What Is The Best Way To Learn Google Analytics For Free?

4 min readApr 17, 2018

Google Analytics is an extremely useful tool that analyses website visitors and their behaviour. This helps website owners to:

Optimise their internet marketing strategies
Tailor marketing campaigns to attract, retain and grow a valuable client base more efficiently
Identify which KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are appropriate for their website
Monitor improvements / modifications to their website
Inform and direct business decisions within the company

And the best thing about it? Its free!

However, according to our report on Web Analytics Trends in Irish Business, 71% of Irish organisations are not comfortable in their ability to report on web analytics.

Whether your organisation is part of that 71% or your simply running a personal website and looking to understand and implement Google Analytics, there are a wide range of options available to you. It is possible to learn all you need to know without investing in costly and time consuming courses. Here, we’ll run you through our pick of the top 5.

1. Study For Free At The Google Analytics Academy

Google’s own Analytics Academy offers free, online courses on Analytics and other data analysis tools. We recommend two in particular:

Google Analytics for Beginners shows new users how to create an account, implement tracking code, and set up data filters. You’ll learn how to navigate the Google Analytics interface and reports, and set up dashboards and shortcuts. The course will also demonstrate how to analyse basic Audience, Acquisition, and Behavior reports, and set up goals and campaign tracking.
Advanced Google Analytics walks you through how data gets collected and processed into readable reports. You’ll learn how to use configurations like Custom Dimensions, Custom Metrics, and Event Tracking to collect data that’s specific to your business. The course will also demonstrate more advanced analysis techniques using segmentation, channel reports, audience reports, and custom reports, as well as marketing strategies like remarketing and Dynamic Remarketing that show ads to customers who have visited your website.

2. Up-skill With Free Online Tutorials & Videos

Outside of Googles own Analytics Academy, there are a few video tutorials and other video resources that are worth checking out.

On the Google Analytics YouTube Channel, there are tonnes of helpful videos that explain a range of features and capabilities of Google Analytics as well as “Quick Tips” type videos and more.
For intermediates and experts, there are a lot of informative videos available on the Measureschool Youtube Channel. Julian posts a constant stream of digital marketing tips, tricks and tutorials with a particular focus on Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. They’ve even got a free video tutorial series on Setting Up Google Analytics Correctly.

3. Keep Up To Date With Google Analytics Expert Blogs

Once you’ve finished with tutorials, you’ll want to keep up to date on the latest features and capabilities. There are a lot of really helpful blogs out there to help you. I’ve found the three below really helpful at different times. All three are run by genuine Google Analytics experts that post really useful guides, tips and tricks on a regular basis.

Optimize Smart — the founder of Optimize Smart, Himanshu Sharma is an expert in Google Analytics and offers basic as well as expert tips on web Analytics and conversion optimization.
Online Metrics — SEO and Analytics expert, Paul Koks regularly posts helpful guides and articles on Google Analytics.
Occam’s Razor — Avinash Kaushik is an author, Google digital marketing evangelist, business owner and digital analytics expert that runs one of the best online resources for digital marketing information, with a particular focus on Google Analytics.

4. Get To The Next Level With Hands-on, Practical Experience

At this stage, you should be well versed in the theory behind Google Analytics. However, this will only get you so far.

Everyone’s Google Analytics requirements are different. It’s both impossible and unnecessary to know how to do everything Google Analytics is capable of. The ultimate goal should really be to have a solid understanding of how Google Analytics works, and it’s core features but more importantly, to master the features and capabilities pertinent to your own websites objectives.

At this stage, you will want to set up your own Google Analytics property for your website. If you don’t have a website, Google Analytics have a Free Demo Account that is available to everyone and is great way to practice pulling reports and explore the interface.

5. Consider A Tailored Google Analytics Training Course

Ultimately, the scope of online tutorials can be broad and won’t be targeted specifically to your organisation’s needs. Often, those individuals within a business to whom Google Analytics has valuable potential will have a million other responsibilities too. It may be impossible to dedicate the time and effort required to figuring out what Google Analytics data is a priority for their particular needs. That’s before getting into the stage of identifying which resources to prioritise and upskilling to the required level.

For organisations that wish to focus on topics and data specific to their own sites or apps, a tailored Google Analytics training session may be the best choice. A tailored Google Analytics training workshop can focus on topics specific to an organisations particular business and website objectives, without wasting time on aspects that are not immediately relevant to those objectives.

At Arekibo, we have successfully worked with some of Ireland’s best known organisations to not only devise and implement web analytics strategy’s but to train and equip their teams with the knowledge and ability to assume responsibility for day to day management and reporting on their analytics data.

Find out more about our Google Analytics Training.

If you have any queries in relation to Google Analytics, contact us on 01–9052030 or Get In Touch.

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