Google Analytics is a superb tool that can help improve your SEO and take your photography website or online store in the right direction. It gives you a wealth of information and statistical data about how your website is accessed and used.
As a photographer a website is a vital marketing tool to showcase your work and give potential customers information about your services. You can use it to create epic image galleries displaying your talents, sell your photos directly, or attract new clients.
Once you have your website created it can be difficult to know if it’s actually doing anything useful and this is where a tool like Google Analytics is hugely beneficial. Below we look at 10 specific reasons why as a photographer you should consider using it.
1. To set and monitor goals
- To run a successful photography website or online store you need to set and monitor goals. This could be monthly traffic, sales, or search engine rankings for example. Google Analytics allows you to do this and gives you tangible data that you can relate back to your goals. It gives your photography business focus and allows you to be far more productive.
2. To see which content performs the best
One of the simplest things you can do is to see which pages and content get the most traffic and engagement. You can use this data to make further improvements and optimize those pages even more. Not only that but you could look at what makes those pages successful and duplicate the processes for your content that is not getting as much traffic.
3. Because it’s free!
Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of a free product from the best-known search engine in the world? Yes Google Analytics is completely free to use and all you have to do is register an account and enter your website details. Despite being a free tool, Google Analytics is incredibly detailed and rivals many of the paid analytical tools available.
4. To gain geographical insight
As a photographer you probably target a particular region such as the city or county you live in for your photography services. With Google Analytics you can see if this targeted approach is actually working as it shows a wealth of geographical data relating to where people are accessing your website from. You can use this to see if your local keywords and SEO implementation is working for example.
5. To see how users access your website
- Google Analytics can show you how and where people are accessing your photography website or online store. It might show that 60% of users are visiting from smartphones for example, or that the majority are located in the UK. Information like this is invaluable and the more data you have, the more improvements you can make.
6. To see what people get up to on your website
Have you ever wondered what people actually do on your website? What pages do they visit and do they interact with any of the elements? This is a really important part of Google Analytics as it shows a range of activity data that you can then interpret to see what your website is doing well and which pages are underutilized.
7. Find your target audience
As a photographer you most likely specialize in a particular field such as portraits, wedding photography, or travel photography. Your website should ideally reflect this and appeal to your target audience instead of being bland and generic. Google Analytics has some fantastic tools that allow you to glean more customer insight and demographics which you can put to use to create targeted content.
8. Root out pages with high bounce rates
A high bounce rate means that a user clicks on a page and quickly clicks off and goes somewhere else. This essentially means that the page isn’t getting much traction and the content isn’t interesting or useful. Google Analytics provides reports on pages with high bounce rates so you can look at making improvements and dissect what the problems are.
9. To see if social traffic is working
You probably have social media profiles like a Facebook page for your photography business and this is a great idea. It can be difficult knowing which online avenues are performing well though and Google Analytics helps you do this. In the channels tab you can see information on things like direct website traffic, organic search traffic, and social medial performance.
10. Find potential site errors
A photography website can look fantastic but this doesn’t mean it has optimum performance and SEO and this is where Google Analytics helps. There is a behaviors tab and a host of useful info that shows potential site errors and areas of improvement. This includes things like page loading times which are important for SEO and your user’s experience.
Give Google Analytics a Try and See How You Can Improve Your Photography Website
There is really nothing to lose from using Google Analytics and all it takes is a little time and effort to learn. If you feel daunted or overwhelmed it could be an idea to look at local SEO services for photographers as there are professionals who know this platform inside out and how to utilize it for photography businesses.
Regardless, it is a powerful tool and one of the first ones you should use to try and improve the performance of your photography website.
