5 Instantly Actionable Insights from Google Analytics

5 Instantly Actionable Insights from Google

AnalyticsInternet World 2012

Kelvin Newman – Director of Strategy SiteVisibility

@kelvinnewman

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

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/

Google Analytics Is Installed On More Than 10 Million

Websites• 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

Google Analytics is powerful but

overwhelmingI’m going to take you through five interesting reports which answers

strategic questions you may be facing.

What pages do I need to Improve and Why?

Keywords and Landing Pages

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’

First Select Traffic Sources

• This is one of the menu items of the left hand side of the screen

Then Select Sources

• As you click this section the arrow will move from pointing horizontally to vertically

Do the same to select Organic Search

• This will now tell you what you most popular keywords sending you traffic from Google Organic Search

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

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

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.

Which mobile devices is my site broken on?

Bounce Rates by Device Type

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.

First Select Audience

• This is one of the menu items of the left hand side of the screen

Then Select Mobile then Devices

• This report shows me what my most popular devices are and how they perform on the site

I can see all these different devices have a higher than average bounce rate but the Sony Xperia is particularly highI 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.

Which cities should I be targeting with offline ads

Conversions City based Geographic Reports

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

First Select Audience

• This is one of the menu items of the left hand side of the screen

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

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.

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.

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 this insight

Should I Build an App for Android or iphone first?

Conversions by Operating Systems

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.

First Select Audience

• This is one of the menu items of the left hand side of the screen

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.

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.

I know that around 5% of my traffic comes from iOS compared to 1% from Android, I should plan my apps accordinglyInstinctively 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.

What blog post should I write next

Filtering Search Queries based on Questioning Words

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.

First Select Traffic Sources

• This is one of the menu items of the left hand side of the screen

Then Select Sources

• As you click this section the arrow will move from pointing horizontally to vertically

Do the same to select Organic Search

• This will now tell you what you most popular keywords sending you traffic from Google Organic Search

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

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

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.

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.

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

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