Google Analytics is a great, free tool to analyze web site visits and statistics. It is rich with information. As a service to RF Web Design clients, we utilize Google Analytics and encourage our clients to view and trend the information in these reports.

 

How to Access Your Google Analytics Report

Visit http://www.google.com/analytics and login with your username (typically, your Gmail address) and password.

Then, you will see your web site listed, and click on “View Reports”. If you are a client of RF Web Design and your web site name doesn't appear, contact Vicky at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

How It Works

Google Analytics provides user-friendly, informative reports describing visits and visitors to your web site. Each time someone visits any page of your web site, Google Analytics stores information about the visit, to include the following:

• When the view occurred (date and time)
• Where the visitor came from to view your site (referring web site, search engine, etc.)
• How many times previously the visitor has been to your site
• Where (geographic location) the visitor is located

Whenever you request to view a Google Analytics report, the data is retrieved from a Google database for your view. To collect this data for the reports, Google Analytics uses "Page Tagging", which involves placing (tagging) on each page a small snippet of JavaScript. Typically, the web designer has placed the tag on each page of your web site. It is usually placed immediately before the </body> tag of each page.

How Much Do the Google Analytics Reports Tell Me?

That is like asking the famous (in horseman circles) question, "How much does a horse cost?"… The answer depends on what you are looking for and how much time you have! But, don't worry about not understanding all the details, because even viewing the basics that I've outlined below will give you some very good feedback about your web site.

When you first open the report, you'll see the dashboard. Just like the dashboard in your car, this page shows you an overview of key metrics from the various reports generated by Google Analytics.

By default, Google Analytics shows you data for the past month. However, you can adjust this view; just click on the down arrow next to the date, then select your preferred start and end dates for the reports.

OK, now let's focus on these reports:

• Visitors
• Map Overlay
• Traffic Sources
• Content

 

Visitors

In the left column, click on "Visitors". The overview gives you some great information.

This page shows you trends about your visitors for the time period you've selected (and remember, if you don't change the settings, then this will be for the past month).

Below are definitions, and an example of what you might find in your statistics.

 

Visits: The total number of visits to your site
Absolute Unique Visitors: The number of unique (each visit from a different person) visitors
Pageviews: The number of pages these visitors visited
Average Pageviews: On average, the number of pages each visitor viewed while on your site
Time on Site: The amount of time (average) the visitors stayed on your site
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors that visited only one page on your site before the left your site
% New Visits: The percentage of visitors to your site that were first-time visitors

Generally speaking, the larger the number of visits, the better (this is great metric to track over time). A high "unique visitors" number tells you that new people are also finding your site. The more pages viewed and the longer they stay on your site are both good indicators that visitors found something of interest to them at your site.

Bounce rate is one of those metrics that you need to look at carefully. Often, a high bounce rate can indicate that visitors to your site were not looking for your product or service and so "bounced off" quickly. This might suggest that better keywords and text to describe your site or services should be incorporated into the web pages. However, if the top landing page (explained later) is the page where they took the desired action, then the bounce rate is not such a significant metric. There is no magic number, but a bounce rate higher than 50-60% deserves more analysis.

Map Overlay

Now, go back to the dashboard (the link for it is at the top of left column), then look in the "Map Overlay" section (right side of page). This page shows you the locations (countries) of visitors to your site. Click on the USA to then see a graphical view of each state; the darker the color, the higher number of visits.

If you provide a local service (say, to the Southern Pines area), then you hope to see a large number of local locations in this visits list. If your product is sold nationwide, then this will show you the states where visitors were located. Click on any state to see the areas of the state that visitors were located. Tip: This will also tell you if your brother in Utah actually visited your site as promised!

Traffic Sources

In the left column, click on "Traffic Sources".

Direct traffic refers to the % of total visits that occur because people typed in your domain name and went directly to your site. If this is high, then you know that many visitors already know your domain name. "Referring Sites" refers to traffic that came to you from another web site. Click on "Referring Sites" to see from which sites people found and clicked to your site; this is a good place to find if your web site was mentioned in a forum or if advertising you set up sent you any prospective clients! "Search Engines" tells you what percent of visits came from people finding your site as a result of a web search.

"Top Traffic Sources" shows you, by number and % visits, how people found your site. Keywords is a great metric to review, as it shows you what words visitors actually used in web searches to find your site. Often, looking at this alerts you to tweak the text/content on your web site pages to help more people find your site!

Content

Now, on to information about how people entered your web site. In the left column, click on "Content". Then, click on the subsection called "Top Landing Pages".

This shows where visitors first "landed" when hitting your site. Typically, this is the homepage, but sometimes, with correct marketing and/or search engine results, this page may be the page where the visitor takes the desired action: Contacts you, buys the product, looks up the vendor, etc.

In the example at the left, most visitors entered the web site at the homepage.  But quite a few also entered at other pages.  Past analysis has clarified that these pages (#2-#6) place well in search engine results and tend to bring visitors to the site.

Are the Numbers Absolutely Correct?

No, typically you should not consider all those numbers as absolute. Because of many variables, it is almost impossible to get exact data. For example, in order for Page Tagging to work properly, Google Analytics uses up to five, first-party cookies to track a visitor. Yet, some people set their web browsers to block cookies (so those visits aren't counted), and some people regularly routinely delete stored cookies (so the data regarding first time vs. return visitors is affected). That being said, the Google Analytics data does a great job of describing trends and patterns. So, the best way to view the data in your report is as a general description, not as absolute numbers.

How Can this Information Help My Business?

Explore the different sections of the report. Over time, do you identify trends which indicate that you should make some changes to your web site content? To discuss your analysis, ask us to analyze and provide recommendations, or if you have specific questions, feel free to contact Vicky at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Ready for More Detail?

Google has prepared a nice overview that covers more than the basics just reviewed: