Navigating Through The Drawbacks Of Google Analytics | Aregbe Marcus

Google Analytics was launched on November 14th, 2005, under the GOOGLE MARKETING PLATFORM BRAND. Running through 2013, BuiltWith reported that Google Analytics was employed by 66.2% of the 10,000 hottest websites.

We are familiar with the pros, and cons of this WEBSITE ANALYTICS service. But how can we navigate through the drawbacks of Google Analytics?

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics gives you the free tools to research data for your business in one place, so you will be ready to make smarter decisions. In simpler terms, Google Analytics measures the size and metrics of your website so you can make informed decisions. 

• Dimensions include the attributes of your data, the page you're assessing, or the social network channel you're evaluating.
• Metrics are the quantitative measurements for those dimensions.

What does Website Analytics mean?

Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data for the purpose of understanding and optimizing web usage. 

How does Google Analytics track data?

Google Analytics tracks all of its data by a singular tracking code that you simply install on every page of your website. This code could also be a little snippet of JavaScript or a coding language that runs in viewers' browsers once they visit those pages. 

What are the Advantages of Google Analytics?

• It is often used for SEGMENTATION: Segmenting your market could also be tons easier once you've got a robust ally like Google Analytics. By using its Advanced Segments, you will be ready to easily learn an excellent deal of things about your users and determine how and which of them to specialize inappropriately.
• It Tells You About the Geographical Location of your Users: Knowing the location of your users helps you design specific marketing campaigns and sets goals for that area. You'll even be able to determine if there's space for growth in certain areas.
• Online Visitor Targeting: One major advantage of Google Analytics is its ability to specialize in niche audiences who’re interested in purchasing products or services. This is often actually because Google Analytics could also be a monitoring tool and uses data collected to specialize in online visitors more precisely.

• Free to Use: Perhaps the foremost appealing feature of Google Analytics is that it's liberal to use, unlike other analytic tools on the market. Google Analytics not only offers the only business analytics for small business owners, but it also requires no subscription or monthly fees.
• Study Different KEYWORDS: Google Analytics can show you which keywords attract the foremost visitors. It gives you a straight breakdown of the queries that are bringing users to your website and to which pages exactly. Use specific keywords to induce the foremost effective results.

The Drawbacks of GOOGLE ANALYTICS and how to Navigate through.

• There’s a restriction to what percentage of hits you can have; You reach at 10 million hits a month. Anything over 10 million won't be tracked, defeating the aim of using analytics within the primary place. It can desire your data and thus the time you spent has been taken from you. But not to worry, you'll upgrade to Analytics 360 and reunite you alongside your data and reports.
• All visits to an online site must execute a JavaScript file. Visits that do not execute a JavaScript file aren't getting counted. When users disable this option on their browsers, it is hard to know the information of the users that visited your website. Users can navigate through this drawback by using a cookie-based technology called RETARGETING. This code uses simple JavaScript code to anonymously follow your visitors around the web, which is not known to your site visitors and does not affect your site performance.
• The usage of Google Analytics requires constant training because the interface is consistently being updated. The changes are sometimes fairly substantial as new features are being introduced and old features are either being combined or completely discarded. Users are required to keep up with Google Analytics’s constant updates and ensure that users are kept UP-TO-Date with these changes.
• No Customer Care and Support: fixing and maintaining analytics for your site could also be a sophisticated, time-consuming process. The only assistance you get from Google for the premium version of Analytics is endless articles, tutorials, and forums. It’s a matter of getting the time to spend learning the ins, and outs of the platform or scouring the web for answers. You’re left to your own means if you encounter any issue.
• There are privacy issues around the world and it still grows in number and importance. The burden of compliance falls on website owners, who need to be more careful than ever when using analytics. But it's possible to attenuate data sharing in GOOGLE ANALYTICS by changing the settings within the tool. Sharing is enabled by default. So it is often disabled.

Conclusion

Google Analytics could even be free, but it also has its drawbacks. It is a revolutionary tool for tracking and reporting traffic. So navigating through the drawbacks of this tool will bring an improvement to the effectiveness of your website, hence, your business. 

Written by: Aregbe Olawale Marcus imarcus4420[at]gmail.com