With Google providing so many great tools to help us all analyse our websites for free it’s easy to find yourselves getting lost stepping through the stages of setting them all up.

But, even once you’ve managed to do that, you can be overwhelmed with knowing what’s what and where to go next.

As experienced trainers we take a practical approach to helping people understand the various dashboards available and more importantly what to do with the information.

So we thought it might be useful to provide a series of guides to help anyone get off the ground.

We’ll be looking at the following tools as great foundation dashboards to help you  decipher your website. We believe these tools provide a firm footing that can underpin any online strategy and should be on your radar from the beginning of your digital journey especially if you’re selling online.

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster)
• Google Adwords
• Google Merchant centre

So, question 1 for most people –  what’s the difference between Google Analytics and Google Webmasters?

What is Google Search Console?

Previously known as “Google Webmaster Tools”, Google Search Console delivers information about how Google is indexing and displaying your website in the search results.

It enables you to see how your site is ranking within Google, how many pages have been indexed and whether you have technical issues with your site like error pages etc. It’s a diagnostic tool which is vital to use because search engine optimisation (SEO) is as much about making sure your site is accessible to search engines technically as it is about delivering a lovely looking website.

So what is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics tracks and reports website traffic: providing information and data about the people visiting your website. It provides data on the most visited pages, new vs returning visitors, journeys through your site and can develop your understanding of which content is driving sales (or value) to your website. It means you’ve got the data you need in order to make strategic decisions about your digital presence.

One of the key issues many people find is that setting both these accounts up can be, well, a challenge!

Fear not though as our next update will focus on these two crucial tools and how to get yourself up and running with them so you can derive all the benefits we mention above.

Keep an eye on our social media for updates.