In part 1 of this series, you installed Google Analytics on your consulting website.
In part 2 of this series, you set up goal-tracking on your consulting website.
In part 3 of this series, you will create a dashboard for your website’s analytics.
What is an analytics dashboard?
An analytics dashboard is a summation of your most important metrics and KPIs.
On the default view of Analytics, you’re hit with a ton of data. Most of it is meaningless without context.
With a dashboard, you can tell Google Analytics what to show you. You use them to sift through the chaos — and bring you the data that matters.
Here’s an example of my own businesses dashboard:
What does it show me?
- How many people visited my website in the last month
- How many email subscribers I’ve gotten
- The percentage of my website visitors that opt-in to my email list
- Where my traffic is coming from
- My most popular posts and pages
- How each page is performing (which one is converting the highest)
This information alone isn’t going to improve my marketing efforts.
But, the fact that I can access this information so quickly will improve my marketing efforts.
What should your dashboard do?
Take a look at Chris Vannoy’s Brass Tacks landing page. He articulates what your analytics dashboard should do:
- Peace of mind: Once complete, you’ll know that your analytics are set up and primed to give you the answers you need to deliver actionable insights that drive your business forward.
- More hours in the week: Once the reports and segments are set up, insights that would have taken you hours per week to sift through the data to find will instead be at your fingertips – anytime you need them.
A good dashboard provides you with peace of mind and more time. And it helps you make better marketing decisions in your business.
In my case, I use my dashboard to…
- Figure out what’s working and what’s not — which helps me do more of what’s working and less of what’s not
- Determine whether I should focus on marketing (getting more traffic) or research and copywriting (increasing the conversion rate)
- Understand the effectiveness of my lead magnet and email opt-in copy
- Compare and contrast the effect my revisions have on the website and my funnel
Could I find all of this data without my dashboard? Yes. But it would take a lot of thinking, and a lot of clicks.
With your dashboard, you do the thinking up front — and in 0 clicks, you can find what you need to know, forever.
How do you build a dashboard?
To build your Analytics Dashboard, log in to your Google Analytics account.
Click on “Customization.”
Click on “Dashboards.”
Click on “Create.”
(Watch the video below for instructions)
Here, you have some options.
- Select “Blank Canvas” if you want to create your dashboard from scratch.
- Select “Starter Dashboard” if you want to create a starter dashboard template.
- Select “Import from Gallery” to create a dashboard from a list of templates from other marketers.
I recommend that you import a couple of dashboards from the gallery to see how they work. They are much better than starting from blank (good for intermediates/advanced users).
Skip the Starter Dashboard. It’s not very useful to a consultant.
In the step below, I’ll show you how you can import my dashboard built for consulting websites.
Action Step: Import My Consultant Website Performance Dashboard
Click on the link below to import my own Consultant Website Performance Dashboard:
Once prompted, sign into Analytics, and select the “View” for which you’d like to use the dashboard.
Once that’s done, you’ll see the data for your own consulting website through the lens of my dashboard:
You may have to tweak the goal-related widgets depending on your goals. But as a starting point, this is all you need.
Now, you’ll be able to see how your website is performing in seconds. Bookmark this page, and refer to it often.
Over time, you’ll revise the dashboard to fit with your business — and the data you need to make the best decisions for you.