See Local Website Visitors with Google Analytics Segments

In this video, I’ll show you how to use Google Analytics segments to show traffic to your website from only the local region you serve.

You probably use Google Analytics to look at the traffic to your website. If you’re not, you definitely want to be doing that, but most of you probably are. Google Analytics by default shows traffic to your website from all over the world. As a local business, what if you want to look at only local website visitors from the region that you serve?

So, in Google Analytics, when you start on the home page here, click the audience and then go to “Overview.”

We’re going to use something called Google Analytics segments. If you notice at the top, the default is to show all users to your website. In this case we have 4,800 or so sessions. These guys serve the Florida region so we’re just going to track that. Click “Add Segment.” You’ll see all the segments that you can filter the Google Analytics view by.

We’re going to create a brand new segment of local website visitors, so we click the “New Segment” button, and there’s tons of different demographics you can use here. We’re going to use “Location” and we’re going to specifically choose a region that contains Florida. You notice it already pre-populates that because it recognizes Florida as a value.

We can now see about 63% of the people visiting this site are from Florida. So, let’s save this segment. and we can now look at Florida to filter our traffic. Everywhere we look now … interests, geographic, where people come from, site content … it’s all filtered just for visitors to Florida.

If you want to compare your local website visitors to all your web traffic, it’s easy. Just add another segment, choose “All Users” and click “Apply.” Now, you’re looking at traffic from your Florida segment and all users. And that’s how you use Google Analytics segments to look for traffic just from your local region.

Question of the Day

What are some Google Analytics tips and tricks that you use in marketing a local business online? I’d like to hear from you in the comments section below. And if you have a question you’d like answered in one of our next episodes post that in the comments section as well.

Free Local Digital Marketing Strategy Video

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Eric Shanfelt
Eric is the Founder and CEO of Local Marketing Institute. He has 25 years of experience in digital marketing and has been the Chief Digital Officer for several B2B and consumer media companies. Eric has a passion for local businesses and focuses on practical digital strategies to help them attract more customers, build customer loyalty, and grow their business.