Category Archives: Analytics

Improve Conversions with Google Analytics

This article has been cross-published on Inside AdSense Blog.

Today, I’ll focus on ways to improve your site conversions using specific Analytics reports. Understanding exactly what drives conversions on your site is key to understanding important factors such as visitor intent and where you should invest in advertising. The following reports help you understand how to calculate page values, track conversions, and gain insights into visitor intent.
1. Calculate page values to understand which pages drive conversions and revenue
Page Value is a single number that can help you better understand which pages on your site drive conversions and revenue. Pages with a high Page Value are more influential than pages with a low Page Value. For example, e-commerce sites will usually notice that the most valuable pages on their site are their checkout pages. This makes sense because everyone needs to view the checkout pages before converting. Take a look for pages that get a lot of traffic (page views) but have a low Page Value. Why don’t these pages help conversion? Or should they? To answer some of these questions, get started by reviewing the Page Value column in the Site Content > All Pages report.
2. Use the Multi-Channel Funnels Report for better conversion tracking
Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics let you look at interactions across different digital media and show how these channels work together to create sales and conversions. They also help you make crucial marketing decisions regarding advertising investments at the macro level (e.g. what channels) as well as the micro level (e.g. what keywords and ad placements). Your Multi-Channel Funnels reports can be found under the Conversions section in Google Analytics.
3. Use Site Search Report to get insights into visitor intent 
Google Analytics Site Search reports provide extensive data on how people use the search engine on your site. With this report, you can see initial searches, refinements, search trends, which pages they searched from, where they ended up, and conversion correlation. Tracking how people use the search box on your site can provide you with important insights into visitor intent. Your Site Search reports can be found under the Behavior section in Google Analytics. If you’re not already using a search box on your site, take a look at the Google Custom Search Engine.
To help you understand your page values and conversions, I’ve created a custom Content Evaluation Dashboard for you to download. Once downloaded, just select which profile you’d like to import. You can access this dashboard any time by clicking the ‘Customization’ tab.

 

Improve Your User Experience with Google Analytics

This article has been cross-published on Inside AdSense Blog.

I’ll take a look today at how you can improve your user experience with Google Analytics. Google Analytics gives you the insights you need to understand current user experience, as well as how the traffic to your site is influenced by social media. The following reports help you understand why site speed is important for an improved user experience, how to spot pages bringing the most AdSense revenue, and how to refine your social media strategy measuring the impact social media has on your site goals.
1. Improve user experience by improving site speed
Faster pages lead to better user experience and improved conversions. The Site Speed reports in Google Analytics give you detailed data on the speed of your site pages, as experienced by your users. Ensuring page load speeds times are below the average can help you differentiate your site. Analyze and speed up your site using PageSpeed products, and check the resulting improvements in Site Speed reports.
2. Use the AdSense Pages report to discover which pages help you earn the most
 
The AdSense Pages report provides data about which pages on your site contribute most to your AdSense revenue. With the insights from this data, you can replicate successful implementations on well performing pages on other parts of your site.
3. Use the social traffic sources report to refine your social media strategy
Social buzz is very important for many publishers to build their audience and retain loyalty and engagement. Social reports in Google Analytics help you measure the impact social media has on your business goals and conversions. With this report, you can track the number of visitors that social media channels bring to your site, measure the value of those channels by tracking conversions and AdSense revenue, and examine how your content is being shared across social networks. You can access Social reports under the Acquisition section in Google Analytics.
To help you understand user experience on your site, I’ve created a custom Social Dashboard and Site Speed Dashboard for you to download. Once downloaded, just select which profile you’d like to import. You can access this dashboard any time by clicking ‘Dashboards’ under the Reporting tab in your Analytics account.

Increase User Loyalty with Google Analytics

This article has been cross-published on Inside AdSense Blog.
It’s key to understand how engaged your users are and how they interact with your site. The following tips will help you use Analytics to visualize user interactions on your site, and understand why engagement and loyalty metrics matter.
1. Use In-page Analytics to see how your users are interacting with your site
In-Page Analytics provides clickthrough data in the context of your actual site, and is a highly effective tool to let you make a visual assessment of how users interact with your web pages. You can answer questions like “Are my users seeing the content I want them to see?” or “Are my users finding what they’re looking for on the page?” This feature also helps you determine the best location to place your ad units. You can access your In-Page Analytics through the ‘Behavior’ section on the Reporting tab.
2. Use Real Time reports to track user activity in real time 
Real-Time reports allow you to monitor visitor activity as it happens on your site. They help you understand how your systems are reacting, such as when you send out an email campaign or engage in marketing that is temporary in nature. Real-Time reports provide alerting, giving insight into things that are new or different such as a sudden increase in site traffic. Additionally, you can use them to measure the immediate impact of social media.
3. Increase engagement and loyalty on your site
Google Analytics provides you with behavioral reports that illustrate the engagement and loyalty aspects of your visitor behavior. The Frequency & Recency report lets you see the level of user interest in your site based on frequency of visits and length of time between visits. If visitors come once but don’t return, you might infer that your site content and design are not sufficiently engaging or not easy to navigate. Some additional relevant reports such as New vs Returning and ‘Engagement’ are available under the Audience section on the Reporting tab. For more detailed information about how site visitors interact with each page, I suggest you use the ‘event tracking method’ that Google Analytics evangelist Justin Cutroni shared on his blog to get an accurate measurement of which articles are actually read.
I’ve created a custom Engagement & Monetization Dashboard for you to download. Once downloaded, just select which profile you’d like to import. You can access this dashboard any time by clicking ‘Dashboards’ under the Reporting tab in your Analytics account.

Optimize Your Mobile Presence with Google Analytics

This article has been cross-published on Inside AdSense Blog.
How does your site perform across devices? With multi-device usage growing rapidly, understanding how mobile users access and interact with your site’s pages is becoming more and more essential. You can use Google Analytics to measure mobile sites and apps interaction as well as visits from web-enabled mobile devices, including both high-end and basic phones and tablets. Check out the following tips to grow your mobile presence with insights from Analytics.
1. Use Mobile App Analytics to measure the end-to-end value of your app
Mobile is changing the way that people communicate, work and play, and much of the growing adoption and innovation is driven by mobile apps. With Mobile App Analytics, you can measure your entire user journey on your app from first discovery and download to in-app purchases and engagement, helping you make better, data-driven decisions for mobile investment.
2. Make sure your user experience delivers across devices
Google Analytics mobile reports can be found under the Audience section on the Reporting tab. They show you statistics by location which lets you understand the current origins of mobile traffic, and make predictions about where traffic will increase. With key insights and metrics such as which devices are driving traffic to your site, bounce rates and visit duration, you can design your website to give visitors what they need on smaller smartphone screens as well as tablets and desktops.
3. Consider different strategies for multi-screen
There are no rules around mobile strategies, but mobile sites need clearly defined goals in order to be successful. For example, your goals might revolve around engagement and visits. If you have location-specific content, you may want to incorporate local elements into your mobile offering. Your site goals should align with the needs of your users. Google Analytics mobile reports provide a breakdown of visitors by whether or not they visit using mobile devices. Use this information to shape your multi-screen strategy.
To help you optimize your mobile presence, I’ve created a custom Mobile Key Metrics Dashboard for you to download. Once downloaded, just select which profile you’d like to import. You can access this dashboard any time by clicking ‘Dashboards’ under the Reporting tab in your Analytics account.