So ... Let's see the first question ...

1. Why is Google Analytics so important?

Well, I'd say that there are 5 main reasons ... GA will show you ...

1.1 Who visits your website?

This part of analytics answers what is the geographical location of your audience, which browser did the user use to visit your site and many other important information such as screen resolution, JavaScript support, Flash support, language and more.

This data is extremely useful, and it can help in numerous ways. When getting a custom design, you can use the user data to make sure that your site will be compatible with your audience.

For example: if most of your users don’t have Flash support, then you should avoid adding flash element in your site (in fact, you should avoid using Flash for good).

Another example: if most of your users are on 1280 screen resolutions, then make sure that your design is compatible with that resolution or smaller.

And so on ...

1.2 What do people do when they are on your website?

You can track where the user is going on your website, how long do they stay on your website, and what is the bounce rate (the percent of users exit your site witout visiting any other pages on your site).

By using this super valuable information, you can decrease the bounce rate and increase your pageviews.

1.3 When do people visit your website?

By looking at the hottest hours in the day for your site, you can pick the time when you publish your post.

If that time zone is not compatible with yours, then you can always schedule your posts to meet that hour.

1.4 How do people find your website?

This section of the analytics show you where did the user come from: search engines, direct links, referral links from another site, etc.

It also shows you what percentage of your visitors came from each of these sources. Google analytics gives you the breakdown of each of these categories.

If it is the search engine category, then it shows you which search engine got you the most traffic, Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.

The breakdown of referral sources show you which sites you need to work with the most!

For example, if your top referral source is an external website, then you might want to consider having a partnership with that website (guest post exchange or something else).

1.5 How do people interact with your content?

Google analytics shows how your users interact with your site’s content.

It shows you what percent of the user clicked on which link on your site and much more.

And more importantly: you can run A/B split tests by creating content experiments in Google Analytics to understand what works best to meet your goals.

In other words: by seeing the user interactivity, you can work your content around your users.

Conclusion

By seeing the answers to the questions above, you can focus on the strategies that work for your site and eliminate the strategies that don’t work.

Simply put, you can eliminate the guess work and you can focus on stats that matter, so you can make data driven-decisions ... to achieve your goals.

OK. Now let's see the second question ...