An Author’s Basic Google Analytics Report

Stereotypically, authors work with words rather than numbers. Of course there are plenty of wordsmiths who are also comfortable with figures, but lots of authors still steer clear of anything that sounds too much like math. Google Analytics, now called GA4, does have numbers involved, but you shouldn’t be avoiding it.

Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks the traffic on your website. The latest version of Analytics, GA4, has been rolling out since 2020 and the old version is now obsolete. Some website-building programs might already have their own brand of traffic measuring tool, but what Google offers is probably much better.

The way you get Analytics on your website is to copy a snippet of tracking code that Google gives you and paste it into the html of your site. Google has pretty clear instructions on this, but if you aren’t technologically comfortable, it might be better to ask your web designer to do this for you. They might already have added the code for you – go ahead and ask.   

The code can’t be seen by humans, but Google’s spider bots keep track of all comings and goings. You can log into your account to see everything being reported or have certain reports emailed to you on a regular basis. Again, talk it over with your web professional to find the best way for you to access the information.

There are SO MANY reports that you may be overwhelmed and tempted to ignore it all. Don’t do that! Instead, take a look at a few key reports. 

Overview in the Reports Snapshot is a great place to start. It shows you how many New Users came to your website over the past 28 days as well as the total of All Users. Plus, you can see their Average Engagement Time. Of course, you want to see those numbers grow every month. 

The Views by Page Title report tells you how many pages visitors look at and how long they spend looking at them. If they aren't lingering long, it could mean they aren’t finding much of interest. If your website has a lot of blog posts and calendar events, that could be a bad sign. But if you send folks immediately to buy your book at Amazon, it's not necessarily a problem. You just won't know for sure until you measure and analyze. 

There is much, much more to be learned from GA4 on your website, but rather than overwhelm you, we’ll break it down over a couple of months. Next, we’ll look at some of the other reports that will help you plan your book marketing.