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5 Essential Website Metrics From Google Analytics
If you're not running analytics, you're probably missing some really useful facts about your site. Google Analytics is free, easy to install, easy to interpret and can help you get the biggest bang for your website buck. Let's talk about some of the data Analytics gives you
1 - Site Usage.
The dashboard screen displays data about your site under 5 major headings - site usage is the first heading you'll see. With just a quick glance you can see counts for visits, pageviews, and bounce rate. You can drill down on all the metrics just mentioned to see more detail. For example, if you click on "visits" you'll see a graph showing the visitor count for each day in the date range you selected. You select the desired date range from the date display in the upper right corner of the dashboard window. There is a dropdown calendar display that makes it very easy to select the date range you want to see.
2 - Visitors Overview
The Visitors Overview panel shows you a line graph for the date range you choose that plots the number of visitors over the time span in question. If you mouse over any part of the line graph you'll see a small information window that shows you the data value for that point on the graph - in this case that would be the date and the number of visitors that came to your site on that date.
3 - Map Overlay
The Map Overlay panel shows you where in the world your visitors are coming from. The countries are color-coded by visitor volume. Click on the "view report" link and you'll see a report (below the map graphic) that lists visits, pages per visit, the average time on site for the visits from a particular country, and the bounce rate (plus a few other metrics). You can also click on a specific country in the world map to go down to next level of detail. For example, I just recently discovered that the bulk of my US-based visitors to one of my informational sites come from a very small number of states. Do you think that sort of knowledge could help you sharpen your message?
4 - Traffic Sources Overview
The Traffic Sources Overview panel gives you a pie chart that displays how your traffic gets to you. There are three choices: direct traffic, referring sites, or search engines. Each of these three categories is fairly self-explanatory, but if the exact meaning of say, direct traffic is not clear to you, just click on the "About this Report" link in the Help Resources panel at the bottom left of the dashboard screen. The explanations found in the Help resources are very well written and should clear up any lingering doubt or confusion.
5 - Content Overview
The Content Overview panel tells you how many views each page on your site received during the date range you've specified. If you think you know what pages on your site get the most traffic, a look here might surprise you. Imagine how powerful it is to know which specific pages on your site are getting the most scrutiny. Clicking on the "view report" link in this panel takes you down to the next level of detail where you can see how people navigate around your site and what keywords are leading users to your website.
Now if all that is not enough, you can also customize the dashboard page to include other reports that you may want to see on a daily basis. Implementing Google Analytics on your site is as simple as copying and pasting a script from the analytics site to each page you want to monitor on your site. There are other sources for the kind of metrics Google Analytics provides, but the clarity and ease of use you'll experience with this service will be hard to beat.
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