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1. Beginner’s Guide to Google
Analytics –

2. A Brief History of Analytics
 Google Analytics was originally developed from the Urchin on
Demand software that Google acquired in the spring of 2005
(Urchin is still developed and available through value-added
resellers, and is currently at version 7). The first Google-branded
version was released in November 2005. In 2006, further ideas
from Measure Map (developed by Adaptive Path) were
integrated into Analytics when Google acquired them.
 Early on, Analytics was available by invitation only, as demand
for the product was very high. It wasn’t fully available to all users
until nearly a year after its initial release (August 2006).
 Why Use Analytics?
 Analytics is a powerful application for tracking traffic patterns on
your website. The fact that it’s an entirely free program, and
integrates with other Google programs, like AdSense and
AdWords, only makes it that much more valuable.
 Considering most people already use at least some Google
products, it makes sense to use Analytics, because it is such a
powerful, yet easy-to-use, product.

3. What’s New in Analytics 5?
 One of the biggest new features in Analytics 5 is the addition of custom
dashboards. You can create custom dashboards for your sites that
include whatever metrics you’re interested in. Beyond that, you can
even choose how the information is displayed (table, chart, etc.).
 Some beta features in Analytics 4 have become primary features in
Analytics 5, including Intelligence. Another nice addition is the
JavaScript interface, which makes Analytics feel like a much
smoother, more professional application. Overall, the biggest changes
are in the interface layout, rather than the functionality of the program.
 There are also some features that have been removed from 5, including
breadcrumb navigation within reports and links to external referring sites
(which adds extra steps when you want to see exactly what page
referred traffic to your site). The percentage change in metrics that was
displayed in the chart when comparing date ranges is also missing
(though the data is shown in the table below the chart). Whether these
features will be added in future revisions or not remains to be seen.
Since none of these affect the functionality of Analytics, they’re more of
an annoyance than a real problem.

4. The Basic Interface
 When you access the report for your site, you’ll first be brought to the
Visitors Overview screen. This differs from the last version of
Analytics, where you were first brought to a general overview screen
that also showed information about traffic sources and content. At the
top of the report, you’ll see a chart showing your traffic patterns for the
past month. You can also use the dropdown to change the date this
graph and the rest of your reports show (or you can choose to compare
two date ranges).
 On the chart, you can choose to create annotations for specific days.
Say, for example, you had a review of your product on a major industry
site on a particular day. You could add an annotation to that day, so that
when you look back on your traffic patterns at a later date you’ll know
exactly what caused a spike in traffic. You can do the same if you have
a sudden drop in traffic, say if your website goes down for a few hours.
 Along the left-hand side of the screen you’ll see your main report
navigation. You can view more detailed reports for your Visitors from
here, or switch to see overviews and detailed reports for traffic
sources, content, and conversions. Below that you’ll also find Help links
for common issues you might encounter.
 Along the top, you’ll see more navigation. There’s an additional link for
conversions there, as well as a link to custom reports. In the sub-
navigation, you’ll see a link to “Intelligence”, which we’ll cover later on.

5. Visitors Part - 1
 The visitors overview is the default screen you’ll see when you view the report for any
of your sites. This screen gives you the number of visitors, unique visitors, and
pageviews (along with the average pages/visit). It also shows you the average time
spent on your site, the bounce rate, and the percentage of new visits (a pie chart
comparing new to returning visitors is also shown). This gives you a good, high-level
overview of how your site is doing. High pages/visit, high average time on your
site, and a low bounce rate give you an idea of how useful visitors are finding your
site once they arrive.
 You’ll also see that there are some basic demographics, system, and mobile reports
at the bottom of the overview screen. You can view visitors by
language, country/territory, or city; by browser, operating system, and service
provider; and by mobile operating system, service provider, and screen resolution.
The most useful reports here are the demographics reports (the system and mobile
reports are more useful in a design and programming sense, than in a marketing
sense, though you’ll want to make sure that your site is compatible with all the
popular technical specs here).
 You can view more detailed reports on demographics by clicking on it in the left
navigation. There you can view detailed information about your visitors’ locations
(including a map overlay) or language, as well as set up user defined and custom
variables for more exact reporting. On the map, if you click on any country you’ll get a
larger map of that country, with more detailed information about where your visitors
are coming from.
 The next sub-report in the visitors section is behavior. This section gives you more
information about new vs returning visitors, how frequently and recently visitors are
returning to your site, and user engagement. Looking at how many visitors you
have returning frequently gives you an idea of how many true fans you have.

6. Visitors Part - 2
The engagement report shows you two key metrics: the visit duration
and the page depth (how many pages a visitor viewed). Visitors who
stay on your site longer and view more pages are more engaged.
You want a high number of visitors viewing more than one page, and
staying on your site more than a few seconds. If that’s not
happening, these reports will tell you so.
The last two reports in the visitors section are for technology and mobile
statistics. For the most part, these aren’t very helpful from a marketing
standpoint. But, it is a good idea to monitor them and make sure that
your site appears correctly in the more common combinations. It’s also
vital to review these when you’re getting ready to redesign your site. If
you still have a significant percentage of visitors coming to your site
using older technology, you’re going to have to make sure your new site
still appears correctly for them. Pay attention to trends, too. For
example, if you see that a particular mobile platform is increasing by
double-digits each month, you’ll want to make sure your site supports

7. Traffic Sources
 Your traffic sources overview is one of the most important parts of your Analytics
account. Where your traffic is coming from tells you a lot about the strength of your
SEO, your incoming links, and your AdWords and other advertising campaigns. It also
shows you where your weaknesses are. Ideally, you want traffic coming from a variety
of sources, so that your traffic isn’t tied to closely to a single source that’s beyond your
control. For example, if 80% of your traffic comes from organic Google results, and
suddenly Google changes their algorithm and your site ends up on page 10 instead of
the top of page 1, you’ll see a huge drop in traffic. But if only 40% of your traffic is
coming from the same source, it’s easier to compensate (in this case you might
increase your AdWords spending to compensate for a lack of presence in organic
results).
 One of the most important reports in your traffic sources is the keyword reports. These
are vital to figuring out how your search traffic is finding your site. Because Analytics
tracks not only the top keywords driving traffic to your site, but every keyword
used, you can see all the long-tail search results driving traffic to your site. There’s a
brief keyword report on your overview page, but more detailed reports can be found
under the “Search” sub-report.
 The search sub-report also tells you which page visitors are landing on most often, and
which search engine they’re coming from. You can view your paid (AdWords) traffic
and organic traffic, or a mix of the two. You can also view traffic in terms of
campaigns, including traffic from RSS feeds.If you use AdWords, you can view detailed
reports for traffic driven by your ads, including campaigns, keywords, day
parts, destination URLs, placements, keyword positions, and TV ads. These reports
show you the number of visits generated, how many pages/visit, the average time
spent on the site, the percentage of new visits, the bounce rate, your total goal
completions, and the revenue generated from each. The last two are the most

8. Content
 On the content overview page, the graph represents page views rather than
visits, so you’ll notice the numbers used should be a lot larger than on the visits
graph. One thing you’ll notice here is that both pageviews and unique pageviews
are both shown. The difference is that a pageview is recorded every time a page
is loaded (so if a user clicks refresh, a second pageview is logged, or if a user
navigates to a different page and then uses their back button, a new pageview is
counted), whereas a unique pageview is only logged once per browsing session.
 Also on the overview page is a list of AdSense revenue, and the $ Index for a
given page (which is the value of that page in your sales funnel). Your bounce
rate and average time on each page is displayed here, too.
 At the bottom of the overview page you’ll see options to review your site content
by page or page title, to view your site search stats (if you’re using Google Site
Search), to view your events, and to view AdSense earnings by page.
 Other reports included in the content section include your more in-depth
information about your pages viewed, as well as landing and exit pages. Pay
close attention to the exit pages, as these can provide clues as to where in
your sales funnel visitors are getting hung up. Landing pages can also be
important, as you want to make sure that necessary information is included on
the pages your visitors are actually viewing.
 It’s a good idea to check your site speed report occasionally to make sure there
aren’t any pages that are incredibly slow to load. Slow pages can deter
visitors, and can interrupt your conversion process. Be sure to check the
page speed of any of your main exit pages, too, as slow loading times could be
one reason people are abandoning your site.

9. Conversions
 Conversions are broken down into two categories: goals and
ecommerce. Goals are fairly easy to set up. You can have up to four
sets of goals, each with five individual goals. This can be valuable for
tracking different kinds of actions on your site (like length of time
spent, reaching a specific page, or visiting a certain number of pages).
 There are four different kinds of goals. Some are simply pages on your
site you want visitors to reach. This could be a thank you page after
someone has placed an order or signed up. It could be a particular
product page. Or it could be something like your contact page or a
request for information. You can also set a goal for a length of time
spent on your site, the number of pages/visit, or an event.
 To set up a goal, simply select which goal group you want to use, name
your goal, and then define the goal type. You’ll have different options
from there depending on which type of goal you’re setting up. It’s a good
idea to at least set up goals for the last page in your conversion
process. You can also set up a funnel, or a series of pages leading up to
your goal page. If you set this up, you can more easily monitor at what
point users abandon the conversion process.
 E-commerce conversions are much more complicated to set up, and
require inserting code on your actual site. More information about
ecommerce tracking can be found in the Google Analytics help files.

10. Custom Reports
 One of the biggest advantages of Google Analytics is
that it allows you to create custom reports. Custom
reports let you filter results based on a number of
factors (basically anything included in any of the
regular reports, plus custom filters), and then view
any of the metrics included in Analytics (including
custom goals). You can also add content drilldowns to
further segment your reports. You’ll find the custom
reports link in the top navigation.

11. Intelligence
 Intelligence is a relatively new feature of Analytics. There are automatic
alerts built into the app, including pageviews, average time on
site, visits, bounce rates, and other metrics (some of which are
segmented). But you can also create custom alerts, for anything you
define. Setting up an alert is simple: just set your alert conditions and
decide whether you want an email notification if an alert is
triggered, and you’re all set. Alerts can be set for all traffic or traffic
segments, and you can set alerts for things like changes in visit
numbers, goals, or similar metrics.
 Intelligence can be a powerful tool for tracking potential problems
on your site, or sudden spikes in traffic or conversions. Getting
accurate, fast information about changes to your site means you can
respond better to changes and make sure your visitors and customers
are kept happy.