I was very fortunate to be asked by the IDM to present at Internet World in the email and Analytics Theatre. I presented the following slides about five ways you can gain strategic insight from Google Analytics to show you can inform strategy as well extract data from GA.

1. 5 Instantly Actionable
Insights from Google
Analytics
Internet World 2012
Kelvin Newman – Director of
Strategy SiteVisibility
@kelvinnewman

2. Who am I, though?
• Director of Strategy at SiteVisibility
– Natural Search, PPC, Social Media &
Analytics Agency
– Organiser of BrightonSEO Conference
– Host of UK most popular internet
marketing podcast
– My twitter is twitter.com/kelvinnewman

3. The worlds information is
doubling every two years
The challenge is no longer ‘do I
have the data?’ it’s instead
‘what do I do with that data?’
http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/data-infographic/

4. Google Analytics Is Installed
On More Than 10 Million
We’ve never known more about how our
sites perform, but how do we turn that
into insight.
And better yet how do we turn that into
actionable insight.
http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-is-installed-on-more-than-10-million-
websites-9935

5. Google Analytics is powerful
but overwhelming
I’m going to take you through
five interesting reports which
answers strategic questions
you may be facing.

6. Keywords and Landing Pages
What pages do I need to
Improve and Why?

7. Organic Search Keywords by
landing page
• We’re going to look at what keywords
are sending traffic
• Then what pages that traffic ends up
on.
• Then what percentage of it bounces.
– Bouncing is traffic which views just one
page and then leaves. On most sites this is
seen as a ‘measure of failure’

8. First Select Traffic Sources
• This is one of the
menu items of the
left hand side of the
screen

9. Then Select Sources
• As you click this
section the arrow
will move from
pointing horizontally
to vertically

10. Do the same to select Organic
Search
• This will now tell you
what you most
popular keywords
sending you traffic
from Google Organic
Search

11. You’ll see a screen like this one, select
the secondary dimension.
This allows you to look at two metrics at the same time.

12. In the search box type Landing
Page
• This will search
through all the
secondary metrics
you could add to the
report.
• This will now show
top organic
keywords and which
page of the site they
visited first

13. My top keyword has a bounce rate of
35% not exceptional, but my second
keyword has 95% bounce rate.
In this case clearly the search engines think this page is
relevant for the term but my users are telling me otherwise. I
need to revisit this page as if I was visiting with this
keyword and revise accordingly.

14. Bounce Rates by Device Type
Which mobile devices is my
site broken on?

15. Mobile Devices with Higher
than Expected Bounce Rates
• We’re going to look at what individual
mobile devices are sending traffic
• Then what percentage of it bounces.
– Bouncing is traffic which views just one
page and then leaves. On most sites this is
seen as a ‘measure of failure’
– You could also look at conversion rates.

16. First Select Audience
• This is one of the
menu items of the
left hand side of the
screen

17. Then Select Mobile then
Devices
• This report shows
me what my most
popular devices are
and how they
perform on the site

18. I can see all these different devices have
a higher than average bounce rate but
the Sony Xperia is particularly high
I now need to review how the site appears on this device and
make the necessary developmental changes. Interestingly, in
this example other Android devices have lower than average
mobile bounce rates.

19. Conversions City based Geographic Reports
Which cities should I be
targeting with offline ads

20. Traffic Broken Down to a City
Level
• We’re going to look at what traffic
comes from what city.
• This then would allow us to carry out
many forms of localised offline
marketing,
– Radio
– Local Press
– Outdoor

21. First Select Audience
• This is one of the
menu items of the
left hand side of the
screen

22. Then Select Demographics
then Location
• This report shows
what countries my
traffic currently
comes from. The
darker the colour
green the more
people visit from
that location

23. I now switch my Primary Dimension
from Country/Territory to City
This will now group my traffic based on the city Google
Analytics believes them to be located in. This is far from fool
proof, our office is Brighton is according to GA is in Redhill,
but in aggregate it is pretty reliable.

24. I now select the performance
visualisation option, using the bar graph
icon.
This will show me what proportion of the overall traffic comes
from each of the cities.

25. I know a campaign based in London,
Brighton, Manchester and Leeds would
cover a significant proportion of my
typical customers.
This report typically illuminates unexpected location where
your website is popular, for example Sydney & New Dehli, I’ve
had customers launch successful overseas offices based on

26. Conversions by Operating Systems
Should I Build an App for
Android or iphone first?

27. Traffic based on which
Operating System the Visitor
is Using
• We’re going to break down the traffic
based on which mobile operating
system our customers are using.
• This will allow us to make app
development decisions based on data
rather than just gut feel.

28. First Select Audience
• This is one of the
menu items of the
left hand side of the
screen

29. Then Select Technology then
Browser & OS
• This report shows
what different type
of operating system
or browser my
visitors where using.
It rolls multiple
devices
together.
– i.e. All Android
devices etc.

30. I now switch my Primary Dimension
from Browser to Operating System
This will now group my traffic based operating system. If
separates the different Apple devices but combines all the
different Android devices. It will also show you how many
visitors you have from other mobile devices like Windows
Mobile, Blackberry etc.

31. I know that around 5% of my traffic comes from iOS
compared to 1% from Android, I should plan my apps
accordingly
Instinctively you might expect Apple devices to dominate
these reports but that’s not always the case parity does
happen frequently and occasionally Android does beat iOS.

32. Filtering Search Queries based on Questioning Words
What blog post should I
write next

33. What questions are currently
sending us traffic despite
content not answering that
question.
• If we can understand the traffic we are
receiving with minimal effort, we are
well placed to identify the ‘low hanging
fruit’ we could reach with targeted
content.

34. First Select Traffic Sources
• This is one of the
menu items of the
left hand side of the
screen

35. Then Select Sources
• As you click this
section the arrow
will move from
pointing horizontally
to vertically

36. Do the same to select Organic
Search
• This will now tell you
what you most
popular keywords
sending you traffic
from Google Organic
Search

37. You’ll see a screen like this one, select
the secondary dimension.
This allows you to look at two metrics at the same time.

38. In the search box type Landing
Page
• This will search
through all the
secondary metrics
you could add to the
report.
• This will now show
top organic
keywords and which
page of the site they
visited first

39. I want to filter these search queries and
associated landing pages based on
questioning words like ‘how’
Search by all the common ‘question words’ like how, why.
When, who etc.
A question makes a great blog post, often with decent search
volume and in many cases low competition.

40. I am looking for results like this one,
here we have a question which the page
doesn’t really answer, yet still ranks.
This is an opportunity for a new blog post, for additional
‘brainy-points’ when your article is written edit the URL above
and link to the new article.

41. How am I supposed to
Remember This?
• The slides are already available on
http://www.slideshare.net/
kelvinnewman
• We’re also releasing a series of video
podcasts covering exactly these
processes at http://
www.sitevisibility.com