An introduction to the features of. Google Analytics

Transcription

1 Cubik OneStopCMS An introduction to the features of Google Analytics Author: Cubik Helpdesk Date: 27 January 2011 Version: 1.5 Cubik, Glenewes House, Gate Way Drive, Yeadon, Leeds, LS19 7XY Tel:

2 Table of Contents Table of Contents... 2 Revision History... 4 Introduction... 5 Signing up for Google Analytics... 6 Visit the sign up page... 6 Create a Google account... 6 Step 1: Create the sign in details... 6 Step 3: Confirm details... 7 Enable Google Analytics... 8 Step 1: Sign up... 8 Step 2: Enter your site s information... 8 Step 3: Enter contact information... 9 Step 4: Accept user agreement... 9 Step 5: Send the tracking code to Cubik Using Google Analytics Introduction The basics The Google Analytics home screen The Dashboard Changing the date range Useful Reports Browsers Daily Visits Referrals Screen Resolutions Entry Pages Exit Pages Most Popular Pages User Languages Downloaded documents Links to external websites or addresses ( outgoing links ) Tracking Site Search Tracking pages not found ( 404s ) Advanced functions Exporting reports Sending reports by Comparing statistics across date ranges Drilling down Version November of 31

3 Changing graph views A full list of reports Version November of 31

4 Revision History Num Date Who Notes October 2007 Michael Scott Initial revision October 2007 David Filler Reviewed and approved for issue October 2008 Michael Scott Added analysis of external (outgoing) links November 2008 Louise Radcliffe Added Site Search Information November 2009 Michael Scott Added Page Not Found information. Version November of 31

5 Introduction Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google to website administrators, enabling administrators to view information about how visitors use their websites. The easy-to-use interface, drill-down feature, date comparison and goal conversion settings make Google Analytics a very powerful and helpful tool. This document gives a brief overview of how you sign up for Google Analytics, the features offered by Google Analytics and how you retrieve the statistics that you are used to viewing. If you already have a Google Analytics account, you can step forward to the Using Google Analytics section. Version November of 31

6 Signing up for Google Analytics Visit the sign up page Navigate to the following URL: Click Sign Up Now to create a new Google account. If you have an existing account, you can Sign in on this page and you can skip to the Enable Google Analytics section below. Create a Google account To activate Google Analytics for your website you must firstly create a Google account. Google accounts are used for many things including Google Mail, Blogger and igoogle. If you already have a Google account for one of these services, you can use that account. If not, you can create a new account by following these instructions. Step 1: Create the sign in details Fill in the form by entering an address and password for your new account. Use an address that you have access to, as Google will send a confirmation containing a link that you will need to click to activate your account. To prevent automated services from creating many accounts, you will need to type in the text that is shown in the image on the screen. Version November of 31

7 Google will send an to the address you entered above and will display a message to confirm this. Do not click the Click here to continue link until the end of Step 3. Step 3: Confirm details Google will send an to the address you entered in Step 2. Click the link in this to confirm the address and activate your new account: Version November of 31

8 Once you click the link, your account is activated: You can close the window or tab that is displaying this message and return to the link that was displayed at the end of Step 2: Enable Google Analytics Once you have created your Google account, you can enable Google Analytics on your account. Step 1: Sign up Click the Sign Up button: Step 2: Enter your site s information You need to set up the site for which you are going to collect information. If you have more than one site, you can add them all to your single account. Use the General Information screen to add the first website you want to track: Enter the full URL of the homepage of your website. The Account Name is the name that the site will show up as in Analytics. The URL of your site will be automatically added to this box. Rename it if you want, but there is little reason to do this. Version November of 31

9 It is very important that you choose United Kingdom in the Time zone country or territory drop down as this will ensure that Google knows which day and time visits were recorded for your site. Step 3: Enter contact information Enter the information of the primary contact for your site: Step 4: Accept user agreement Read the terms of service and tick the Yes, I agree to the above terms and conditions box. Version November of 31

10 Step 5: Send the tracking code to Cubik Google will display the tracking code that needs to be inserted on your website. This is a task that Cubik needs to perform. Simply select the entire contents of the box (starting with <script) and copy-and-paste into an to support@cubik.co.uk. Cubik will then make the necessary changes to your website so that Google Analytics will begin recording statistics. Version November of 31

11 Using Google Analytics Introduction Google Analytics is a very comprehensive web-based statistics solution with equally comprehensive on-line documentation. This section gives a very brief overview of Google Analytics and highlights some of the key reports that you may find particularly useful. For more information, the Google Analytics Help Centre pages can be accessed from the following URL: Version November of 31

12 The basics The Google Analytics home screen When you sign into Google Analytics, you are presented with the home screen. This lists the websites that you are tracking as well as access to other advanced features of Google Analytics and popular Help topics. To access the statistics for a site, click the View Reports link for the site you wish to analyse. Version November of 31

13 The Dashboard The Dashboard is the homepage of the website s statistics. It gives an overview of traffic to your site for the last month. This is an at-a-glance screen showing the reports that you use most often. You can change the reports that appear on the Dashboard but the defaults are usually good enough. The menu on the left gives you access to the myriad of reports offered by Google Analytics. Version November of 31

14 Changing the date range By default, the Google Analytics reports show data for the last calendar month. You can change the date range of every report by clicking on the down arrow next to the date at the top of any report: This will enable you to either type a new start and end date, pick dates from a calendar view or see a timeline view of your website statistics: Once you have changed the date range, your chosen range applies for the duration of your Google Analytics session. Version November of 31

15 Useful Reports This section gives a brief introduction of how you access data for the reports that clients most commonly require. Browsers To see the list of browsers that are accessing your site, navigate on the main left menu to Visitors > Browser Capabilities: This screen shows the breakdown of which browsers have accessed your site in your chosen date range. The pie chart gives a graphical representation of this data. Version November of 31

16 Daily Visits You can access the number of visitors you receive daily by browsing to Visitors > Overview. This shows various visitor-based counters. To see the number of visitors on a given date, move your mouse over the date on the main graph. A pop-up balloon will give you the details. Version November of 31

17 Referrals A rich set of data can be viewed on the Traffic Sources reports which are accessed by browsing to Traffic Sources > Overview: The pie-chart shows a breakdown of referrals from search engines, other websites or by direct traffic. The list of Sources shows the most popular search engines that are used to reach your site and the Keywords list shows what terms people are searching on to arrive at your site. Version November of 31

18 Screen Resolutions Information on which screen resolutions your visitors are using can be found on the Screen Resolutions report which is at Visitors > Browser Capabilities > Screen Resolutions: Version November of 31

19 Entry Pages In Google Analytics, an entry page is referred to as a landing page. Your top landing pages can be found by navigating to Content > Top Landing Pages. You can change the options to see all landing pages by using the dropdowns at the bottom of the graph. Version November of 31

20 Exit Pages The Exit Pages report is at Content > Top Exit Pages Most Popular Pages The Top Content report is at Content > Top Content User Languages To view the language that visitors browsers are set up for, use Visitors > Languages. Version November of 31

21 Downloaded documents In Google Analytics, downloaded resources such as PDF documents are treated as standard pages and will be included in every report as a visit. If you want to view all downloaded resources, use the Content Drilldown report which is at Content > Content Drilldown. This page will initially show you all pages that have been visited: To enable this report to only show downloaded resources, use the filter box at the bottom of the report and enter /downloads/ as the filter term: Once you have done that, you can click the links to drill-down into each individual resource and see how many times it was downloaded on any given date or between any given date range. Version November of 31

22 Links to external websites or addresses ( outgoing links ) Links to websites other than your own, and to addresses are also recorded by Google Analytics. This enables you to easily see which of your external links people are following, and which addresses are being accessed. If you run advertising, this helps you to see which of your advertisers are most popular. If you want to view all external links that were followed, use the Content Drilldown report which is at Content > Content Drilldown. This page will initially show you all pages that have been visited: To enable this report to only show external links that have been clicked, use the filter box at the bottom of the report and enter /external/ as the filter term: Once you have done that, you can click the links to drill-down into each individual external link and see how many times it was clicked on any given date or between any given date range. To see addresses, enter /mailto/ instead of /external/. Version November of 31

23 Tracking Site Search Searches made on your site can be tracked by Google Analytics. This enables you to see the most popular searches carried out on your site. Configuration To set up search tracking on Google Analytics: Click 'Edit' in the Website Profiles summary box for the profile you would like to enable Site Search for. Click 'Edit' from the 'Main Website Profile Information' section of the Profile Settings page. Select the 'Do Track Site Search' radio button in the Site Search section of the Edit Profile Information page. In the Query Parameter field, enter q, then save these changes. Site Search Tracking is now enabled on your site. Version November of 31

24 Use To view the site search reports, click the View Report button in the Website Profiles Summary box. Click Content, then Site Search. This will bring you to the Site Search Overview page, where you can see an overview of the search statistics. Version November of 31

25 Tracking pages not found ( 404s ) Occasionally, site visitors may try to find a page or an asset that does not exist on your site. The visitor may simply miss-type a valid address, or they may follow an out-of-date link to your site from an external site. You can use Google Analytics to track instances of this to help you work out why visitors are struggling to find what they are looking for on your site. Tip If a particular URL is commonly shown in the report, you can add a FriendlyURL to help visitors find the resource that they are looking for. Use On the dashboard, choose Content -> Content Drilldown: and In the Filter Page box, type NotFound (no space between the words) and click Go: You are then presented with a list of all pages that visitors have tried to access: The page is shown after the page= part of the URL. In the example above, three visitors tried to access the non-existent document To further analyse the not found pages, you can click each one to be taken to the Google Analytics Content Detail page which will help you work out how visitors are arriving at the invalid addresses. Advanced functions Google Analytics offers much more than simply browsing statistics. This section acts as a brief introduction to these functions. Exporting reports Any report that you can view on the Google Analytics website can be downloaded to your computer in a number of formats: PDF for printing and sharing with colleagues CSV and TSV for analysis in Excel XML for advanced manipulation To download the statistics, click the Export link at the top of any report: Version November of 31

26 This will open the export type menu. Simply choose the type of export you require: An example of the same report as shown in a PDF viewer and in Excel is shown below: Version November of 31

27 Sending reports by You can configure any report to be sent to a number of addresses that you define. This may be a one-off , or you can schedule statistics to be sent to you regularly. On any report, click the link at the top of the report: Use the send now screen to send the report in a defined format to any addresses that you specify: To schedule the for regular sending, click Schedule and set it up to your requirements: Version November of 31

28 Comparing statistics across date ranges You can choose two date ranges to compare statistics against. This is useful to see if your month-on-month visits are increasing or to determine the effects of a marketing push at different times of year. To choose the date ranges, select the Compare to past option on the date selector and enter the second date range: Once you have done this, every report shows information in two colours, one for each date range. When hovering over any item, the comparison is shown as a percentage: Version November of 31

29 Drilling down Every report shows its data as a series of hyperlinks. You can click on these links to get more granular information on the statistic in question. In the example below, notice that all information is a hyperlink that you can click to drill down into that piece of data: When we click on a particular search engine keyword, we see how many times users used the search word: Version November of 31

30 Changing graph views You can use the different buttons next to Views to change the way that the information is displayed: Version November of 31

31 A full list of reports The images below show the full list of reports and where they appear in the menu structure. Version November of 31