Here is a quick checklist of what to look for in Google Analytics. If you don’t use Google Analytics frequently, it can be confusing can’t it?
These are 3 key areas that I look at when I spend five minutes looking at Google Analytics for one of my websites or one of my clients. (Sometimes, I spend a lot longer).
Once you have logged in you will see a menu on the left hand side of the screen (if you are using a desktop / laptop). We are going to use:
Audience
Acquistion
Behaviour
….from this menu.
Audience / Overview – what are they doing when they visit?
Towards the top RHSide (Right Hand Side) of the screen, change the date range so that you are looking at three months. I have found that this is a reasonable time period, to measure changes.
If you have more than 5 minutes at your disposal, when you are working with Google Analytics, you can change the viewing period to see what difference it makes. However, for comparison purposes – it is important to stick to the same time period.
Within Audience / Overview you can see: Sessions. Users. Page views. Pages / Sessions. Bounce rate. Also, you can see a pie chart of new versus returning visitors. NB You can change the settings so that you can see different information.
Acquisition / Overview – where did the website visitors come from?
Within this view you can see:
Direct – i.e. visitors have typed your website address into a browser
Referral – they have found your website by clicking on a link in a website
Organic search – they found you via Google search
Social – they found you by clicking a link in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc
Email – they clicked on a link from an email, i.e. your website address if you place this after your name, phone number etc
Behaviour / Overview
Shows a list of the most popular pages within your website.
If you see: /
….at top, or near the top of the list, this means ‘home page’. You can click any of the pages and drill down for more information.
Conclusion
It is a good idea to login to Google Analytics and make a note of some of the key stats, i.e. the ones that I have listed above, in a spreadsheet. Then login a week later and make a note of the new numbers within a separate row within the spreadsheet.
I always include Google Analytics when I build a website and I am always keen to show the website owner how to use the software in order to improve their website.
