Google Analytics is the most enhanced and comprehensive tool when it comes to web analytics.
This free Google tool helps you drive growth through data. You can measure metrics such as the number of visitors, the search terms they used to reach your site, the time spent on your landing pages, conversion rate, and much more.
But like all tools, Google Analytics is also only a tool. That is why it is necessary to audit it frequently to make sure you get the most out of it.
What is a Google Analytics Audit?
According to Google Analytics Audit Experts, more than 90% of analytics setups have fundamental flaws.
An analytics audit's objective is to find the sources of failure and verify the data being collected at those locations.
We created this Google Analytics audit checklist to help you in understanding various essential aspects of GA.
This audit template will help you perform a health check of GA parameters, patch up, and learn how to set up Google Analytics to collect all metrics. It will help you get better insight into your audience's interaction with your site.
Who Can Use This Google Analytics Audit Template?
This audit template can be used by site owners, marketers, or anyone who:
- Is new to Google Analytics
- Wants to make improvements to already existing Google Analytics setup to start comprehensive e-commerce tracking
- Is trying to audit their Google Analytics account to fix existing problems
To start auditing, you will need an existing website, admin access to the website, and a Google Analytics account.
Here are the 20 most common audit items you should fix in your Google Analytics account.
Things to Fix in GA
1. Tracking Code Implementation
There are a couple of ways to implement GA tracking code on your website. The first method is to do it directly by adding the Google Analytics tracking code to your pages. Alternatively (this is recommended) can also use Google Tag Manager to add the Google Analytics tracking code to your website.
Refer to the following links:
- How to Set Up Google Tag Manager in WordPress
- How to Install Google Tag Manager in Shopify
- How To Install Google Tag Manager in Squarespace
2. Classic Analytics / Universal Analytics / Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is the new version of Google Analytics. GA4 provides more features, better data quality, and ways to integrate different data types in GA.
3. Double Tracking with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager
Setting up your Google Analytics code twice, both directly on the page and through Google Tag manager on the same website may cause both of them to track and skew stats. Make sure you are only adding the code once.
4. Time Zone
It is essential to specify a time zone to your location to get real-time and accurate reporting.
5. Default page
If you have two versions of the same homepage like www.mysiteab.com/ and www.mysite.com/index.html, these may appear on Google Analytics as two separate entries. You will have to define a default page to configure GA to treat them as one.
6. Bot Filtering
Select bot filtering to not track traffic from known Google bots and spiders that crawl your website for information.
7. Set up Site Search Tracking
This will help you track how users utilized your site’s search function and which search terms they entered.
8. Self Referral Exclusion
If you see your domain in your referral list, you should stop self-referrals from GA.
9. Goals Set and Tracking Correctly
You can set up goals to track any KPIs. Check if your goals are set and tracked correctly.
10. Link Search Console and Google Analytics
You need to enable Search Console Data sharing in the property setting section to use the Search Console report.
11. Link Google Ads and Analytics
Link Google Ads (also known as Google Adwords) to your Google Analytics account to view data about your customers, including how they engage with your ads and what those ads bring to your website.
12. Tracking External Campaigns
Check if you’re using UTM parameters to correctly track your external campaigns like social media campaigns.
13. Tracking 404 pages
Set up error tracking to know how often users land on these pages and how to fix these. You can do this by either setting up a report that will filter your 404 pages, advanced segments or by using custom events.
14. Bounce Rate
If your bounce rate feels too high or too low, you should check if you’re sending page views twice, or if you’re getting bot traffic.
15. Custom Dimension/ Metrics
Custom Dimensions are valuable for in-depth reporting. Check if they are valid and reporting correctly.
16. Event Tracking
Set up event tracking to measure when users complete activities like watching a video, downloading a file, or reading a blog post, on your website.
17. Device Tracking
See which devices you get traffic from, if you see something abnormal, investigate and find the cause.
18. Exclude Payment Gateway Referrals
You should exclude traffic from payment gateways like PayPal from referral data.
19. Enable Demographics and Interest Reports
Analytics will collect additional information from the DoubleClick cookie (web activity) and Device Advertising IDs (app activity).
20. Website's URL
The website's URL is used by the Content reports, including In-Page Analytics. Make sure the correct version of the URL is being tracked.
Get Your Free Google Analytics Audit Template Now
Our Google Sheet Audit template is a comprehensive and easy-to-use auditing tool. It covers the most fundamental aspects present in a successfully implemented Google Analytics.
By fixing all the mentioned audit items in this template, you’ll be able to improve the quality of your GA insights and make better business decisions.
Other Resources
If you’re JUST getting started with digital marketing, we have many exceptional guides you can use to get going. Take a look at our digital marketing strategy guide or our SEO strategy guide.
