Is Google Analytics a good fit for SMBs?

Small and medium business owners can definitely use Google Analytics and benefit from it by making data-driven decisions. But there’s one important thing every small or medium business owner should consider before getting started with Google Analytics- It might not be the best tool for them. Google Analytics can be too complex and overwhelming for non-professionals analysts, and without hiring an agency or an analyst, it can lead them to completely misunderstand their website results and make the wrong business decisions based on it.

So, what should small or medium business owners do in order to really understand their website results? There are a few options:

1. Look for an alternative – There are many other website analytics tools out there, and some of them, are actually a much better fit for SMBs than Google analytics. Tools such as Oribi or HotJar can be the better options. Oribi is actually the only website analytics tool built for everyone, rather than for professional analysts, agencies or large companies that can afford to hire them. It will get you all the data you really need in order to understand your website results, help you ask the right questions and give you actionable data. The best part is that it does so without making you go through endless and time-consuming reports or confusing graphs. So if you find Google Analytics confusing and overwhelming, you might want to consider using one of the other tools. 

2. Outsource Google Analytics – Most SMBs who are using Google Analytics eventually find themselves spending way to much time trying to understand their website results and make smart data-driven decisions. Sounds familiar? If the answer is yes, you should consider hiring an agency or a freelancer analyst to handle Google Analytics for you. In most cases, it’s probably much better than trying to figure it out by yourself. Misunderstanding your results may lead you to make crucial mistakes regarding your business, which is, of course, the opposite of what you are trying to achieve by using a website analytics tool such as Google Analytics.

3. Learn more about Google Analytics – Fully understanding your results with Google Analytics can be hard, but luckily for you, there are many webinars and online courses that can help you with that. We’ve wrapped up a list of the best webinars and courser there. Click here to see the full list. As a busy small or medium business owner, options 1 or 2 are probably better for you, but if you insist on keep using only Google Analytics and handle it by your self, you better make sure to take at least one of these courses. Remeber – Misunderstanding your website results can be crucial for your business.

By now, you may ask yourself, why should I take any of these pieces of advice while I can just use Google Analytics for free? But what you should really ask yourself, is Google Analytics really free for me? In most cases, the answer is no.

Is Google Analytics really free?

Well, technically, yes, Google Analytics is free. In reality, for many of its users, it’s not, and it can actually be quite expensive.

The reason for that is pretty simple: many Google Analytics users find it too complicated to set up, define conversions, create reports and actually understand their website results to be able to make data-driven decisions. This results in many users eventually hiring an agency or an analyst to set up and analyze the data on Google Analytics for them.

If you end up paying an analyst or an agency to handle Google Analytics for you, Google Analytics isn’t free for you, even if you don’t actually pay Google to use it.

Not to mention that if you find Google Analytics overwhelming or misunderstand your data, you may make business decisions that will eventually cost you.

We hope this information will help you turn your website into a data-driven business machine.