the prettiest of tools but it is very powerful and not using it can be a loss to your business.

I recommend working on one component of your strategy at a time. Are you mapping out your social media strategy for next year? Or maybe you are looking at the content you want to produce? Conversely, maybe you are redefining your ideal client? All these pieces come together in your strategy but for the purpose of using Google Analytics, make sure you have one clear question in mind to start out.

Once you have the specific question, go to the reporting that is relevant. To get a better break down, check out my worksheet here to locate relevant reports. Here is a simplified table that shows you the site area, what question you might have about this, and the Google Analytics report that aligns with each question.

The key is to keep it simple and focus on one question at a time. If you bounce around it will get confusing and it will be easy to get demotivated.

Once you have the report open, get ready to take notes and put on your investigator hat. What is the most popular? What is the last popular? Some good metrics to focus on are bounce rate and sessions. Try and always compare two numbers and work with percentages.

You don’t need to spend too much time in the tool to get information. It can be a simple 15 minutes to start, with a few notes, for you to take back to your content strategy, social media calendar, or ideal client profile.

Looking at real data adds relevancy and punch to your business strategy and suddenly adds life and clarity to your plan.

I know Google Analytics doesn’t initially seem to be the most friendly tool, but try and view is as a powerful ally to take your strategic vision to the next level.

This can be used in the final stages of your planning, to solidify your ideas, and also in the initial moments, where you might not be sure where to start. It can be great at any point really, to bring all your dreams down to earth, and make sure they are inline with what is truly happening in your site and business.