Introduction to Google Analytics

Presented by John Garretson, Assistant Digital Content Manager

What is ? • "Digital analytics" is the analysis of qualitative and

quantitative data from your organization and the competition to drive a continual improvement of the online experience that your visitors and potential visitors have which translates to your desired outcomes

• Can find out• Who visits the site, for how long and what they

do• Which keywords resonate with visitors• Where they’re coming from• Which page is the most/least intriguing• And much, much more

• Once you get the hang of things, becomes easy to use and very useful tool to improve your site(s)

Why Google Analytics?

• To understand what works well• To discover what is not working well• To improve website Return on Investment (ROI)

More than just “How many page views is my site getting?”

Like any key indicator for success, it all comes down to the GOALS you set

Remember the Scientific Method

Ask a question

Construct a hypothesis

Test your hypothesisAnalyze

Were you right?

Logging in

• Head to http://google.com/analytics

• Click on “Access Google Analytics”• If logged in with

“My.BoiseState”, should just take you there

• If not permitted access to Google Analytics, submit a request through OIT at https://oit.boisestate.edu/

Main Page

• The main page should feature [all under the Boise State University main folder]:• “COBE WP” or the COBE

site• Your respective

department will fall under the “COBE WP” spot

• “Global boisestate.edu” or the Boise State main page

• We will be using the “COBE WP”

COBE Main Dashboard

• First thought: whoa…• The key to Google Analytics: break it

down piece by piece to then gain full understanding

• On the left-hand side:• Standard Reports

• Your “who, what, when, where, why & how” numbers & data for your site

• Center• Report you’re focused on

• In this case, it’s “Audience Overview”

• Top right• Date range

• From when to when will the data be within

Standard Reports • Audience (your who)

• Overview (general)• Demographic [N/A]• Interests [N/A ]• Geo• Behavior• Technology • Mobile

• Acquisition (your how)• Overview (general)

• Channels• All Traffic• All Referrals• Keywords • Social• SEO

• Behavior (your what)• Overview (your general)

• Site Content• Site Speed• Site Search

First Report: Audience

Overview (general)

Specific

reports within Audien

ce report

Sub-specific reports

WHO is coming to the site

AudienceOverview (aka the

fundamentals) • Overview features:• Visits

• Overall• Unique Visitors

• “distinct individual”

• Pageviews• Total # of

pages viewed• Pages/visits

• Avg. # of pages viewed during visit

• Avg. Visit Duration• Avg. visit time

• Bounce Rate• % of single

page visits• % New Visits

• Estimate of first time visitors

• Within Jan. 25 – Feb. 24

Graphs/Tables help visually breakdown data

• Data can be segmented down • By time, visitor, visits,

source etc.

Key Terms Explained

• Dimensions – describe characteristics of your users, their sessions and actions, qualitative• Geographic location/traffic source/page viewed

• Metrics – quantitative measurements of users, sessions and actions, these are numbers• Total number of users on a website/avg number of pages

viewed during a session/time on site

Example of DimensionsAudience -> Geo: Location

Noticeable trends:• “en-us” has

highest visits, lowest bounce rates [English US]

• “Map Overlay” option gives option to view data in map form

“Country visitors are viewing site

in”

Example of MetricsAudience -> Behavior:

Engagement

Noticeable trends:• The quicker the visit duration, the higher

of visits/page views• Nature of the beast (attention,

distraction, etc.)

Visits? Pageviews? Unique Visitors?

What does this all mean? What’s the difference?

Key Terms Explained

•Visit – session on your site, ends after 30 minutes of inactivity or if the user leaves the site for 30 minutes (how long)•Pageviews – number of times a page was viewed•Unique Visitors – each individual viewing the site (a unique visitor [1] can visit the site [x] amount of times & culminate [y] amount of pageviews, but it’s still just 1 individual)

Visits (overall)

Unique visitors (individual)

Pageviews (how many pages viewed on site)

Second Report: Acquisition

Overview (general)

HOW are individuals getting to the site

Specific reports within

Acquisition

report

Sub-specific reports

•Direct traffic – visitors that type the url directly into the browser or use a bookmark•Referral traffic – a user lands on your site by clicking a link from somewhere else (another site, social media, search engine, etc.)•Organic search – visitors clicked through to your site from search results, not paid ads•Social – Facebook, Twitter, etc. social platforms•Email – email blasts, newsletters

Key Terms Explained

AcquisitionOverview (aka the fundamentals)

Organic search (search engines)

Direct (typing in URL)

Referral (3rd party link clicking)

Social

Email

Third Report: Behavior

WHAT or WHERE

individuals are going on your

site

Overview (general)

Specific reports within

Acquisition

report

Sub-specific reports

BehaviorOverview (aka the fundamentals)

Familiar from Audience overview?

Specific pages on http://cobe.boisestate.edu

Example Page Study: Department of Accountancy

Overall Data

Page Navigation Data

Dashboards

•Dashboards give you an overview of how your site(s) are performing by displaying summaries of different reports as widgets on a single page•With a dashboard, you can monitor many metrics at once, so you can quickly check the health of your accounts or see correlations between different reports•Think shortcut of the reports/metrics you want to see rather than continually digging

Segments

•Segments allow you to isolate specific types of traffic in your Analytics data• For example, segments can filter your data to see only visitors who

used a specific browser or visited certain, important pages on your site, or traffic from a specific referral source or geographic location

1. Click down arrow

2. Click “+ Create New Segment

3. Conditions

4. Filter -> Page

5. Select your respective page

6. Name it!

7. Save it!

Boom. Now you have your specific site data within the general COBE data for your viewing pleasure

To add specific widgets to dashboard:

•Head to a specific report you would like (in this instance: Behavior -> Overview -> Page -> /accountancy• Under title of dashboard click “Add to Dashboard”

More Resources

•support.google.com/analytics•www.kaushik.net - Avinash Kaushik•webguide.boisestate.edu•For personal 1-on-1’s, email me at johngarretson@boisestate.edu to set up an appointment

Thank you! Any questions?