How to Use Google Analytics to Increase Traffic (10 Easy Ways)

Are you looking for ways to grow your website traffic?

Traffic on your website is the most fundamental metric for measuring the success of your SEO and digital marketing campaigns. Therefore, you need a way to measure the website traffic and discover ways of improving the website’s structure and content.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to use Google Analytics to increase traffic, and mention ten ways Google Analytics helps you uncover traffic patterns and areas for improvement.

Table of Content

• Use Analytify to Keep an Eye on Google Analytics Data
• How To Use Google Analytics to Increase Traffic
• Conclusion
• Frequently Ask Questions

Use Analytify to Keep an Eye on Google Analytics Data

Google Analytics is a fantastic website traffic monitoring platform because it collects massive data about your website and visitors. Unfortunately, this could overwhelm many users who want to explore traffic growth opportunities. As a result, they miss important data points and couldn’t use Google Analytics to its full potential.

We would like you to meet Analytify, a WordPress Google Analytics Dashboard plugin that brings essential Google Analytics data to your WordPress dashboard.

In addition to a dashboard widget that gives you an instant overview of the website traffic, you can go to the Analytify dashboard, where you can see details of website traffic, broken down into several areas.

You can see additional store-related metrics such as revenue, sales, and transactions if you have an eCommerce store.

With Analytify, you don’t have to go to Google Analytics to check traffic stats. As a result, you can apply many of the following tactics to grow traffic without leaving your website.

How to Use Google Analytics to Increase Traffic

Here are ten ways Google Analytics can help you increase website traffic. Note that Google Analytics is a website traffic analytics platform and provides detailed information about the various aspects of website traffic and user behavior.

1. Be Mobile-First

Do you know that half the search queries Google receives come from mobile devices?

If your website isn’t optimized for a mobile experience, you’ll find your competitors gaining on you.

You can find the user device data Google Analytics records by going to Reports and clicking the Audience tab. Next, scroll down and click Mobile, and then Overview.

This report shows the device category (desktop, mobile, tablet), the number of users, and the bounce rate.

You can set the Secondary dimension dropdown menu to Source/Medium to see where this traffic is coming from. This gives you better insights into mobile traffic and helps you select the target platforms for your marketing campaigns.

If you don’t want to go to Google Analytics, you can see the Analytify Dashboard and click the Audience tab. Scroll down to see the Tech Stats to see the devices used by the website visitors

2. Improve Conversion Rate by Reducing the Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who didn’t move beyond the page on which they landed. This could happen when the visitors didn’t find what they were looking for or the links and CTAs on the page aren’t persuasive enough.

You can see the Bounce Rate of your website by going to Reports and then the Audience tab. Finally, click Overview to see the core website performance indicators, including the Bounce Rate.

Analytify shows Bounce Rate in the Audience tab of the dashboard. Scroll down to the General Statistics section to see it.

Reducing the bounce rate should be your priority because it affects your website’s conversion rate. The more visitors “bounce” off your website, the lower the chances of conversion. Our comprehensive guide on reducing a website’s bounce rate gives you all the information you need to improve your website’s traffic and conversion rate.

3. Identify & Optimize Your Best Content

Improving the pages that get the most traffic on your website is a great way how you can use Google Analytics to increase organic traffic on your website.

To start the process, first, find out which website pages receive the most traffic. In Google Analytics, go to Reports and click Acquisition. Next, click Search console and then Landing Pages. You can see the pages that receive the most traffic.

To dig deeper into this data, select Source/Medium in the Secondary dimension dropdown menu. Now you can also see the significant traffic sources landing on these pages. This information offers excellent insights if you’re brainstorming on how to increase organic search traffic.

Analytify also shows you the pages that receive the most traffic in the Audience tab. Again, you need to scroll down to the Top pages by views section for this information.

4. Discover your Best Traffic Sources & Referrers

When it comes to how to increase organic search traffic, you should consider the channels of the website traffic. Google Analytics sorts traffic into 5 default channels – Organic Search, Direct, Referral, Social, and Others.

To see this information in Google Analytics, go to Acquisition and click All Traffic to expand the tab. Now to see the channel-wise traffic break down, click Channels.

Similarly, you need to know the websites that “referred” traffic to your website. This often happens when these websites include a link to your webpage or blog post. Users on their website can visit your website by clicking these links.

To see the top referrals, click the Referrals. Next, change the Primary dimension to Landing Page and choose Source/Medium as the Secondary dimension. You can now see your website pages and the websites that are sending traffic to your pages.

Now you can ask these websites for additional links or better anchor links to increase traffic to your website.

Analytify shows your website to referrals in the Audience tab. Simply scroll down to the Top referral card to see the top referring domains.

5. Optimize User Paths Through Your Website

In addition to how to increase organic search traffic on your website, you also need to see how users are clicking across your website.

This critical analysis reveals how well your call-to-action and internal links perform in terms of user retention.

Google Analytics helps you see user behavior on your website by offering a detailed Behavior Flow report. To access this report, go to Reports and click Behavior to expand it.

Next, click Behavior Flow to see the landing page and the first and the second interactions.

This visual flow helps you see the pages users clicked on from their first landing page. You can also see the “dropoffs,” the number of users who dropped and didn’t click to the next page. You can get a pretty good idea of which CTA leads a user to the next page down the funnel.

6. See Which Pages Are Passing the Link Juice.

Internal linking is an important on-page SEO tactic that greatly improves the user experience and website performance metrics.

Internal links are also crucial for organic traffic landing on your website. If these visitors see internal links leading to related content, they’ll stay for longer. And, the longer they stay, the higher their chances to convert into customers.

Google Analytics tracks the user journey and maintains a Reverse Goal Path report that shows the pages that led users to a specific page or action.

To see this report, go to Conversion and click Goals to expand the menu. Next select Reverse Goal Path to see a list of all the pages that helped convert a user (or accomplished a pre-set website goal).

By adding links to these pages into your content, you can send more users to these pages and increase the chances of conversion.

Source: SEMRush

7. Find High Exit Pages and Optimize for “Stickiness”

When a user leaves your website, chances are they left for a reason you could fix. For instance, users can leave because they found the page’s design confusing or the CTA on the page wasn’t compelling enough.

If your website has a high exit rate, you’ll see a drop in organic traffic.

Google Analytics helps you find the exit pages, so you have a list of pages to work on. To view this list, go to Behavior and click Site Content. The Exit Pages report shows the URL, number of exits, and page views.

Now that you have this list, start by analyzing why users click away from these pages. You can check the target keywords to verify the user intent match. Also, check the CTA design and placement to increase the stickiness of these pages and reduce the exit rate.

8. Monitor Country-wise Traffic to see if you’re attracting the right audience

Many brands often run regional campaigns that target specific countries. They often set up landing pages that cater to individual countries.

You also want to see the country-specific traffic coming to your landing pages to determine if you’re receiving the right audience.

You can access country-wise traffic reports in Google Analytics by going to Behavior. Click Site Content to expand the menu. Next, click Landing pages to see a list of the top landing pages by traffic. Now in the Secondary dimension, choose Country to see the countries.

If you see that the pages aren’t receiving traffic from the intended country, you can optimize them to target the right country. For instance, you can include country-specific keywords, themed visuals, and links to regional content to attract the right audience.

Analytify shows country-specific audience data in a Geographic tab of the dashboard. You can see visitors by countries and cities.

9. Get On-site Search Bar Queries

If you have a website with many pages and blogs, you’ll see your visitors using the on-site search to find what they’re looking for.

If you’re thinking of how to use Google Analytics to increase traffic, the data of this on-site search gives fresh insights into user expectations.

You can access the on-site search data by going to Site Search, found in the Behavior tab. In the Overview tab, you can see all essential information, including the terms users entered in the website search bar.

You can also use Analytify to get this on-site search data without leaving your website.

The search terms show what the users landing on your website are looking for on the pages. Therefore, by optimizing relevant pages for these terms, you can increase the traffic to these pages.

10. Compare New and Returning Visitors to Understand Acquisition Costs

Understanding the costs associated with acquiring new visitors and returning users allows you to better plan your marketing campaigns.

New users can be acquired at a high cost that you pay in terms of paid advertisement, affiliate payouts, and influencer marketing. On the other hand, returning visitors have lower costs of acquisition because you don’t have to spend much on retargeting.

To find these numbers, you need to go to the Behavior tab, found in the Audience tab. Next, you’ll find the News vs. Returning visitors report that gives you a comparison of the two metrics.

This data allows you to think about how you want to adjust the ratio of these metrics in your website traffic. This ratio becomes important when you see it in the backdrop of organic traffic coming to your website.

Conclusion: How to Use Google Analytics to Increase Traffic

We hope you will apply these ideas to increase traffic to your website with the help of the data Google Analytics collects for your website. However, we suggest before using these tips, you should install Analytify on your website to get Google Analytics data without leaving your website.

Tell us in the comments which of these tools you applied to your website and find out how to use Google Analytics to increase traffic to your website.

Frequently Ask Questions

That’s all! You can also check out How To Track Anchor Links In Google Analytics & Analytify and What Are UTM Parameters And How To Use Them.

Not using Analytify yet? What are you waiting for?