I'm back to kick start your week with more insight into the world of the web. It's been a busy week, I have the task of looking after a Jack Russell called Milo (Yes, like the dog in the mask) as you may know or not know they're a very demanding dog so the keeping him entertained is taking up the best part of my time at the moment. This is him, with the big ears....
But lucky, I managed to break away from my canine friend for a moment to bring you how you can get more insight into your website, by using a free tool called Google Analytics.
I use this tool frequently and it gives you the perfect look at how your customers use your site and the journey they take. Have you ever wondered which keywords resonate with visitors? Need insight on what design elements might be turning people away? Here's how you can start answering the website questions that have been keeping you awake at night.
First thing you need to do is add is set up your Google Analytics account, you'll need to implement the code on your website. Set up a profile for the site you'd like to track and the step-by-step process will generate a unique script that you can add.
If you're using a content management system or blogging platform like WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr, you only need to add the code once to your template or theme. The theme will propagate the code in every post and page you create. If your site is custom-built, you'll either need to implement the code on each page manually, or speak to your web developer about how the site generates content.
Copy the JavaScript code from Analytics and paste it just above the tag in your page or template. Adding this code will not affect the look of your site. After you connect your site to Google Analytics, hit "View Report" on the initial screen. This will bring you to the main dashboard.
In the left column, you'll see the various types of data Google Analytics provides, some examples are:
Visitors: This shows many things about the people coming to your site, including where they're located geographically, what language they speak, how often they visit your site and what computers and browsers they use to get there.
Traffic Sources: Here you'll find how people got to your site. You can track which sites link to your page or keywords people search to find you.
Content: This tab gives you insight into specific pages on your site. It can help answer questions about how people enter and exit your pages, as well as which ones are most popular.
Goals: If you're aiming for established objectives, reports in the Goals tab will be helpful to you. Here you'll find data about desired actions from users, including downloads, registrations and purchases.
Ecommerce: You'll only need this tab if you're selling items on your site as it houses all merchandise, transaction and revenue activity information.
Setting Up the Dashboard
On the main dashboard, you'll see a summary of your site's data. You can customize the dashboard to show whichever reports you decide you want to see upfront. Just click on the type of report you want to see from the left column and hit "Add to Dashboard." You can then position reports on the dashboard by dragging and dropping, or deleting ones you don't want. You can delve deeper into a data set by clicking "View Report" underneath the report graphic on your dashboard. This brings you to the full report on that topic.
Adjusting the Time Range
Be sure to adjust the date range in the upper right-hand corner before analyzing information from your reports. It defaults to a month-long range, ending the day prior to the day you're viewing the report.
Click on the date range box and a calendar will pop up. You can adjust it to track information quarterly, weekly, daily, or whatever time-frame works best for you. If you want to compare date ranges, hit "Comparison" underneath the "Date Range" field. This will bring up a second calendar for you to adjust based on what time periods you want to consider, such as weekend to weekend or the first Tuesday of the month vs. the last Tuesday of the month.
Data Tables and Visualizations Google Analytics
Many of the reports in Google Analytics, such as pageviews and conversion rates, contain linear graphs that present data for the topic and date range you've selected. When mousing over the dots on the line, you'll see measurements for that day, week or hour. You can change the metric you want to visualize by clicking the tab above the graph on the left. Here you'll also have the option to compare two metrics against each other. When you're not comparing date ranges, you can compare against the site average. This is particularly helpful if you've laid out goals, as you can compare site activity to conversion goals. When comparing, a second line (gray) will appear for the variable over the graph with the original metric line (blue), making it easy to see how you're stacking up. Beneath the graph, you'll see more data laid out with summaries and scorecards prominently displaying important overall metrics, such as pages per visit and time on site.
That's my little insight into Google Analytics you can tailor it to whatever report you like to see about your site. Next week I'll show you how to track content and also the customer journey with the extensive features this free tool offers. I think it's a pretty handy tool to see what content resonates with your customers and also how to make it easier for people to find you, but I'll explain more of that next week.
I hope you enjoyed Svea's DPS training because Part 2 will be heading your way come Wednesday so look out for it.
I'm off now to get pestered by a pooch.
'Til the next time x
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