Google’s suite of services provides pivotal digital marketing platforms for businesses to explore. Google Business and Google Analytics, in particular, have emerged as indispensable tools for enhancing brand visibility and scrutinizing website performance.
Read through our guide detailing the forthcoming updates to Google Analytics and Google Business.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will entirely replace Universal Analytics (UA) in July 2023. You can switch to GA4 as soon as you want as it has been up and running for some time now. It is said to be an improved version of UA, so the sooner you make the change, the better – you’ll get to benefit from the new perks.
Switching from UA to GA4 is quite easy – just go to Google Analytics and follow the steps indicated in the uppermost part of the page:
There are several key changes in GA4, among which:
- every hit is an event, meaning any interaction can be captured as an event
- engagement rate replaces bounce rate
- data streams can divide web and app data
- eCommerce events are improved
Stay tuned as we will be discussing all of them in detail in upcoming posts.
Google Business
The Google My Business app will soon no longer be available. Presumably, this change is introduced to save users the need to enter in a separate app to manage their Business profiles. After the app is deactivated, managing your business on Google will be done directly on Maps and Search:
ON MAPS: type the name of your business or open your Account Menu and go to Your Business Profile
ON SEARCH: type the name of your business or hit ‘my business‘
Bottom line
While the changes in Analytics appear to be an improvement of the old version, we are not so sure this is the case for Google Business.
Not having a dedicated app because supposedly it wastes time to use it, seems counterproductive. We are avid users of Google My Business and have found it to be a very handy tool for anyone who wants to rank well in search results and raise brand awareness.
It allows you to manage everything from open hours, to posts about offers and events. It made all the sense that it needs a separate app so functions between Business and other Google apps don’t get diluted.
We will be talking about GA4 and what improvements it brings to the table in upcoming articles so stay tuned!