get 5 instantly actionable insights from google analytics

5 Instantly Actionable Insights

from Google Analytics

Internet 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 overwhelming

I’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



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

nesecery 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




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.




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 seperates 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 3% 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



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