Now comes the hard part:  actually analyzing your results.  Of course, the longer your code has been around and in business (it is working, right?), the more results you’ll have to analyze.

Though the Google Analytics dashboard is full of exciting stuff, it can feel mighty overwhelming if you don’t know what the heck it is you’re looking at.  Here’s a whirlwind tour and glossary of the site and important terms:

Dashboard – this is the heart of the site and where you’ll find the most important information of all:  visits, pageviews, bounce rates, average time on site, and percentage of new visits.  Note:  the information portrayed on the dashboard is governed by the time perameters you set at the top of the page.  The longer the time you specify, the more visitors, etc. you should see.

• Visits and pageviews:  These are the nuts and bolts of GA.  A visit is essentially a session:  a period in which a user is visiting your website.  Google defines visit as ending when the site is navigated away from or the browser remains inactive for 30 minutes or more.  A pageview is one instance of a browser loading a page on your website.  Important note:  a visit is not a visitor.
• Bounce rate is the rate at which visitors left your site without clicking on any other pages.
• Average time on site:  No-brainer.  The average time  a visitor spends on your site.
• Percentage new visits:  The percentage of visits that were new (i.e. had never visited your site before).

Visitors – this is the section that allows you to analyze visitor behavior:  who they are, which browsers they use, where they are.  Google offers services such as benchmarking (comparing your statistics against others in your industry), trending information to help you find out more about your visitors, loyalty information, and information you can define yourself.

Traffic Sources – this section is the alpha and the omega when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) and understanding more about how people find your site.  It includes subsections on direct traffic (traffic that comes to your site without being referred through another website), referring sites (sites that include links to your site that funnel in traffic), search engines, keywords, Google AdWords, and campaigns you can define yourself.

Content – this section focuses on the content of your site and can show your top content, top landing and exit pages, and even a nifty site overlay that shows who clicks where on your site.

Goals – in this section, you can set and track conversion goals for your site.

Your assignment:  familiarize yourself with the Google Analytics dashboard and interface. Click everything you can to get an idea of what it does.  Never fear…in our next sessions, we’ll talk about creating goals, analyzing traffic and user behavior, and more!

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