Understand and Enjoy Your Analytics Data!
Just as Justin Timberlake brought ‘sexy back’, it’s my goal to try to do the same with your Analytics, or at least attempt it! Analytics can be exciting and insightful or depressing and uninspiring, depending on how the data is interpreted and by whom. The biggest challenge facing SEO analysts can be in rendering the data for everyone else and going beyond observing basic metrics, sticking their necks out by making bold decisions about website changes. So, let’s look at some common scenarios we run into in digging into Analytics, provide some tips on navigating through your website data and how to effectively make decisions on actions to take.
Too much data leads people to switch off, so what matters?
When logging into Analytics, the first thing you see is your dashboard and most likely just look at the first report or two and in most cases they will be the default reports that are not tuned to your site. Start to decide what matters to you about your site like particular pages, goals, traffic sources, mobile visits, visits from a certain state any thing that relates to your target audience and most important services you offer. Then you can build out a dashboard that helps you paint a better picture of how your target audience interacts with your site.
Here are 10 typical reports that I like to see on dashboard:
- Search Engine Traffic Sources – This is key to tracking your organic SEO efforts;
- Non-Branded Keyword Traffic – This will demonstrate your site’s reach and success of attracting new visitors;
- Referring Site Traffic Sources – This will help you measure the effectiveness of various back links and offline efforts;
- Top Landing Pages – This will tell you which pages are performing well and which need some help;
- Goal Conversions – Always set up goals like form submissions as primary measures and set up engagement goals as secondary measurements;
- New vs. Returning Visitors – This will help you understand the stickiness of the site and balance your efforts between reach and engagement;
- Top Exit Pages – Watch out for leaky pages, but keep in mind some pages like contact pages always have high exit rates;
- Pay per Click Traffic – If you pay for ads, make sure they are performing or drop them before you waste money;
- Map Overlay by Target State – This helps if you have a specific geographic audience and keyword targeting;
- Keyword Visits looking at at least 3 pages – Understand what makes your best visitors tick; look after this audience segment.
Tom, this is incredibly well articulated and written! Well done.