Hands On With Google Data Studio

CHAPTER 5Web Data Visualization with Google Analytics

We start a new series of chapters now that will explore data visualization for website usage data. In 2019, it was estimated that more than half the world's population used the Internet (see https://techjury.net/blog/how-many-websites-are-there). There are millions of active websites on the Internet and even more blogs. Google, the dominant search engine in most areas of the world, states that they are aware of about 130 trillion web pages! Why look at website data?

• Almost every business has a web presence.
• Large numbers of nonbusiness organizations have websites.
• A large number of brick‐and‐mortar businesses and locations of interest now have Google My Business listings.
• Google Data Studio reports they are a type of web page.

We can probably agree that the web is ubiquitous and relatable. Along with all of these web pages and web users comes the desire and ability to measure digital usage. Indeed, data from Internet interactions provides an enormously rich source of information for analysis and visualization.

Google Services for Websites and Business

All websites and web pages have a purpose intended by their creators. Organizations can benefit from a better understanding of how their audience is using their web property, so insights are valuable here. Somewhat surprisingly, the smallest organization is likely to be collecting data with the same tools used by the largest enterprises to help make sense of all this data. ...