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Under the hood of Google Analytics
The document provides an overview of web analytics, emphasizing its importance for understanding website visitor metrics and optimizing marketing efforts. It explains how Google Analytics works, detailing key visitor metrics such as unique visitors, pageviews, and bounce rates, along with insights into traffic sources and audience behavior. Furthermore, it discusses strategies for improving website performance based on analytical data to enhance visitor engagement and achieve business goals.
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Under the hood of Google Analytics
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- 2. Overview Introduction • Defineweb analytics • Why it’s important • The lay of the land Gathering information Application • General visitor metrics Using this information to • Where your visitors come from •Measure marketing efforts • How they find you •Optimize performance • How they use your site •Make informed decisions about content and design
- 3. What do youwant to learn from your Google Analytics reports?
- 4. Web Analytics Defined •Google Analytics (GA) is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitsmade for people like you so you The product is made for people like you so you The product is to a website. can make informed marketing decisions. can make informed marketing decisions. • It is the most widely used website statistics service. • The product is aimed at marketers = you as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew.
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- 6. Why it’s important •Websites are one of the most trackable marketing tools available to small businesses. • Analytics help you gauge effectiveness of marketing efforts outside your website. • Data provided assists with optimizing content. • Results allow you to make informed decisions about content and site design.
- 7. Lay of theland • Login at www.google.com/analytics • Choose your site profile or search for it • Welcome to the dashboard!
- 8. Lay of theland: Dashboard
- 9. Links to allof the standard reports available about your website. An overview of these reports is emailed to you in your monthly website traffic report.
- 10. Default date rangesettings are for one calendar month.
- 11. The date rangecan be changed at any time to review more specific timeframes.
- 12. Plotted timeline ofmetrics measured in reports. Report output displays below the timeline it varies from report to report.
- 13. On most reportsthe timeline will still display an overview of site traffic. To customize timeline data: Choose visit data Compare metrics Choose a new date range
- 14. Visitor metrics Visit Metrics • Visitors/Visits The number of visits to your site during a given time period. • Unique Visitors Count of unique visitors (based on cookie data) in a given period of time. Each browser gets a cookie once a visitor has gone to your site. These visitors may have been to your site before the determined timeframe. Not necessarily new visitors to the site, just unique to the requested timeframe. • Pageviews The number of pages these visitors viewed. • Pages/Visit The average visit in terms of page views.
- 15. Visitor metrics Visit Metrics (Cont.) • Bounce Rate The percentage of people who only visited one page on your site before they “bounced” somewhere else. • Avg. Visit Duration The average amount of time a visitor spends at your site. • % New Visits The percentage of new visitors to your site as compared to all visitors.
- 16. Unique Visitors vsVisits Let’s compare metrics.
- 17. Visitor metrics Compare metrics by choosing one from each: Unique Visitors Visits What this tells me My unique visitors and returning visitors are all about the same. So most of my traffic isn’t returning each month, a few visitors do but the majority does not. The minority of the traffic generates the most page views.
- 18. Compare traffic patternsand email marketing mailing dates Reports in action!
- 19. APPLICATION Thenumber of visits to my website spikes when I send an email newsletter. What this tells me • I sent out an email with information my customers were interested in. • Most of my viewers didn’t open it the day I sent it. • The did go to the site, even on a busy Monday! • I should try sending it on a Tuesday, I might get even better results.
- 20. APPLICATION Thenumber of visits to my website spike when I send an email about a workshop What this tells me • This email wasn’t as interesting to viewers as the newsletter (and that’s okay, it doesn’t appeal to everyone) • Not everyone opened the email the first day • People did click on the site to learn more information
- 21. APPLICATION Thelength of time on the site goes up when I send out emails to my clients What this tells me • My clients spend more time on my site than an average visitor • The more appealing the information is the more time visitors will spend on the site • Unless I add a stimulus visit duration and number of site visitors doesn’t have much to do with the other metric
- 22. APPLICATION Oursite goals • Lower Bounce Rate This can often seem deceptively high, but many people will get to your site and realize that it wasn’t what they were looking for, or you may have a popular image indexed by Google’s Image Search that generates a lot of “drive-by” traffic and skews your numbers. Alternatively, it may represent that your site is difficult to navigate or understand for new visitors. • Generate More High Quality Traffic • Increase Return Visitors
- 23. APPLICATION Oursite goals Our action plan: •Removing resources on our site that were hit often and are not reaching our target market. Asking search engines to stop indexing the resources •Updating our site more regularly with information our target market is interested in •Sending our regular email newsletters
- 24. APPLICATION We can judge the progress towards our goals Our site goals by doing a date comparison of metrics.
- 25. APPLICATION Oursite goals
- 26. Where visitors comefrom Devices Location • Mobile • City – iPhone • State – Andriod • Country – Blackberry • Desktop – PC – Mac – Monitor size and resolution • Browser
- 27. APPLICATION Audience > Mobile > Overview Review mobile visitors report
- 28. Sorting report results Sort results by pre-defined primary dimensions Click on a link to sort primary dimensions Refine results by applying a secondary dimension of your choice
- 29. APPLICATION Mobilevisitors What this tells me • Not many of my visitors are using a mobile device so I probably don’t need a full mobile site • I need to look and see what page they visit most often to see what info to optimize for a mobile site • I also need to check on what devices they’re using to see if a mobile site is necessary
- 30. APPLICATION Audience > Mobile > Devices Review mobile devices report
- 31. APPLICATION Mobilevisitors by device What this tells me • Most of my visitors are coming from an iPad so I don’t need to worry about a mobile site because my site is already formatted to display correctly on an iPad • iPhones are preferred by my demographic • I need to look at what page my visitors are landing on because they have a really high bounce rate
- 32. Applying a secondarydimension Visitors •Language •Continent •Sub Continent •Country/Territory •City •Metro •Visitor Type
- 33. Applying a secondarydimension Technology •Browser •Browser Version •Operating System •Domain •Screen Colors •Screen Resolution •Flash Version •Java Support
- 34. Applying a secondarydimension Traffic Sources •Source •Medium •Keyword •Campaign •Landing Page
- 35. Applying a secondarydimension Content •Hostname •User Defined Variable
- 36. APPLICATION Mobilevisitors landing page sort
- 37. APPLICATION Mobilevisitors landing page sort
- 38. APPLICATION Mobilevisitors landing page sort What this tells me • The largest number of visitors I care about are landing on the home page, so I should make sure it looks good on mobile. • Most of them are new visitors and they often go to one other page, then I loose them. • Many of my mobile visits are from links I highlight on my email newsletters that are located in my blog. I need to make sure my blog displays well on an iPad and iPhone.
- 39. APPLICATION Browser comparison What this tells me • This helps me determine what browsers I should be most concerned with when optimizing my site. • Different types of users use different types of browsers, this helps me know which type of person is viewing my site. Same goes for choice of operating system.
- 40. APPLICATION Audience > Technology > Browser & OS Review browser & OS report
- 41. APPLICATION Browser comparison 2010 vs 2012 What this tells me • This shows me the changes in browser usage for visitors seeing my site in 2010 and 2012 • It makes me happy because way less people use Internet Explorer!
- 42. APPLICATION Audience > Demographics > Location View visitor location report
- 43. APPLICATION Visitorlocation
- 44. APPLICATION Visitor location What this tells me • My company is most often found by visitors located in the state of Missouri • This is good, we mainly work in Missouri • I need to determine the city my traffic comes from in Missouri • I need to discover how the people in Missouri find us to make sure we’re doing our SEO correctly
- 45. APPLICATION Two ways: secondary dimension or city tab Sort traffic location by city
- 46. How visitors findyou Traffic Sources •Search Traffic Found you searching using a search engine such as Google •Referral Traffic Found you by clicking on a link to your site from another site •Direct Traffic Typed in your domain name and came to your site directly
- 47. APPLICATION Traffic Sources > Search > Organic View search traffic report
- 48. APPLICATION Searchtraffic See which keywords are most often used to find your site What this tells me • My other marketing is working OK because people find me by using my business name • I need to get rid of all those extra blog posts that I don’t want people to find
- 49. APPLICATION Searchtraffic What search engines are used to find your site What this tells me • My site is easily found by Google • Either my site is not ranking well in Bing (it’s not, it’s located on the second page) or possibly by demographic doesn’t use Bing very much to find web designers • If I were going to advertise on a search engine I’d advertise on Google
- 50. APPLICATION Traffic Sources > Sources > Referrals View referral traffic report
- 51. APPLICATION Referraltraffic What other sites drive traffic to your website What this tells me • We get an okay amount of traffic from Facebook for the amount that we post each month (about 9 times per month) • People used our QR codes! • Google places sends visitors to our website • Tranquility is a good referral source
- 52. APPLICATION Traffic Sources > Sources > Direct View direct traffic report
- 53. APPLICATION Directtraffic Direct links to your website What this tells me • Most of our direct traffic comes from our email marketing campaigns • Some people have book marked our pages
- 54. How visitors useyour site • Page views per page Number of times each page has been visited • Landing pages Pages where viewers enter your website • Exit pages Pages where viewers exit your website • Visitors flow A chart depicting the way traffic flows through your website
- 55. APPLICATION Content > Site Content > All Pages View page views report
- 56. APPLICATION Pageviews per page Number of times each page has been visited
- 57. APPLICATION Pageviews per page What this tells me • Only two blog posts in the top 10 yippee! • People are getting to the meat and potatoes of our site most • People really do care about people even more than our work (or they’re looking for a job) • Our secondary pages • Are they difficult to • Exit % is highest on are not being seen find or unnecessary? the web portfolio very often, people are page, do we need a strong call to action staying in the main there? level navigation
- 58. APPLICATION Content > Site Content > Landing Pages View landing pages report
- 59. APPLICATION Landingpages Time on site for blog posts is really low bounce rate is high and Where visitors enter your website majority are new visitors
- 60. APPLICATION Landingpages What this tells me • The majority of our search traffic is valuable and landing on our home page • We need to optimize more pages with active search terms • People are definitely finding our resources section though many are older posts, we should to update to ensure correct information
- 61. APPLICATION Content > Site Content > Exit Pages View exit pages report
- 62. APPLICATION Exitpages The pages visitors exit your website from
- 63. APPLICATION Exitpages What this tells me • Exit rates are high as are bounce rates on blog posts • VERY happy the exit rate is so high on the contact page! That’s where I want them to go! • Newer blog posts • When people visit • We need to find a featured in our the pages within way to pull one newsletters have lower our site they meant time visitors in to exit and bounce rates to get there and view more posts • Exits and bounces are stay a while, good considerably lower on job us our actual pages
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- 65. APPLICATION Audience > Visitors Flow View visitors flow for your website
- 66. Advanced Segmenting Fine tunedata Select advanced segments Advanced Segments • Allows you to isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic • Break data into manageable chunks • Apply segments to all past traffic to understand visitor behaviors and apply what you find to new campaigns • Compare past to present in side by side reports
- 67. Advanced Segmenting Examples of Advanced Segments (Select up to four) • All Visits • Referral Traffic • New Visitors • Mobile Traffic • Returning Visitors • Tablet Traffic • Search Traffic • Non-Bounce Visits
- 68. APPLICATION PRACTICE: Find cities, source and keywords Drill down visitor information by mobile and location
- 69. APPLICATION What information do you need to learn from your website? Questions and Examples
- 70. Overview Introduction • Defineweb analytics • Why it’s important • The lay of the land Gathering information Application • General visitor metrics Using this information to • Where your visitors come from •Measure marketing efforts • How they find you •Optimize performance • How they use your site •Make informed decisions about content and design