2. Web Analytics: Why You Should Care
• Evaluate the effectiveness of social media, e-mail
newsletters and other marketing efforts on your blog
• Find out what people like and don't like about your content
• Get into the heads of your visitors as they visit your blog
• Improve your blog's design and content for your audience
3. Getting Set Up in Google Analytics
Create an account at www.google.com/analytics
Click
O
"Adm n
in"
Then
C
New lick
Accou
nt
Fill in
y
info.. our
.
5. Installing The Tracking Code on WordPress (self-hosted)
OPTION 1: Some WordPress themes have a place for you to enter your Tracking ID
(looks like UA-555121-2) or a place to paste the entire tracking code.
The code
should
be in the
<head>
section o
f yo u r
site
OPTION 2: Use a WordPress plugin,
like Google Analytics by Joost de Valk
http://bit.ly/ga-yoast
OPTION 3: Paste the code into your theme's header.php file, just before the </head> tag.
7. Filter out your own visits to your site
Admin > Account > Filters > New Filter
Set up a filter for to exclude the IP
Address of every location you regularly
use to visit your site.
Get your current address:
www.checkmyip.com
Your IP Addresses may change from
time to time, so it's important to check
this every once in awhile.
You may also need to filter out your
own server’s IP address!
8. It's good to have backup stats -
As a second opinion or if there's a GA hiccup.
Stats won't be equal. A 1% to 3% difference is normal.
WordPress.com Stats
Free part of the Jetpack plugin,
Integrates into WP Dashboard
bit.ly/jetpackplugin
Get Clicky
GetClicky.com
Free up to 3,000 page views/day
WordPress Plugin:
bit.ly/clickyplugin
9. Visitors Overview: The Basic Stats
Date Range,
Defaults to last
30 days
The Info On Each Dot
the Graph On the Graph
Unique Visitors:
Visits:
The number of to
Someone comes
If you click on
Pageviews:
individuals views 1+
your blog, who
these time a it of
Every then
have been toleaves
pages,graphs,your
Average Numberwill
Pages Viewed a web
visitor views
site during the date
rangeyouRate:
takeVisit a site
per on to more
Bounce
page
Percentage of
(2-3 about those
info is typical)
visitors who leave
stats viewing only
after
one page
10. Avoiding Data Overload
Identify key metrics that tell you how your site is performing
-- and that agencies/advertisers ask for.
For blogs, here's a good start:
• Unique Visitors and Pageviews
• Top Referring Websites
• Top Keywords and Phrases from search engines
• Site Content Popularity
• Traffic from Mobile Devices
16. New vs. Returning Visitors
Do new visitors leave your site quickly? Or are they engaged and looking around
more? While in launch mode, focus on new visitors as a metric. When looking at
content engagement and effectiveness, focus on returning visitors.
17. Visitor Behavior: Averages Lie!
Frequency - Count of Visits – Number of times the same person comes back
Recency - Days Since Last Visit – How long it’s been since they've been to your site
Visit Duration - How long they stay on your site in a single visit
Page Depth - Number of pages they view in a single visit
18. Avoiding Data Overload
Create a dashboard in an Excel spreadsheet so you
can easily track weekly/monthly/ yearly trends:
Excel Plug-ins Automatically Draw from your GA Account:
gaexcelplugin.tatvic.com
excellentanalytics.com
20. URL Campaign Builder
Promoting your blog on Facebook, Twitter or e-mail? Use URL Builder to
tag e-mails and social links and track visitor information from those
links. It'll show up in referring traffic under “campaigns.”
bit.ly/gacampaignbuilder
Best practices for
tagging social and
e-mail links:
goo.gl/CNKFu
22. Google Analytics Resources
Google Analytics Education (Videos and more):
goo.gl/mGpDG
Google Analytics Support:
goo.gl/dKOkS
Google Analytics Blog:
goo.gl/fQDWC
Google Analytics Reporting Tools (Excel Plugins and more):
goo.gl/zzA66
Google Analytics URL Builder:
goo.gl/MB6zX
Sure, number of visitors is important… But so are a lot of other stats. Trends are even more important! The graphs can help you see if your site is growing over time, and if you reader engagement is growing over time. Is your bounce rate increasing or decreasing? How many pages per visit does your average visitor read? Looking at the “Big Picture” is much more important than simply looking at total number of visits or pageviews. (Even if you have advertising on your site.) Defaults to last 30 days. Click to change… Can also compare time periods. “ Bounce Rate” is the percentage of visitors who come to your site, view that one “landing” page, and then don’t view another page. Regular readers may also be “bouncers” because they will read your latest post and then leave. As such, bounce rates on blogs tend to be higher than other sites. Can view by day, week, or month. Choosing larger chunks can help identify trends. put in screenshot of whole dashboard, animate through all the definitions how to set date range definitions how to change the graph metric click on one of those graphs next to the overview metrics to get to a graph about that metric Visitor: An individual user of your site Visit/Session: Time from when a visitor enters and leaves your website Pageviews: Every time a visitor views a web page on a site Pages/Visit - 2 to 3 is typical Site Referrer: External web page that brought visitor to you Conversion: When a visitor completes an action (buys a product, subscribes to newsletter) Bounce Rate: Percentage of visitors that exit after only viewing one page of a website. Typical rate for a blog: 50% to 75% www.eatingrules.com
www.eatingrules.com
www.eatingrules.com
www.eatingrules.com
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www.eatingrules.com
Not every visit lasts 1 minute and 31 seconds! Looking at the distribution curve helps us understand what’s really happening. The blue bars below show you the percentage of visitors in each time-group. The distribution shows a completely different story than the overall average. 80% of my visits last less than 10 seconds! How can you reduce the % that are in the 0-10 second group? Start looking at the changes to this curve over time to gauge your progress and success. www.eatingrules.com