Your website is the heart of your entire digital presence. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that allows you to track and report your therapy website traffic. Not only can it show you how users behave on your website, but it can give you information on how effective your other marketing is based on traffic referred from other sources, like social media for example. Google Analytics is free and fairly simple for anyone to set up, regardless of your skill level.
This tool can help you gain valuable insights about who is viewing your website, how they are viewing your website, and if your website is successful in converting traffic into leads. You might be surprised by which pages and blog posts are gaining the most traffic and keeping users interested.
Furthermore, you can see how successful some of your other marketing tactics, such as social media, blogging, emails, and paid social and search ads are at sending users to your website.
Additionally, the data you collect could point out an issue your website is having. For example, if you see the majority of traffic viewing your site on cell phones leave immediately, maybe it is time to re-evaluate how mobile-friendly it is.
Empowered with all of this information, you can strategically improve your marketing plan, use your resources more wisely, and grow your therapy practice or your waitlist. After you implement Google Analytics, you may want to update your therapy website design to be more appealing based on the data.
With the recent implementation of Google Analytics 4, the set up process and Google Analytics dashboard layout has completely changed. Follow these steps to begin tracking.
To get started, head over to analytics.google.com and create an account. Follow the prompts to get started, enter an account name, and select your sharing settings. Click “next” and continue to “Property setup,” entering your property name (this can be as simple as “therapy website”) and selecting your time and currency settings. Select “next” to navigate to the “About your business” page and enter your business information selecting the “health” industry, your business size, and goals. Click “Create” and agree to Google’s terms of service to move on to the next step. You will be prompted to choose your email settings, and then be directed to the Google Analytics dashboard.
In the dashboard, you will see three options for setting up a data stream. Select “Website.” Input your therapy website URL and name and then click “Create stream.”
Next, you will take the code from Google Analytics and paste it into your website settings so that they can speak to each other and data can be collected.
On the next page under “Web stream details,” scroll down to “Tagging Instructions.” Under “Global site tag,” copy the code so that you can paste it into the HTML of your website.
To install the code within your website header on a WordPress site, you will have to install a plugin. In your WordPress Dashboard, scroll down to “Plugins” on the left. Select “Add new” and search “hfcm” to find and install the Header Footer Code Manager plugin. Once this plugin is activated, go to your plugins page and select “Settings” under the Header Footer Code Manager. Select “Add a new snippet” at the top and make sure to add a name, select the Snippet Type (Javascript) and set the site display as “Side Wide.” Underneath this form, you will paste the code you copied from your Google dashboard and save it.
With a plugin, WordPress has the capability to show you your data within your WordPress dashboard. Here are some additional plugins to help you view and analyze your data.
On the “Web stream details” page, copy the Measurement ID on the right side of the page. Go into your Squarespace settings, and select “Advanced” and then “External API Keys.” Paste that Measurement ID into the space provided for Google Analytics. It’s that simple!
On the “Web stream details” page, copy the Measurement ID on the right side of the page. In your website settings, select “Marketing & SEO,” then “Marketing Integrations,” and then under Google Analytics, click the button that says “Connect.” You will need a Premium Wix account and a custom domain to do this.
You won’t be able to start crunching the numbers right away. After you are all set up, it may take up to 24-48 hours to start seeing information displayed within your Google Analytics dashboard.
Once you have set up your account and begun collecting data, trying to make sense of it all can seem overwhelming at first. From the Google Analytics dashboard, you will see several reporting options on the left side under “Reports.” Once you select any of the other reports, you can update the time frame on the upper right hand side or even opt to compare two time periods to see how your site traffic is improving over time. Here you will also see that you can save or export the reports you pull so you can store monthly or quarterly reports.
These reports will tell you how your website acquires visitors. You can see if they’ve directly entered your URL or found you through social media, organic search, or referral links. From this information, you can identify which sources are bringing in the most traffic and the best quality traffic and converting leads.
Looking at the engagement overview will help you to understand, in summary, how users are behaving on your pages. Pages with the most engaged sessions and highest engagement rate are usually the best performing. If any page on your site has low engagement rates, consider making some improvements.
Under the User tab, you will find information about who is viewing your website. You can find out where they are located, what language they speak, what web browser and operating system they are using, and if they are returning or new visitors. Under Demographics, make sure to enable Demographics and Interest reports so that you can view more in-depth demographic information.
This is a great tool to measure if you are converting leads. To use the Conversions tool, you will first have to enable conversions in order to track them. In your dashboard, scroll down to “All events” on the left. Here you should see some existing events that Google Analytics 4 has identified for you. Toggle the “Mark as conversion” button to start tracking any of these events as conversions. Some examples of events you may want to track are when a user submits a form, clicks a button, or contacts you. You can add your social media channels to your Goals in Google Analytics for even more specific data on the success of your social posts.
If you have an existing Google Analytics property set up and haven’t yet updated to Google Analytics 4, you may to consider switching over. Universal Analytics will no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1, 2023. Google suggests preparing now by switching over to a Google Analytics 4 property. To make the switch, you will have to visit your Analytics dashboard where you will see a notification across the top of the screen and click “let’s go.” You will then go through the steps of creating a new property outlined above.
If you are used to using the old version of Google Analytics (otherwise known as Universal Analytics), you might feel lost at first in the new version because your dashboard will look completely different. Here are the major changes you should expect.
While information was organized by Views in the past, it will now be organized by Data Streams in GA4. These Data Streams can be found within the Admin menu under Properties.
There are variations in how data will be tracked in Google Analytics 4. In the past, hit types were referred to as page views, events, transactions, and more. In GA4, all hit types will be referred to as events.
Because of data model change, you will no longer be able to view bounce rate, average session duration, and other behavior metrics. Instead, you will be able to see engaged sessions, engagement rate, engaged sessions per user, and average engagement time. These are all located under Reports, then Acquisition and then under User Acquisition.
In the old version of Analytics, many standard reports were available under Acquisition, Behavior, and Audience. In GA4, there are only 3 types of reports all under Acquisition. Underneath the Explore tab in GA4, however, you can build your own custom reports. Another option for analyzing your data through reports is Google Data Studio. Many reports within GA4 will also require you to employ Google Tag Manager to set up.
In GA4, there are four types of events:
Collecting information on who is viewing your site, how they are viewing it, and how they engage with each page can be eye-opening. If you notice that traffic is high but conversions are low, consider adding more call-to-action buttons throughout your pages. If you notice that bounce rates are high, meaning that users leave after landing on one page, perhaps you need to re-assess your navigation and user experience.
For more on therapy website design, check out this blog.
Within Google Analytics, you will be able to view which blog links got the most traffic and which searched terms brought users to those blogs. As you see trends emerge, you can focus on creating more content focused on those successful themes or key terms.
Find out how else you can boost SEO and get more eyes on your blog.
There is so much to learn about Google Analytics - from unique ways to view your data to all of the technical terms that they use. If you want to go beyond what we’ve covered above, check out the following tools.
If you would like some help with Google Analytics or another aspect of your therapy website, the Theory About That team is ready to assist you. Drop us a line or schedule a meeting here.
