GOOGLE ANALYTICS 101

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1 © Adrienne C. Dupree 2014 http://www.theonlinenewbie.com

GOOGLE ANALYTICS 101

Presented By

Adrienne C. Dupree

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Introduction

Let me get started with an issue. You have a website and you get visitors, but you are unsure of how many visitors you get, what keywords people are using to get to your site and what pages they visit when they come to your site. In order to find out the answers to these questions and many more, you need to learn about Google Analytics.

According to Wikipedia, Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources and measures conversions and sales.

In this report we’ll cover:

1. Introduction To Analytics

2. What Is Google Analytics?

3. Why Google Analytics Is Important?

4. How Does Google Analytics Work?

5. Google Analytics Metrics and Terms

6. How To Set Up Google Analytics

7. ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ADRIENNE C. DUPREE

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Introduction to Analytics

So, you think you’re off to a good start because you finally got your new website up and running. You even have one of those counters at the bottom of your homepage so you know exactly how many people visit your site. Done patting yourself on the back yet? When you are, it’s time to move your site to the next level. It’s time for Web Analytics.

Web Analytics may sound like some sort of complex configuration for your web site, but for amateur Web page developer and internet retailers, Web Analytics is actually an incredibly useful, and easy, tool. In one fell swoop, Web analytics can help you figure out all the important information about people who visit your site. Put simply, it’s a way to study who visits your site, what they do while they are there, and why they leave. We’re talking about, all the Whos, Whats, Wheres, Whens, and Whys.

If you’re looking to sell something on your site, Web analytics can tell you what product pages are attracting the most viewers and which ones are attracting the least number of viewers. The tool can even tell you what parts of your site are confusing to your visitors. And it can tell you where your biggest customers are coming from.

If you’re looking to market yourself on search engines, there’s no better way than Web Analytics. The tool allows you to figure out which keywords work best to drive traffic to your site. It can help you figure out how many hits you’re receiving from your advertising campaigns. That way, you can build your Web content to focus on those keywords and campaigns, and to drive even more traffic to your site.

The benefits of Web analytics are many, so here is just a short list of the main ones. Web Analytics can:

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4 © Adrienne C. Dupree 2014 http://www.theonlinenewbie.com • Track down the IP address of your visitors – The IP address of your visitors is

like their numerical address on the Web where the visitors are coming from. Not only that, you can track them down to their geographical, real-world location, too, as well as the time of day that they came.

• Breakdown individual visits – You can breakdown individual visits by the entry page, where the person first landed at your site, and the exit page, the last page they visited before they left. Entry pages generally show that the visitor may have bookmarked your site on that page, probably because of its valuable content. Exit pages, on the other hand, could be your site’s most boring content.

• Count the total time – You can count the total time that visitors spent on your site, and exactly what path they took through the site. This can give you a better idea about how well-designed your Web page is, so you can learn how to better design your site’s navigation to direct visitors where you want them to go, and get them to stick around your site longer.

• Trace your visitors – You can trace your visitors back to the links that brought them to your site. The more links other Web sites have to your pages, the better. On the other hand, visitors may have come straight to your site, which is also not too shabby. It could mean that word-of-mouth on your site is working.

• Weigh the value of search engine keywords – You can analyze which terms people are using at search engines to find your site. This gives you a great way to optimize your content to what your visitors are looking for.

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What is Google Analytics?

Are you finding it difficult to keep track of your site's performance in the search engines? Aside from having to download software that offers to keep track of your website's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) performance, Google has an integrated service especially for SEO people out there concerned with their web site's performance.

This Google tracking service is known as Google Analytics. It is a powerful service that keeps track of your website's success on organic and paid search results. Google Analytics gives you a better understanding of how your website's visitors interact on your site. It gives you a detailed experience of your web site visitors.

You will also be aware and know what keywords users frequently use to find your website. You will learn the best link text that brings in the most prospects.

Google Analytics shares with you analytical data that will help you greatly on being aware about your website visitors and target visitors' preferences.

Google Analytics provides free information about the way visitors interact with your website. By taking a good evaluation of Google Analytics, webmasters will realize how it is an invaluable tool they can and should use especially if they do not have some form of a visitor tracking solution.

Google Analytics shares with you which of your SEO campaigns deliver the best return on investment (ROI). Google Analytics is good in tracking down results of your online marketing campaigns.

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Why Google Analytics Is Important?

Here are some of the most important reasons why you need Google Analytics as part of your website visitor tracking and have it on your site:

1. Its functionality equals most expensive visitor tracking services, even if it is free. 2. The service is your solution to identify where visitors leave your check-out or

sign-up process. Identifying this will help you make amends and modify your sign-up process so that is more user-friendly or converts more. This will help with losing leads.

3. Utilizing Google Analytics will help you identify the pages and links your website visitor’s click on most. You will also know which page your visitors spend the most time on. You can therefore improve these pages and position them and their link texts appropriately.

4. Wondering what was the previous website your visitor logged on to before coming to your site? Google Analytics will tell you all about it.

5. You will also be provided with the most popular keyword users type in the search bar of the search engine when finding websites associated or related to your website. Knowing these popular keywords is a great boost for your SEO efforts and performance, even on other search engines.

6. Google Analytics conduct visitor segmentation. It classifies new and returning web site users, their geographical information and the referral source they use. This provides you with invaluable insight if you are planning on a setting up a new online business.

7. For search advertising results, Google Analytics and Google Adwords guarantees you end-to-end visibility.

8. You can even track other non-search-engine marketing media.

9. Overall, Google Analytics provides you a very cheap service on gaining more customers, if you utilize its results.

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8 © Adrienne C. Dupree 2014 http://www.theonlinenewbie.com • Its setup is very straightforward. You do not have to waste time waiting for

results.

• It is quite flexible and provides a wide range of significant and valuable reports. • You can login once and track multiple sites.

• Google tracking makes it possible to track campaigns even on other media. • You need not be confused with A/B ad testing.

• It integrates with all marketing media so you can use a single portal to track multiple campaigns.

• You will get in-depth reports on site navigation of users you never dreamed you could have.

• It also has Ecommerce tracking features

However, the Google Analytics package falls short on two very important features most search engine marketers need. The first is the ability to track down individual user activities and trace activity back to an individual user level. Another is the ability to track fraudulent online activities so your site will be safe from it. Even if there are the

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How Does Google Analytics Work?

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Google Analytics Metrics and Terms

There are several metrics and terms that you must understand in order to make any sense of your Google Analytics.

Hit – A hit is a request for a file from your web server noted in the log.

Visits – Visits represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to your site. If a user is inactive on your site for 30 minutes or more, any future activity is attributed to a new session. Users that leave your site and return within 30 minutes are counted as part of the original session.

Unique Visits – Unique visits are the number of unique sessions initiated by your visitors.

New Visitor – A New Visitor is a visitor that has not made any previous visits. If you have a high number of new visitors, then you are driving a lot of new traffic to your site. If someone deletes all of their cookies, they will be counted as a new visitor.

Returning/Repeat Visitor – A Returning/Repeat Visitor is a visitor that has made a least one previous visit. A high number of returning visitors means that your site is engaging and they want to come back for more information.

Page Views – A page view is a view of a page on your site that is being tracked by the Analytics tracking code. If a visitor clicks reload after reaching the page, this is counted as an additional page view. If a user navigates to a different page and then returns to the original page, a second page view is recorded as well.

Unique Page View – A Unique Page View is the aggregation of all the page views that are generated by the same user during the same session.

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11 © Adrienne C. Dupree 2014 http://www.theonlinenewbie.com Bounce Rate – Bounce Rate reveals the number of visitors who left your site from a particular page. The Bounce Rate is the percentage of bounced visits to your site. A bounce is calculated as a single-page view in a session or visit. If you site is a blog, then the bounce rate probably is not relevant because a lot of your content is on one page.

Traffic Sources – Traffic sources are where your traffic is coming from. Every referral to a website has an origin, or source. Possible sources include: “Google”, “facebook.com”, etc.

Search Traffic – Every visitor arrives at your site by clicking on search terms in a search engine. This is either organic/free traffic or paid traffic.

Referral Traffic – Referral traffic is when a visitor arrives at your site via another site. The domains (and pages in those domains) that are referring traffic to your site are captured.

Direct Traffic – Direct traffic is when a user clicks on a bookmark or types in an URL directly.

Referring Search Terms – Referring search terms are the search phrases people are using to find your site.

Referring URLs – Referring URLs tell you which websites are sending you traffic. Content popularity – Content popularity is the list of the most popular pages on your site.

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How to Set Up Google Analytics

Step 1: Start Your Account

1. Go to the Google Analytics webpage (http://www.google.com/analytics). If you don’t have a Google account, you will have to create one first. Once you have a Google account, click "Create an account" on the Google Analytics page.

2. You must now sign into your Google account. 3. You then select the “Sign Up” button.

4. You select an Account Name. 5. Type in the Website Name.

6. Next, type in the URL of the site you want analyzed. 7. Select the Industry Category.

8. Pick the country and time zone your site is in 9. Next you select, “Get Your Tracking ID”

Step 2: Insert Google Analytics JavaScript into Your Pages·

1. If you are using WordPress, then you can use a plug-in to add the tracking code to your site.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR – ADRIENNE C. DUPREE

I am Adrienne Dupree and I am the owner of The Online Newbie. Even though I have worked in corporate America, I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I participated in many network marketing companies, owned a Wedding Services business and was a part time Mortgage Broker for 5 years. As a Mortgage Broker, I used many non-traditional and traditional forms of marketing such as an online newsletter, custom website, autoresponders, webinars, seminars, networking and online advertising.

I also have a passion for teaching. Although I do not have a formal background in teaching, I have tutored many students in Math and Science. The seminars that I held as a Mortgage Broker were designed to teach first time homebuyers and first time real estate investors. I was also the Technology Chair of my sorority chapter for 2 years where I authored a monthly newsletter article on various technology topics.

At some point, you may no longer be passionate about your career. You get tired of the politics, you may feel unappreciated, you may have sacrificed your health or important relationships or you feel like no matter how hard you work you will not get ahead. A lot of this describes how I felt; however, when I discovered internet marketing, I was excited. I had found a way to feed my passion, utilize my technical skills and start on my way to building a new future.

I started The Online Newbie to give hope to people in my situation. The Online Newbie was created to teach people in corporate America who want to get out of the rat race how to start a profitable online internet marketing business that can potentially replace their income, allow them to control their own destiny and stop trading hours for dollars. The Online Newbie teaches techniques that can be done in a few hours a day using low startup, operating and marketing costs. We provide a step by step blueprint that covers all of the basic and essential elements of building a successful internet marketing business from a beginner’s perspective on a part time basis.

If you want to know more about my professional background, you can continue reading. I have over 25 years in the Information Technology Field. I have a B.S. Mathematics, B.S. Electrical Engineering and M.S. Computer Science. I have been a government contractor in the Washington, DC area and have worked on contracts for the

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Resources

To find information to assist you with developing your online marketing business including Google Analytics, check out The Online Newbie

To find out about our Google Analytics Product, send an email to

[email protected].

There are a few Kindle books about Google Analytics if you would like additional information:

1. Google Analytics for Beginners

2. Sams Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes

Affiliate Disclaimer: I am a compensated affiliate for some of the products and services recommended in this report. I personally use the products that are recommended.