A look at the information offered through Google Analytics and how it can assist business owners to measure their marketing efforts, optimize website performance and make informed decisions about website content and design.
2. Overview
Introduction
• Define web 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 you want 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.
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 the land
• Login at www.google.com/analytics
• Choose your site profile or search for it
• Welcome to the dashboard!
9. Links to all of the standard reports available about your
website. An overview of these reports is emailed to you
in your monthly website traffic report.
11. The date range can be changed at any time to review more
specific timeframes.
12. Plotted timeline of metrics measured in reports.
Report output displays below the timeline it varies from report
to report.
13. On most reports the 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.
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.
19. APPLICATION
The number 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
The number 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
The length 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
Our site 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
Our site 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.
26. Where visitors come from
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
Mobile visitors
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
Mobile visitors 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 secondary dimension
Visitors
•Language
•Continent
•Sub Continent
•Country/Territory
•City
•Metro
•Visitor Type
33. Applying a secondary dimension
Technology
•Browser
•Browser Version
•Operating System
•Domain
•Screen Colors
•Screen Resolution
•Flash Version
•Java Support
38. APPLICATION
Mobile visitors
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!
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 find you
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
48. APPLICATION
Search traffic
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
Search traffic
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
51. APPLICATION
Referral traffic
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
Direct traffic
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 use your 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
Page views per page
Number of times each page has been visited
57. APPLICATION
Page views 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
59. APPLICATION
Landing pages 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
Landing pages
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
62. APPLICATION
Exit pages
The pages visitors exit your website from
63. APPLICATION
Exit pages
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
65. APPLICATION
Audience > Visitors Flow
View visitors flow for your website
66. Advanced Segmenting
Fine tune data
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
• Define web 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