Google Analytics for Non-Geeks

Google Analytics is really easy to set up. Log in at http://www.google.com/analytics, click set up and enter your website url and your time zone. Then just copy that bit of code and paste it on your web page. If your website has subdomains that you want to track, follow the instructions here. And you're now ready to go!

When you first log in to the dashboard, you'll see this screen, with a chart and basic stats. The chart reflects your number of visitors over a period of time, and the "Site Usage" shows basic usage of your site. Here's what those terms mean, and why you should care.

Visits is the number of visits your site has had. Traditionally, the more the merrier. But that's not always the case. At the very least, it shows how many eyeballs you are getting.

Page Views is the number of pages that have been loaded during those visits, and page/visits is how many pages are loaded in each visit. Average Time on Site is self-explantory. High numbers here can be a result of two things. It could be because it's hard for your visitors to find what they want (so they're going to different pages and spending lots of time trying to find it) - which is bad - or because your site is so engaging that your visitors can't bear to leave, and are exploring all parts of your site. You'll need to look at the more detailed pages (explained later) in order to get a clearer picture.

% Bounce Rate is the number of people who leave after viewing the first page. It's related to pages/visit, in that a "bounce" is a visit when only 1 page is loaded. There's no definite "good" value for this, because it depends on your website. Blogs tend to be just one page, where people go in to see the posts and leave straight away. So bounce rate isn't that relevant there. But for company/product websites, in general, you don't want too high a bounce rate, you want to keep your visitors.

% New Visits reflects how many of your visitors are coming to your site for the first time. Again, this can be looked at in two ways. A high number can mean either that your old visitors aren't coming back, or that you're getting lots of new visitors. View it together with your total visits to get a clearer picture - if your total visits are increasing and your % new visits are too, that's a good sign that you're getting new visitors, and new visitors = new potential customers.

The rest of the page is just an overview of the more detailed stats, which I will cover later on. But just for a brief introduction, Visitors Overview shows you how many different people are coming to your site, Map Overlay gives you a rough idea where these people are from in the real world (the darker areas means more people), Traffic Sources Overview shows where they are coming from (what link they clicked to come to your site), Content Overview shows what parts of your site they are going to, and Goals Overview shows you the number of Goal conversions (which will be explained later).

The main "Visitors" page has just two new pieces of information, Absolute Unique Visitors - which is the number of actual, different people who visited your site, and the Technical Profile at the bottom.

The technical profile is important because different browsers could display your site differently. You want your site to work in as many browsers as possible, but you especially want to test for the browsers that your visitors are using. Also, you want to take note of your visitors' connection speeds. Especially your visitors have poor connection speeds, you may want to streamline your site more, and make it load faster. Pass these stats to your IT guys (or whoever did your website) so that they understand what changes they need to make.

The different parts of the "Visitors" section is where it gets more interesting.

When you click on Map Overlay, it shows you where your visitors are coming from, geographically. You have options to view by City, Country, Sub-Continent and Continent, so you can go as narrow or as broad as you require. You want to make sure this is targeted to your business' target. If your company is based in and selling products in Sweden, for example, you would want a high number of visitors from Sweden. You are also presented with detailed stats based on country, so you can see if the Swedish people are staying on your site longer, for example. If you've set up Goals, you can see how Goal Conversion matches up with geographic areas. If the Map Overlay stats are inconsistent with your company's target audience, you might need to relook your marketing efforts and who you're marketing to.

New vs Returning is simple enough, how many of your visitors are new people who haven't been to your site before.

Take note of Languages. If you're getting visitors using different languages, you might want to think about offering translated versions of your site.

Visitor Trending doesn't really present anything new, so you can skip that.

The other point to note is Visitor Loyalty. It displays how many times your visitors are coming back, how recently they are coming, how long they stay and how much they see while they are on your site. If your stats are low, it probably means your site isn't engaging enough. Try adding things that are constantly updated - time sensitive offers, blog updates, etc - things that make your visitors want to come back.

Browser Capabilities and Network Properties don't really matter for you. But you might want to show the stats to your IT department, so that they can optimize your site for your visitors' browsers.

You can also set User Defined stats, to view whatever configuration you can think of, in order to study the stats more closely.

Traffic Sources reflects what links people are clicking to arrive at your site. The main "Traffic Sources" page shows an overview of which link and which search keywords gave you the most visits.

Direct Traffic reflects how many people are going directly to your site (typing in the URL, or using a bookmark). These users generally already know about your site and are coming back to see what's new, so a high value here could be a good sign of visitor retention.

Referring sites will give you a list of sites where your visitors are coming from. You might want to check those links to see what others are saying about you - and to see what assumptions or expectations your visitors may have about you. You can also use this to build relationships with bloggers or other companies who are linking to you. If a blogger is linking to you and sending you a lot of traffic, you might do well to contact him and thank him for the link.

Search Engines allows you to see how many of your visitors are coming from search engines. The most interesting thing here is probably the ability to view "paid" links and "non-paid" links separately.

All Traffic Sources just sums everything up in one report.

Arguably the most important thing in the "Traffic Sources" section is the Keywords page. Use it to see what people are searching for to get to your site. This is useful in understanding what people expect when they get to your site. If the keywords aren't consistent with what your company is about, you might want to rethink your SEO and the content of your website. Again, you have the option of viewing "paid" and "non-paid" links separately, to see which of your paid keywords are working better. If a keyword you're spending on isn't sending you much traffic, you might want to consider spending less on it, and spending more on the keywords that are sending you more traffic.

The AdWords, Campaigns and Ad Versions pages show you how well your various advertising ventures are working. Again, you might want to consider focusing your efforts on the campaigns that are sending you more traffic.

In Content Overview, you can see a run down of which pages were loaded the most, and how that compares to the other pages of your site.

Top Content, Content by Title and Content Drilldown all show you similar things. They are a list of the parts of your website, and how many visits each part is getting. Top Content displays it by URL, Content by Title displays the stats by the page/section title, and Drilldown displays it by URL group.

Top Landing Pages and Top Exit Pages show you an overview of which pages people are arriving and leaving your site from. If a lot of people are coming to your site from a certain page (landing page), you might want to put extra effort into making that page good. If a lot of people are exiting your site from a certain page, you might want to think about why - is there something on that page that doesn't work or that people don't like seeing?

Things get really interesting when you click on any of the links in the table (the page title/url). It should then show you the "Content Detail" of that page. This shows all the stats of that page in detail. Take note of the bounce rate. If a certain page has a really high bounce rate, it probably needs to be improved as a landing page. You can do detailed analysis of your website here.

View Navigation Summary and Entrance Paths to see how visitors are going through your site and what links they are clicking. This gives you great insight into what people are looking for when they go to your site. If people are clicking around a lot (loading a lot of different pages) but staying on them for a short time, it might be because they can't find what they are looking for, for example. But if they are clicking through in a logical order, looking through your catalog, for example, that's a good sign. You can spend lots of time here analyzing your users' behavior.

People are probably coming to your site from any page. The first page they load from your site is not necessarily your home page. "Entrance Sources" and "Entrance Keywords" show you how people are coming to that specific page - what search terms they are using to find that page or what links they are clicking from.

Site Overlay (also available from the sidebar menu) provides a visual way of seeing these stats. It loads your website, and when you move your mouse over a link, it shows you the stats about that specific link. It's a very good way to think about and understand your users' behavior.

You can also try the Website Optimizer from there, which allows you try different versions of your website. Test out different paragraphs of text to see which one is more interesting and gets more visitors, for example. Be creative.

The final tool in the sidebar is Site Search. If this is enabled, and you're using Google's Site Search Engine, you can view how people are using the search engine on your site. See what people are looking for when they visit your site, and make it easier for them to find it.

In Google Analytics, you can set up Goals. You can track any specific outcome you want - people purchasing from your website, people clicking on the "Hire me" link. Think about what the purpose of your website is, and set up the Goals accordingly.

You can then view in Google Analytics how these goals are being achieved.

Goal Conversions shows you how well you're doing in each goal. It's just a basic number to see how many successes you're getting each day. Conversion Rate is similar.

Your Goal might be defined as a group of pages, so "Goal Verification shows the different pages that are part of the goal, and how they compare to each other.

"Reverse Goal Path" is the most interesting, in my opinion. You can use it to track exactly what process people are going through before converting. Are people buying your products after viewing the Offers page or the Features page? What page is sending you the most sales? Optimize your site accordingly.

If your Goals are sales with assigned values, "Goal Values" shows you how much your goals are worth.

A Goal can be a funnel process. For example, you might have a checkout process with 3 pages - one for shipping info, one for credit card info and one for confirmation. The "Funnel" is thus the process through the 3 pages - Shipping -> Credit card -> Confirmation. Your goals can be even more complex than that, but that's just a simple example. "Abandoned Funnels" allows you to see where people are leaving, after starting but without completing the goal. In our example, you can see how many people are leaving on the Credit Card info page, for example. You might want to check the part of the 'funnel' if a lot of people are leaving from one specific part, because there might be a 'leak' - the page may not be loading properly, it might be throwing out errors, etc. Funnel Visualization provides a graphical look as to the whole process the visitors are going through, and how many people are going through each step.

That's the end of the guide. You now know the different parts of Google Analytics, and what they mean. Look at your stats and try to think from the point of view of your visitor. It will help you to understand and work out your site better.