Under the hood of Google Analytics

Under the hood of

OverviewIntroduction

• General visitor metrics• Where your visitors come from• How they find you• How they use your site

ApplicationUsing this information to•Measure marketing efforts•Optimize performance•Make informed decisions about content and design

• Define web analytics• Why it’s important• The lay of the land

Gathering information

What do you want to learn from your Google Analytics reports?

Web Analytics Defined

• Google Analytics (GA) is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visits to a website.

• It is the most widely used website statistics service.

• The product is aimed at marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew.

The product is made for people like you so you can make informed marketing decisions.The product is made for people like you so you can make informed marketing decisions.

marketers = you

How GA Works

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.

Lay of the land

• Login at www.google.com/analytics• Choose your site profile or search for it• Welcome to the dashboard!

Lay of the land: Dashboard

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.

Default date range settings are for one calendar month.

The date range can be changed at any time to review more specific timeframes.

Plotted timeline of metrics measured in reports.

Report output displays below the timeline it varies from report to report.

To customize timeline data:

Compare metrics

Choose a new date range

Choose visit data

On most reports the timeline will still display an overview of site traffic.

• Visitors/VisitsThe number of visits to your site during a given time period.

• Unique VisitorsCount 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.

• PageviewsThe number of pages these visitors viewed.

• Pages/VisitThe average visit in terms of page views.

Visitor metricsVisit Metrics

• Bounce RateThe percentage of people who only visited one page on your site before they “bounced” somewhere else.

• Avg. Visit DurationThe average amount of time a visitor spends at your site.

• % New VisitsThe percentage of new visitors to your site as compared to all visitors.

Visitor metricsVisit Metrics (Cont.)

Let’s compare metrics.Unique Visitors vs Visits

Compare metrics by choosing one from each:VisitsUnique Visitors

What this tells meMy 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.

Visitor metrics

Reports in action!Compare traffic patterns and email marketing mailing dates

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.

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

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

APPLICATION

Our site goals

• Lower Bounce RateThis 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

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

APPLICATION

Our site goalsWe can judge the progress towards our goals by doing a date comparison of metrics.

APPLICATION

Our site goals

Where visitors come from

Devices• Mobile

– iPhone– Andriod– Blackberry

• Desktop– PC– Mac– Monitor size and resolution

• Browser

Location• City• State• Country

APPLICATION

Review mobile visitors reportAudience > Mobile > Overview

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

APPLICATION

Mobile visitors

• 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

What this tells me

APPLICATION

Review mobile devices reportAudience > Mobile > Devices

APPLICATION

Mobile visitors by device

• 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

What this tells me

Applying a secondary dimension

Visitors•Language•Continent•Sub Continent•Country/Territory•City•Metro•Visitor Type

Applying a secondary dimension

Technology•Browser•Browser Version•Operating System•Domain•Screen Colors•Screen Resolution•Flash Version•Java Support

Applying a secondary dimension

Traffic Sources•Source•Medium•Keyword•Campaign•Landing Page

Applying a secondary dimension

Content•Hostname •User Defined Variable

APPLICATION

Mobile visitors landing page sort

APPLICATION

Mobile visitors landing page sort

APPLICATION

Mobile visitors landing page sort

• 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.

What this tells me

APPLICATION

Browser comparison

• 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.

What this tells me

APPLICATION

Review browser & OS reportAudience > Technology > Browser & OS

APPLICATION

Browser comparison 2010 vs 2012• 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!

What this tells me

APPLICATION

View visitor location reportAudience > Demographics > Location

APPLICATION

Visitor location

APPLICATION

Visitor location

• 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

What this tells me

APPLICATION

Sort traffic location by cityTwo ways: secondary dimension or city tab

How visitors find you

Traffic Sources•Search TrafficFound you searching using a search engine such as Google•Referral TrafficFound you by clicking on a link to your site from another site•Direct TrafficTyped in your domain name and came to your site directly

APPLICATION

View search traffic reportTraffic Sources > Search > Organic

APPLICATION

Search trafficSee which keywords are most often used to find your site

• 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

What this tells me

APPLICATION

Search trafficWhat search engines are used to find your site

• 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

What this tells me

APPLICATION

View referral traffic reportTraffic Sources > Sources > Referrals

APPLICATION

Referral trafficWhat other sites drive traffic to your website

• 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

What this tells me

APPLICATION

View direct traffic reportTraffic Sources > Sources > Direct

APPLICATION

Direct trafficDirect links to your website

• Most of our direct traffic comes from our email marketing campaigns

• Some people have book marked our pages

What this tells me

How visitors use your site

• Page views per pageNumber of times each page has been visited

• Landing pagesPages where viewers enter your website

• Exit pagesPages where viewers exit your website

• Visitors flowA chart depicting the way traffic flows through your website

APPLICATION

View page views reportContent > Site Content > All Pages

APPLICATION

Page views per pageNumber of times each page has been visited

APPLICATION

Page views per page

• 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)

• Exit % is highest on the web portfolio page, do we need a strong call to action there?

What this tells me

• Our secondary pages are not being seen very often, people are staying in the main level navigation

• Are they difficult to find or unnecessary?

APPLICATION

View landing pages reportContent > Site Content > Landing Pages

APPLICATION

Landing pagesWhere visitors enter your website

Time on site for blog posts is really low bounce rate is high and majority are new visitors

APPLICATION

Landing pages

• 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

What this tells me

APPLICATION

View exit pages reportContent > Site Content > Exit Pages

APPLICATION

Exit pagesThe pages visitors exit your website from

APPLICATION

Exit pages

• 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 featured in our newsletters have lower exit and bounce rates

• Exits and bounces are considerably lower on our actual pages

What this tells me

• We need to find a way to pull one time visitors in to view more posts

• When people visit the pages within our site they meant to get there and stay a while, good job us

Visitor flow

APPLICATION

View visitors flow for your website

Audience > Visitors Flow

Fine tune dataSelect advanced segments

Advanced Segmenting

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

Advanced Segmenting

• All Visits• New Visitors• Returning Visitors• Search Traffic

• Referral Traffic• Mobile Traffic• Tablet Traffic• Non-Bounce Visits

Examples of Advanced Segments (Select up to four)

APPLICATION

Drill down visitor information by mobile and location

PRACTICE: Find cities, source and keywords

APPLICATION

Questions and ExamplesWhat information do you need to learn from your website?

OverviewIntroduction

• General visitor metrics• Where your visitors come from• How they find you• How they use your site

ApplicationUsing this information to•Measure marketing efforts•Optimize performance•Make informed decisions about content and design

• Define web analytics• Why it’s important• The lay of the land

Gathering information