Valuable Measurements

Google Analytics (GA) provides the opportunity for website owners to analyze exactly what aspects of their online presence are working well, and where improvement is needed (sometimes desperately so). In and of themselves, the numbers provided by GA do not provide clear solutions to potential problems. GA is, in fact, a tool that allows developers to recognize potential areas needing addressed. They must look at provided information and identify potential areas of concern that will require creative solutions to improve a user’s site experience. During my analysis of my GA reports, I identified some specific measurements that gave me a strong understanding of areas where my blog could be improved.

Visitors Flow

Have you ever read a book that did not seem well thought out? Was it confusing to you? The author probably had a very clear idea of what was happening in the storyline, but because he or she was so invested during its creation, there was no way to be objective and see where improvements could be made. Web developers run into this problem all the time. The navigation of a website makes perfect sense to the person who created it. There is no reason for anyone to be confused!

Attempting to understand why a conversion rate is high or low requires a strong understanding of the visitor flow. If we have a specific action item we want visitors to complete, what kind of path are we laying for them to follow? This is where GA’s Visitors Flow reports come in handy. This extremely visual report allows web developers to watch where a visitor entered a website, and the path he or she took while navigating through its pages. This information is extremely valuable because it allows developers to see where the person dropped off. Was their navigation random? Did they head for a specific section then go page by page until they found the needed content? Did they drop off the website right at the home page due to being so overwhelmed?

Additionally, GA allows for the analysis of specific visitor segments. Perhaps you want to look at visitors from a specific state because your website provides content that is region specific. Make a few adjustments at the top, and the information is quickly gathered!

My main drop off point was the home page. I currently have individual blog posts posted in their entirety there. Perhaps a way to get people to stay longer, share content, and interact through comments would be to only post part of the individual entry on the home page, thus requiring interested visitors to click through to the next page.

Caitlin Vonhedemann of Spectate, a centralized web marketing company, shared the following insight to drop off rates:

Carefully evaluate pages with your highest drop-off rates.

• Do they include links?

• Are they above the fold?

• Are the links relevant?

• If a visitor actually reads to the end, is there a Call-to-action (CTA) any where? (Learn More. Try It Now. See it in action, etc.) Without it, they may just assume there’s nothing else to see (Vonhedemann, 2012)!

Visitors Flow reports have the potential to significantly impact the way a website’s navigation and content are prepared. Websites big and small are wise to refer back to this report often!

Visit Duration

A low average visit duration can make one feel unpopular very quickly. As always, however, context matters. Most of my visitors were tracked in the 0-10 second range, but this is a very deceiving calculation. “Google Analytics determines visit duration by tracking the elapsed time between pageviews. The last page of a visit is not recorded since there is no subsequent pageview” (“Engagement,” 2012). You heard it correctly! GA does not track single page visits very well! This takes me back to my earlier thought on blog formatting. If all of your content is present on the homepage (as is the case with my blog), then GA is unable to give you a very accurate representation of your average visit duration!

It is also important for GA users to remember that context matters! GA produces information, but it requires proper analysis by its users for it to be any good! Depending on the size of your website and the amount of traffic it gets, diving deeper into the referral sources can make a big difference! It is important to note where people are finding your website. Did more access it from Google than Bing? If so, how long did visitors from each stay on your website? Perhaps that result could also influence where you spend promotional dollars. It can also be a good indicator if your keywords are on point. If people are spending more time on your website, then they are likely finding needed information. Your keywords are attracting the right crowd!

Mobile (Overview and Devices)

As mobile continues to dominate today’s discussions about the web’s future, it is important to understand how people are choosing to access your website. I was surprised to see my blog had people accessing it from an iPad. One could fairly assume that my blog would be accessed while classmates were working on homework – typically done from a laptop or desktop computer. Times are changing though, and more people are beginning to access the web from their phones or tablets. This increases the need for mobile optimization.

If GA begins to show you that more users are accessing your website from mobile devices, then perhaps it could accelerate plans to optimize it for them. With that said, optimizing your website for mobile could mean a number of things and could manifest in a number of ways. I have seen many websites that were optimized for mobile devices that began displaying information in a confusing way depending on how the original website was being programmed. If GA begins to show you a larger bounce rate, it could be suggesting that your website is displaying content incorrectly. Integrating your understanding of who visits through a mobile device with the Visitor Flow reports could give you a strong idea of why conversion rates might be low for those on mobile devices as well.