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Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Website Traffic Metrics with Google Analytics
July 19th, 2007 by Matt HugginsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Understanding your visitors is vital in running a successful website. Knowing where your visitors came from, what they are looking for, and how easy or difficult it was for them to find what they were looking for is very important in maximizing your website’s potential. This key information can allow you to guide visitors to products they might not have otherwise found, understand shopping cart abandonment rate and causes, and focus your SEO based upon keywords being used to reach your site.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free website metrics reporting tool that captures visitor data and displays it to you in a complex, but more comprehensible format utilizing tables, charts, and graphs.
Installing Google Analytics
Installing Google Analytics is as simple as creating an account, setting up your website within Analytics, and placing a small tidbit of JavaScript code, as provided by Analytics, within your website.
Once you created your user account, log in, click the drop-down box near the top-right labeled “My Analytics Accounts”, and select “Create New Account”, as pictured below.
To create the account, you’ll need to provide your website URL, a preferred account name, and time zone information. It’s important to note that the time zone information can’t be changed later, as it relates to the visitor tracking, so make sure you get this part right up front!
After setting up the account, Analytics will provide you with the JavaScript code you need to install within the HEAD tag on each page of your website. The code will look something like the following, except that it will include your account’s unique identification number.
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-ACCOUNT#";
urchinTracker();
</script>
If you’re planning to install the code within a WordPress blog, you’ll find that the task is simplified by installing Semiologic’s Google Analytics plug-in. Once installed, simply activate the plug-in and provide your unique Analytics account ID within the plug-in’s options screen.
Within your Analytics account, you’ll find that your new website profile’s status is “Waiting for Data”, as pictured below. This means that Analytics has provided the JavaScript code, but it’s not aware as to whether or not the code has been installed on the website. To trigger the code, simply load a page on your website after installing the JavaScript. (If you are installing on your WordPress blog, you’ll need to log out of the WordPress Dashboard first since the plug-in does not track logged in users as visitors.)
Once Analytics recognizes that the JavaScript has been installed, the status will update to “Receiving Data” with a checkmark icon to represent the successful installation.
Reporting Dashboard
The Analytics dashboard is the home screen of your website’s visitor reporting. It gives you a breakdown of traffic — total visits, unique visitors, page views, pages/visit, time on site, bounce rate, and % new visitors — within a provided date range. (By default, the past month is selected.) Additional stats such as physical location of visitors, traffic source categories, and most viewed content are provided on the dashboard by default as well.
The dashboard can even be customized by clicking the “X” on the top-right of any item displayed, and custom reporting content can be added by clicking the 
button throughout other areas of the Analytics reporting interface.
Detailed Reporting Metrics
Google Analytics provides a thorough breakdown of many attributes regarding your visitors, including:
- visitor-specific attributes (language, location, etc.),
- traffic sources (referring sites, search engine search terms, AdWords campaign clicks, etc.),
- site content (most viewed, top landing pages, top exit pages, etc.), and
- goal conversion (option settings for tracking goals such as shopping cart purchase completion).
The first reporting sections will be covered in detail below. The fourth may be covered in a future article, as it requires much additional effort in setting up and utilizing than the other three reporting areas.
Visitors Reporting
Visitors reporting provides information specific to — you guessed it — your visitors. Physical features such as language and location is provided. Map Overlay allows for zooming in by continent, country, state, and city to find out where the bulk of your visitors are coming from.
Visitor Trending entails much of the same information included in the default dashboard, such as unique visitor and page view counts. Visitor Loyalty, on the other hand, provides information regarding whether visitors are recurring and to what extent they return to your site. It also includes length of visit (number of pages) and depth of visit (time on site).
Browser Capabilities and Network Properties provide details regarding the visitor’s computer system and network connection. Information here includes browser type, operating system, monitor display resolution, Flash version, and connection speeds. This can help you in designing a site that will load quickly enough for your visitors while fitting well within their monitor.
Traffic Sources Reporting
The Traffic Sources reporting section of Analytics allows you to find out where your visitors are coming from. The primary methods by which a user can arrive at your site include referral (link from another website), direct (URL typed into browser or sent from another application such as Outlook, for example), organic (search engines), and CPC (paid marketing), and this is where you can find all information relating to each of these methods.
For referral links, Analytics allows you to not only break down traffic by domain name, but it allows you to find the exact URL from which a visitor was referred to your site. This can help you to understand why other sites are linking to your site, which may help you to create link-worthy content in the future.
Organic links can be analyzed to find out what search terms were used and how often they were used within a given time period. This data can be used for Search Engine Optimization techniques in promoting your website using desired search terms.
When your AdWords account and Analytics account are linked together, your CPC traffic can be analyzed in full detail. You’ll be provided information on specific campaign clicks, ad group clicks, and keywords used to display clicked ads.
Content Reporting
The Content Reporting section of Google Analytics allows you to determine what’s hot and what’s not.
Browsing Top Content, you will find a table of the web pages with the most page views for the specified time period. Furthermore, this report provides information such as average time on site and bounce rate percentage for each page.
Similarly, Top Landing Pages provides a table of what pages your visitors were most inclined to arrive at from external sources. This can help in determining what page or article titles grab the reader’s attention, or it may simple demonstrate that a link to your site has hit another popular site.
Conversely, Top Exit Pages allows you to determine where you’re losing most of the visitors on your site. This may help in removing stale content, updating content such that it offers more to the user, or providing an overall better flow to your website’s design.
Weigh Your Options
Google Analytics is just one of many traffic reporting tools available. If you’re not planning to use Analytics, I encourage you to use one of the many alternative such as Mint or AWStats. (I personally use AWStats and Google Analytics.) Determine what works best for your site and your personal needs. Regardless of your preference, just make sure you’re utilizing at least one traffic measuring tool, and make sure you analyze the data to understand your visitors in order to maximize your website’s efficiency.
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July 19th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Matt,
great article! I just getting into my blog, and I keep hearing all these terms (like google analytics) and I dont have time to research every one, so it’s to get it in a consumable form! thanks!
Graham Lutz
July 19th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
That is a great guide. Analytics can be really overwhelming at first, so this should help a lot of people.
July 19th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
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July 19th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Nice job Matt! Obviously, a lot of people are already finding it very helpful. (#):)
July 19th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
I am an Analytics addict! Great post Matt, yet again!
July 19th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
I think I’m a little overwhelmed by all this. This is a great post, as usual, but I’m not sure if I understand some of it. I am going to try, but don’t be surprized if I come running for help. LOL
Thanks Matt. I have once again learned something from your blog.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
I hope this can help you to get started. If you have any questions about it, you can absolutely ask me anything!
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:06 pm
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July 23rd, 2007 at 3:25 pm
[...] Huggins has put together a useful article titled Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Website Traffic Metrics with Google Analytics which will be very useful for anyone wanting a primer on how to use Google Analytics. Matt’s [...]
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:07 pm
[...] Huggins has put together a useful article titled Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Website Traffic Metrics with Google Analytics which will be very useful for anyone wanting a primer on how to use Google Analytics. Matt’s [...]
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I also use analytics, but my main usage is to find out keywords which send me traffic so that I can write more about the similar topics.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Good article. Could you expand a little bit on Bounce Rates, and how to use that information?
July 24th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Matt,
Nice article–thanks for putting in the time and effort.
I want to share one thing that perplexed me that I’ve since figured out.
When someone visits only one page on your site, the time on your site is automatically going to show up as zero.
I was so offended that so many visitors from Seth’s Blog were spending literally zero time on the site. What was so offensive about my page!?!
Turns out, the above explains it. While you’d prefer them to click around some, at least they didn’t just flee in terror like I thought.
-Chuck
http://www.ihateyourjob.com
July 24th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Great guide on a great analytics tool! I am a big fan of Google Analytics, but I decided to be different and actually help improve it. I created the 10 ten things that need fixing for google analytics and made a blog post for it:
http://rich-page.com/web-analytics/google-analytics-10-missing-pieces/
I would love to know what you all think. Especially Google?
Rich Page
July 25th, 2007 at 7:53 am
[...] Beginner guide for Google Analytics [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
It’s all good stuff but I do miss having access to the old and new GA layouts. The old one made it easy to check in, see how you’re doing that day and get out quick. No more, far as I can tell.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I intend to write a tutorial of Google Analytics, it seems not necessary any more. Well done, Matt.
July 27th, 2007 at 8:28 am
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July 28th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
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July 30th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
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July 30th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
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July 30th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
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August 24th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Hi Matt… i have a question about this quote of yours:
“Analytics allows you to not only break down traffic by domain name, but it allows you to find the exact URL from which a visitor was referred to your site.”
i’m unable to find this feature in the new GA interface. in the old one i simply cross sectioned the referral by “content”. the content feature has been changed to “Ad content” and no longer performs the same function. that being said, do you know how exactly i can find the “exact” referring URL instead of just the domain. this is really bothering me about the new interface. thanks in advance!
ryan
August 24th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Hi curious,
If you click on “Traffic Sources” on the left, then click on “Referring Sites”, it’ll list the referring domains for the period you have selected. If you then click on one of the referring domains, it will lead to a new view that displays all the referring URL’s for that domain. Hope this helps!
August 24th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Hi Matt,
that’s the path i expected to take and did. unfortunately, i just see the same results. when i click on the actual referrer, i just see a more detailed display of the base referrer and not the actual page in the site people were referred from. so, for instance, if newyork.craigslist.org is the referrer, and i click on that, i still only see newyork.craigslist.org as opposed to something more pinpoint like newyork.craigslist.org/apt/mnh/123546.html
am i missing something here? a setting perhaps? thanks for the prompt response… your help is much appreciated.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Once you click on the referring site, check the drop-down below the graph labeled “Segment”. It should have “Referral Path” selected. If it does not, change it to that, and see if you get the data you’re looking for.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
would you believe me if i told you i’m unable to segment by “referral path”? i’ve been looking at the segment list, for the last 5 minutes straight, and it’s just not in there. this is killing me. i hate not being able to see this info… and my apologies for clouding up your comments with this too, btw =[
August 24th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
matt,
thanks again for your help. now that i know the direction i should be looking in, i have shot off an email to GoAn. hopefully they will look into this and set me straight.
ryan
August 26th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
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August 29th, 2007 at 2:53 am
That’s odd that you can’t see the referral path option, curious. I hope Google Analytics support can help you sort out the issue!
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