How to Get the Most Out of Google Analytics

January 04, 2012 by Meghan Peters

After we published a primer for using Google Analytics, readers said they were hungry for more.
Google Analytics has since revamped its design, giving it not only a cleaner look but also updated data sets. You can now find everything from real-time stats to details about which mobile device your site visitors come from.
Though the data possibilities seem endless, Google Analytics product manager Phil Mui says the design reflects three core metrics: acquisition, engagement and outcome. Let’s take a closer look at what these numbers mean and how you can track them with one of the most widely used web analytics platforms.

Acquisition

The lowest-hanging fruit of web analytics is counting metrics. This data encompasses the number of visitors that come to your site and can be filtered to show what sites they’re coming from and how many of them have or haven’t been to your site before. In Google Analytics, this is described as “Visits.”
The tool has long provided information about where your visitors are coming from (geographically and on the web), what language they speak, how often they visit your site and what computers and browsers they use to get there. More recently, Google Analytics released mobile reporting. As people increasingly access the web from smartphones and tablets, this information is key to optimizing your site for those looking at it from a mobile device. This and most visitor-specific information can be found under the Audience tab. On report pages, the Visits metric can be found in the upper-left, while New Visits — the percentage of visitors coming to your site for the first time — is second in from the right.

Measuring how many people are coming to your site is the most cut and dried — but it’s only one piece of the metrics pie.

Engagement

These numbers consider the quality of your site traffic. Once visitors come to your site, they’ll do one of three things: read the page they came to, click to more pages beyond their entry page, or leave. Engagement metrics focus on these actions visitors are taking once they get to your site — and how good you are at keeping them there. The three key engagement metrics in Google Analytics are:

Pages per Visit: This is the average number of pages a visitor views when coming to your website. The more engaging your site is, the more inclined visitors will be to continue clicking beyond the entry page.
Average Time on Site: This refers to the typical amount of time visitors spend on your site, despite whether they continue to stay on the page they came in on or navigate elsewhere within your domain.
Bounce Rate: This represents the percentage of single-page visits to your site. It gives you a sense of how many visitors left your site from the entrance page rather than clicking further into your site as compared to total visitors. Like Pages per Visit, Bounce Rate can help you determine the performance of your entry pages based on the actions visitors take (or don’t take) after they’ve arrived on your site.

Engagement metrics are especially important for reports created in the Traffic Sources and Content tabs. On report pages, Pages per Visit and Average Time on site are located at the top middle of report pages, while Bounce Rate is at the far right.
So, how do you know if your site is “engaging?” Ask yourself: Is your site user-friendly? How simple is it for a visitor to click to the next page? Is there interactive content in which your readers can participate? Does landing page content match the keywords in its title? Considering these questions when designing your site is a surefire way to improve the quality of your web traffic.

Outcome

The Goals area is where your data tracking can really help you make a difference. These outcome-oriented metrics help you dive deeper into your site performance and learn whether you’re achieving what you want with your website. The first step is defining your business objectives: Are you driving visitors to make online purchases? Getting them to view a specific piece of content? Aiming for more newsletter signups? Once you’ve pinned down your site goals, make sure your site administrator enables Goals in Google Analytics in the Account Settings page. Then you can choose one of four Goal types to track:

URL destination: This metric is best if your goal is to get visits to a key page of your site, such as your homepage or a post-purchase message page.
Time on Site: If you’re looking to measure engagement, this will track visitors spending a defined amount of time on your site.
Pages per Visit: Also important for engagement, Pages per Visit will keep tabs on a defined number of pages visitors view in a session on your site.
Events: Released in the most recent version of Google Analytics, Event Goals allow you to track specific actions visitors are taking on a page. This includes anything from downloading a PDF to watching a video.

Goals reports can be found under the Conversions tab, which will provide information about goal completions and conversion rates. You can opt to track goal value and abandonment rates (the percentage of visitors who fail to convert on the goal) as well.
If you’re an online retailer, it may make more sense for you to set up Ecommerce in Google Analytics, which allows you to track transactions and order values. It’s a more complicated setup process, but will provide more actionable metrics for visitors’ purchasing behavior on your site. For Google Adwords users, linking your account to Google Analytics goals can help you keep a closer eye on your marketing campaigns.

Other Noteworthy Features

One problem with the analytics industry, Mui says, is that tools give users so much information — but they’re not as good at telling users what they need to know. That’s why Google Analytics improved its Intelligence product in the most-recent update. It searches your site traffic for anything out of the ordinary and then alerts you to the anomaly. You can see all your alerts in a simple graph, where you can drill into and annotate specific events.
If you’re running a dynamic website that frequently publishes new content, Google Analytics Real-Time helps you understand what content is working best and what sites are sending you the most traffic at any given moment. It’s less useful for providing more long-term actionable insights.
For more useful v5 products, check out our top 10 features of the new Google Analytics.

Conclusion

While your level of interest in these key numbers and features may differ depending on your role and organization, these data points have become the standard for web analytics today. Whether you’re strategizing for a massive corporation or bolstering your personal web presence, understanding acquisition, engagement and outcome metrics is a must. “If content is king, then context is queen,” Mui says.

SEE ALSO: 10 New Google Analytics Features You Need to Start Using

Diciembre 06, 2011

Tecnoespectador

Frontera entre la vida ‘real’ y la ‘virtual’ está desapareciendo

Así lo sostiene un estudio realizado por expertos de Alcatel-Lucent, sobre el impacto de las comunicaciones en la sociedad.

Las redes sociales, los teléfonos inteligentes, las tabletas,y permanecer hiperconectados a estas tecnologías está causando un cambio dramático en el modo en que la sociedad vive, trabaja y hasta en la forma en que las personas se ven a ellas mismas y a los demás. Esta es la tesis del libro Identity Shift: Where Identity Meets Technology in the Networked-Community Age (Cambio de Identidad: Donde la Identidad se Confronta con la Tecnología en la Era de la Comunidad Conectada), el nuevo trabajo del grupo de investigación de la empresa multinacional de servicios de telecomunicaciones Alcatel-Lucent.

En este libro, el segundo de la serie “The Shift” (El Cambio) que analiza la Web 2.0, sus autores, Allison Cerra y Christina James, examinan las repercusiones de vivir en una época en que, prácticamente, todos nuestros datos personales y la interacción con otras personas está disponible a un ‘clic’.

Para ello, observaron durante un año el comportamiento de los consumidores en todas las etapas clave de la vida, desde el nacimiento a la edad adulta. El modelo de investigación utilizado fue la Etnografía.
De esta manera, los expertos en investigación de mercado de esta firma tecnológica con presencia en más de 130 países utilizaron cientos de horas de observación documentada, realizaron entrevistas a más de 5.000 consumidores y alrededor de 30 visitas a hogares a lo largo de Estados Unidos para observar a sujetos de varios grupos de edad en su vida diaria, junto con las tecnologías que les rodean.
El objetivo:ayudar a los consumidores y a los clientes de la compañía a entender mejor el impacto que tiene el mundo hiperconectado actual en la percepción individual de ellos mismos y de los demás.
“Cada vez vivimos una mayor parte de nuestra vida en las redes y en la creciente variedad de dispositivos que están conectados a ellas, y exponemos más información sobre quiénes somos a los demás y a las compañías que nos facilitan sus servicios,” comentó Allison Cerra, quien es también la vicepresidenta de Marketing, Comunicaciones y Relaciones Públicas de Alcatel-Lucent en América.
El libro también revela datos interesantes relacionados con la forma en que las personas utilizan las tecnologías de las comunicaciones y están sujetas a su influencia, en diferentes momentos de su vida. Por ejemplo, en el texto los autores sostienen que:
El 43% de los padres dice que es difícil proteger a sus hijos de contenidos inadecuados y de un lenguaje ofensivo cuando se conectan en línea; el 63% de los jóvenes del estudio han “forzado la realidad” sobre ellos mismos para mejorar su aspecto en la red; más de la mitad de los jubilados dedican una parte de su tiempo a actualizar su página en las redes sociales para proyectar una imagen adecuada de sí mismos; siete de cada diez encuestados han ignorado la solicitud de amigos suyos de limitar quién puede ver los contenidos que han publicado, aunque 3 de cada 4 interacciones en línea las realizan con gente a quien nunca han visto en persona; y hay una correlación del 60% entre el nivel de confianza que un consumidor declara tener en una marca y cuánto estaría dispuesto a pagar a esa marca por ello, revelando el valor verdadero de la “confianza” del consumidor.
“Conseguir la codiciada confianza de los consumidores es la clave para poder obtener un valor adicional y crear un servicio potencial en la era actual del mundo conectado. Pero con independencia de que formemos parte o no de la industria de la tecnología, los hallazgos descritos en este libro le abrirán los ojos sobre cómo las personas establecen la frontera entre su identidad pública y privada, y cómo difieren en los momentos que definen la vida de un individuo”, comentó Allison Cerra.
De acuerdo con los resultados de la investigación incluídos en el libro, debido al efecto que tiene la tecnología en el comportamiento social y los perfiles que crean los individuos para ellos mismos, la frontera entre la vida ‘real’ y la ‘virtual’ está desapareciendo. Esto genera consecuencias positivas y negativas para los consumidores.
Si bien la tecnología no nos define, este trabajo revela qué tanto influye en la manera en que nos percibimos a nosotros mismos.
El libro está disponible tanto en formato impreso como electrónico en la editorial web: www.theshiftonline.com.
Publicado en: Novedades

De Papaya

lunes, enero 23, 2012