Understanding Google Analytics - The Basics

If you use Google Analytics to measure the visitor results and behaviors on your website, then understanding the meaning of its key metrics...

To help you out we’ve listed below some of the key measures you’ll need to understand as you start to disseminate the HUGE array of stats that Google Analytics deliver!

If you own a website and have no idea what Google Analytics is then talk to us!

Unique Visitors

Google adds a small ‘cookie’ to a user’s browser when they visit a site so it can tell if they’ve been there before. As the website owner this gives you a good measure of the number of new visitors you’re seeing. Results are ‘per browser, per machine’, so if a number of people are using the same computer and browser then it will be counted as one.

Page Views

The number of times a particular page has been viewed. If a single visitor visits twice then it counts for as two views.

Bounce rate

A ‘Bounce’ is when a visitor looks at a single page then leaves your site. The lower your bounce rate percentage the better. However, a bounce is not always a bad thing. Bounces can also caused by the visitor finding the information they were looking then leaving. Also, they might have left via a link to one of your Social Media feeds on that page.

Visits

Google counts a ‘visit’ as a single session on your website. Viewing several pages one after the other will still count as a single visit. If you’re lucky and a visitor stays 30 minutes then the counter resets.

Time On Site

Of all the metrics, this one speaks for itself! It’s the average time a visitor spends on your site per visit.

Referring Sites

A list of the sites who are sending you the most traffic. If you’re active in social media then FacebookTwitterPintrest or LinkedIn should feature highly here. Note - traffic from Twitter will often appear on your Google Analytics as ‘t.co’.

If you have Google Analytics running on your site, but need help analysing and improving them, then why note give us a call!

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