Search Engine Optimization

Upskilling for School Marketers: Web Analytics

May 27, 2020

We hope you've been enjoying our Upskilling for School Marketers series. So far, we've equipped you with resources to learn search engine optimization, email marketing, video marketing, pay-per-click advertising and more. In today's post, we'll run you through the basics to learn how to measure the success of these tactics: by using web analytics.

Web analytics is a broad term that describes the process of capturing, measuring and reporting on user behavior on a webpage or website. There are a range of different web analytics programs, offering various types of reporting. Some programs are free (or free up to a certain traffic volume) and others can be very costly. The most widely used web analytics program is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is so popular because it's free, easy to set up and implement on your school website or app, and it provides you with a range of helpful standard reports (as well as allowing you to create your own custom reports).

 

Read our guide, Why School Marketers Need to Understand Google Analytics

 

Other popular web analytics tools you might consider using include:

At Digistorm, we use a mix of Google Analytics, SEMRush and HubSpot Analytics to measure our website performance and inform future marketing campaigns. Something to note, particularly if you use a blend of programs like we do, is that no analytics tool will record 100% of visitors to your website. There are various reasons for this, such as, if the user has implemented an ad-blocking tool, any tracking of their activity will be disabled. This means, you should use web analytics for trend comparisons only.

It's imperative that school marketers have a basic knowledge of web analytics, whether you are managing your website and marketing yourself, or hiring a marketing agency. Knowing how to understand and report on your website and marketing campaign results is an extremely handy skill, especially for planning future campaigns.

Before we dive into the courses available, here's a quick overview about what web analytics are, and the top 3 essential analytics skills that a school marketer should learn. 

 

 

 

Web analytics training courses for school marketers

FutureLearn's Web Analytics Course

This course teaches you the basics of analytics, different types of analytics and why they are important for businesses, including schools. It uses Google Analytics as an example to teach you how to apply what you've learned to your own website.

How long will it take me? 2 weeks, with 2 hours of study/week

How much will it cost? Free!

What will I learn? 

  • The processes, including measuring objectives and outcomes, to continually improve your business

  • How to segment and benchmark your data

  • The five steps to creating a measurement plan
  • How to apply analytics to your own business website.

 

Google Analytics for Beginners 

If your school uses Google Analytics as your web analytics platform (as most Digistorm schools do), this is a handy way to learn the basics of the program. It takes you through the full implementation process, shows you how to navigate the interface, and finally how to interpret your results.

How long will it take me? 3 hours

How much will it cost? Free

What will I learn? 

  • How Google Analytics works
  • How to set up Google Analytics, including setting up views and filters
  • Navigating the Analytics interface
  • Understanding Google Analytics reports
  • Basic campaign and conversion tracking.

 

Are you a school marketer looking to upskill Google Analytics in 2020? Hopefully these courses will get you on your way! If you're looking to learn more about web analytics, here are some other Digistorm resources to get you started: