Since implementing Google Analytics on my IMC 642 blog I have received two visitors to my site. Of these both were unique visitors, each viewing one page. There is a series of steps I take when reviewing the data that Google Analytics has provided me with.
My Trip Across Google Analytics
At the top right of very page there is a date range. By selecting the arrow to the right of the dates you may enter in any time period to review. This makes it possible to review data for a specific period and then compare it to another like period.
For example: I check my data on the first of every month. What I will do is enter the first through the last day of the previous month to retrieve my data. After I review it and take brief notes, I then enter the dates of the first and last day of the month prior to that. From there I can compare how my website if performing month to month. I also like to go in and select a whole year prior to see what my average is and compare it to my current data.
The Audience Control Panel
The first reports that I review are in the audience tab. I start by reviewing the overview tab. This tab gives you the ability to look at one or two metrics at a time on a graph. The default is “Visits” and can be displayed hourly, by day, weekly, or by month. In addition, below the first graph the overview shows you how many visits, unique visitors, page views, pages per visit, average visit duration, percentage of new visits and your bounce rate.Geography
After that I take a trip down to a section called “Geo” where I look to see what language my site is being viewed in. This will help me to make sure I am reaching the people whom I want to reach. It also gives me the ability to make some changes to my site if I were to see that I had a lot of people who speak another language visiting my site.
Next, it’s on to “Location” where I view a map that shows what country(ies) my web visitors are from. If I want to get more specific I select the country and then I opens and break it down by state. I can even go one step further by selecting the state of choice and the viewing what city(ies) people are viewing from. This would be ideal if I were trying to promote to a very specific geographic location. I would be able to see if my efforts were paying of in the form of visits.
Behavior
The behavior tab allows me to see my new vs. returning visitors and then compare the number of visitors of each. I can also compare the % of new visits, new visits, bounce rate, pages per visit, average visit duration and then goal conversion rate, goal completions and goal value if I had those set up.
Then I check out the frequency & recency to see how many page views the visitors have made during the specified time period. This tab also shows the count of visits. A trend I might notice is that out of 2000 visits about 75% of them have only come to the site once. Whereas another ten percent have visited two times and the remaining fifteen percent of visitors have come to the site three or more times. It also shows the number of page views in relation to the visits made.
Engagement is the final metric I visit in the behavior section. This section is simple in that it shows how many seconds your visitors were on your site. Most visitors will be either 10 second or less or somewhere in the mid range at 1-3 minutes.
Technology
Another section of interest is technology. Here we get a break down of the browsers our site visitors are using. One step below we can see which network or service provider our visitors are coming through.
Mobile
A great newer section is the mobile one. An overview shows us how many people are coming from a desktop, a tablet or a mobile device. When we drill down further we can see that some of our visitors are coming from an iPad, Kindle, etc. This information is great for letting you know how much time and energy you should put into making your website mobile friendly.
The Acquisition Control Panel
The first stop of each section is always the overview. Here I can review how I have acquired my visitors. Some areas I might see are (not set), organic search, direct, social, referral and email. For each of those I can also simultaneously view the bounce rates, pages per visit and average visit duration.Channels
In the channel view you can see (not set), organic search, direct, social, referral and email. Once you select one of these it opens a new page showing you where they cam from. For example when selecting organic search you will see which keyword got them to your site.
If you want to dig deeper you can check out the traffic and all referrals sections. Here it segments by where the traffic is coming from (Facebook, Google, etc. Along with the acquisition, behavior and conversions for each of these sources.
Campaigns
The campaign feature is excellent for tracking visitors who enter your site through your channels like email newsletters. Here you can see what email promoted them and also see the standard details: the % of new visits, new visits, bounce rate, pages per visit, average visit duration and then goal conversion rate, goal completions and goal value if I had those set up.
Keywords
The keywords are just as they sound, the key words people are searching before they land on your site. This can help you to tailor content for your site of you see a trend that is relevant. There are also three others that can be useful depending on your needs. These include AdWords, Social and SEO.
The Behavior Control Panel
The final section that I have been referencing is behavior. Here you can look to see the behavior flow of where the people are staring on your site to the steps they take before leaving.Site Content
The site content pages shows us what pages are being viewed and the numbers of standard metrics such as pageviews, unique pageviews, etc. It also shows us the first page (landing page) as well as the exit pages.
Site Speed
This section shows us the time it takes to load pages on your website. It will also provide you with help on how to increase your page load time.
In-Page Analytics
The final section I review is In-Page Analytics. This feature shows you what percentage of people are clicking where on your website. It is an amazing asset to the Google Analytics platform because it can show you whether or not people are viewing what you want them to view and in the order in which you want the pages viewed.
Summary
As you can see Google Analytics is filled with myriad features, functions and metrics. For each person and each company the desires and reporting needed or wanted will vary. I recommend checking into each area to see what reports you like best.
Nice overview...
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