Ok – now you’ve gotten your web site analytics. What’s next? Next is taking the information you have and making some sense of it. You now have at your disposal some insight into your clients – where they’re from, what parts of your site they find interesting, how they find your site, and if your site is really what they were searching for in the first place – just to name a few. Some folks make the mistake of only looking at the number of visitors, or the length of time someone spends on their site. A holistic view of your analytics is the best approach.
Let’s start with the simplest information first. When you log in to your Google Analytics account, choose your report and you will go directly to that report’s dashboard. The default graph shown on your dashboard is visits vs. dates for the past month. If you click the small arrow beside “visits” you may choose to graph a different parameter. You also have the option to compare two metrics. You may choose to graph results by day, week or month. You may also choose the time period over which you wish to graph and may compare results to another period (for instance Oct 2008 vs. Oct 2007) by selecting the arrow beside the date range shown above your graph. You can’t break it, so just play around and look at your data in a number of different ways. For instance, if you want to look at some general visit trending, choose a long time period to review (say, 6-12 months) and then choose to look at the data by months. You’ll filter out the noise and see a general trend for your site.
You may export the data from your report by clicking the export button at the top of the graph. You may also choose to email the report data to yourself or anyone else you choose by clicking the email button. Emailing will also give you the choice to schedule emails, so if you’d like to see your report in email every Monday, this is the place to set it up!
You’re mom probably taught you not to play with your food…data is food for your mind and it’s ok to play all you want – that’s how you learn and get a feel for your visitors.
More about visitors later…
