Google Analytics is one of the most powerful, yet overlooked, tools available to an organization. When used correctly, it can answer crucial questions about the behavior of those who visit your site, such as: who are your visitors, where are they coming from, what are they doing, and how much are they doing it?

By leveraging this data, you gain a much more comprehensive perspective of how successfully your website is achieving its goals and serving your users. That kind of insight allows you to effectively tailor your campaigns, content, and goals, ensuring that business decisions are grounded in sound metrics. For example:

Devices: Do you know what devices visitors most often use on your site? Users navigate and consume content differently on a smartphone than they do through a laptop or desktop computer. Cluttered, complex designs with long paragraphs, for example, are likely to scare away mobile users, and those users may represent a larger portion of traffic than you think.

Entry points: Many organizations assume nearly all of their web traffic enters through the homepage, then flows predictably through the rest of the site. In fact, the first page a user sees is often one that’s buried deep in your site, usually arriving there through a search engine. Knowing which topics and pages are more visited allows you to better architect, label, and market your site.

Geography: Most organizations have no data showing which geographic regions bring the most traffic, and geography can have a major impact on your site’s strategy. What would you do, for example, if you thought all your traffic comes from Boston, but it actually comes from Los Angeles? Or Utah? Would this change how you frame your calls to action, talk about your organization’s goals, or schedule e-mail campaigns or site updates?

Unfortunately, many organizations ignore their analytics because they either view the data as too complex, or simply lack the time or staffing to commit to regular tracking. If you’re interested in learning more about how to understand and leverage your site’s analytics, then drop us a line—we’re more than happy to dig through the data with you!

Matthew Morse is a digital strategist based in Washington, DC and has experience working with dozens of organization to optimize their digital presence.