Use Data Studio to build one page from Analytics with the numbers an owner acts on: enquiries this month against last, the pages that produced them and where visitors came from. Share it, and read it monthly.

The login nobody uses

Most businesses with a website have Google Analytics. Someone set it up when the site was built, and the owner logged in once, saw a screen of sessions, bounce rates and a long menu of reports, and closed the tab.

The questions the owner actually has are simple. Did the website bring in work this month? Which pages did it come from? Is anything changing?

Analytics can answer all three, but only for someone who knows where to look. Data Studio, Google's free reporting tool, can put the answers on one page that anyone can read.

What Data Studio is

Data Studio connects to Analytics, AdWords, Google Sheets and other sources, and lets you arrange their figures on a page as charts, tables and large single numbers.

It is free, and since February there has been no limit on the number of reports. A report is shared like a Google document: send a link, and the owner opens it in a browser with nothing to install.

The owner can have view-only access, with edit rights kept for whoever builds the report.

The figures update themselves. Once the page is built, it stays current without anyone copying numbers into a spreadsheet.

The numbers an owner cares about

The first is the one that matters if the owner reads nothing else. Visits are a means and enquiries are the point, and a report that leads with visits trains everyone to watch the wrong number.

Count enquiries before building anything

A report can only show what Analytics records, and on many sites it records visits but not enquiries.

Set up a goal for each contact form, usually by counting visits to the thank-you page that follows it. Record taps on the phone number as events, which Google Tag Manager can capture once it is installed.

Give each goal a plain name, such as quote request, because that name will appear on the report.

One page, five boxes

Across the top go large single numbers: enquiries this month, with the change from the previous month beside them, and total visits.

The scorecards can also show the same month last year, which matters for any seasonal business.

Below, a line chart of enquiries by month over the past year, so a slow month can be judged against the season rather than in isolation.

Then two short tables: the landing pages that produced enquiries, and where visitors came from. Five rows each. Anything longer becomes a report nobody finishes.

Set the date control to the previous month by default, so the page opens on a complete month rather than a partial one. Keep the layout identical every month, so the owner learns where to look.

Words the owner uses

Analytics speaks its own language: sessions, goal completions, organic search, referral. Data Studio lets you rename the fields, so the report can use plain words instead.

Sessions become visits. Goal completions become quote requests. Organic search becomes Google and Bing, not ads. Referral becomes other websites.

A small text box can carry one sentence each month, written by whoever maintains the site, explaining anything unusual: a page that changed, a campaign that started, a holiday week.

A worked example

A fire protection contractor inspects and services sprinklers, alarms and extinguishers for strata buildings, restaurants and warehouses. Much of its new work begins with a quote request through the website.

The owner had never opened Analytics and said so cheerfully. The office manager knew the site brought in work, but nobody could say which part of it.

She set up goals for the quote form and for taps on the phone number, then built a one-page report: requests and calls this month and last, a year of monthly enquiries, the top landing pages and the sources.

The report is shared to the owner's G Suite account and opened at the first meeting of each month. It takes five minutes.

Inspection work for strata buildings runs unevenly through the year, so the year-long chart matters more than any single month.

In the second month, the owner noticed that the page on kitchen hood suppression systems drew plenty of visitors but almost no requests. It had no phone number and no form, and a week later it had both.

Calls and work the site cannot see

Some enquiries never touch Analytics: a customer who reads the site and then rings from a desk phone, or writes from their own inbox.

A simple Google Sheet, with a monthly count of calls and emails from new customers, can be connected to the same report. The office fills in one row a month.

A rough count is fine, as long as it is kept the same way every month.

Placed beside the website figures, the sheet completes the picture: what arrived through the site, and what arrived another way.

What to leave off

Bounce rate, average session duration, pages per session and a world map of visitors all invite discussion and rarely change a decision.

Leave them in Analytics for whoever maintains the site. The owner's page should hold only numbers that would make them do something differently.

A report that needs explaining every month will stop being opened by the third.

The counter-case

A small site, visited a few hundred times a month, produces numbers too small to mean much from one month to the next. A quarterly look at the same page may be more honest.

An owner who already reads Analytics comfortably needs no extra layer, and a business with a single enquiry route may manage with one number in a monthly note from whoever maintains the site.

For most owners, though, one page with the right five numbers will be read where a hundred reports will not.

Building it this month

  1. Set up goals for every enquiry form.
  2. Count phone taps as events.
  3. Connect Analytics to a new Data Studio report.
  4. Put enquiries first, with last month beside them.
  5. Rename every field in plain words.
  6. Share the link with the owner.
  7. Book a monthly time to open it.

Step one comes before everything for a reason. Without goals the report can only show visits, and a page of visits is exactly the kind of analytics the owner already ignores.

Which searches bring those visitors in the first place is covered in the search queries analytics cannot show you.

Frequently asked questions

What is Google Data Studio?

A free Google tool that connects to Analytics, AdWords and Sheets and arranges their figures on a shareable page of charts, tables and large single numbers.

Which numbers should an owner see?

Enquiries this month against last month and last year, where visitors came from, the pages that produced enquiries, and a simple split of phone and computer visitors.

Why set up goals first?

Because a report can only show what Analytics records. Without goals for forms and events for phone taps, it shows visits rather than enquiries.

Can calls and emails be included?

Yes. A Google Sheet with a monthly count of new-customer calls and emails can be connected to the same report and shown beside the website figures.

What should be left off the report?

Bounce rate, session duration, pages per session and visitor maps. They invite discussion and rarely change a decision, so leave them in Analytics.

How often should the owner read it?

Monthly, at a fixed time such as the first meeting of the month. Very small sites may get more honest numbers from a quarterly look.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Analytics installed and never opened?

Tell us what you want to know each month. We will set up the goals and build the one-page report.

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