A beginner's guide to Google Analytics, part 2

< A beginner's guide to Google Analytics, part 1 : A beginner's guide to Google Analytics, part 3 - Comparing statistics >

This post is part of a series.  You can find part 1 here.

In part 1 we looked at the Dashboard, graphs, the navigation menu and went over some of the terminology.  Although I want to make each part of this tutorial easy to follow, there isn't much point explaining the same things multiple times.  However, I will try to provide a brief reminder if it won't make things too long-winded.

Visitors Overview

Go to the navigation menu on the left-hand side and click on Visitors.  This will bring up the Visitors Overview.



The graph at the top shows the number of visitors (i.e. different people) who have seen your site in the given time period - in the above screenshot, you'll notice that I reset the date range to the last month.

The total number of visitors in the given time period is actually shown twice.  "6,380 people visited this site" and "6,380 Absolute Unique Visitors".  These mean exactly the same thing.  You'll also see some of the other stats we looked at in part 1, such as Visits, Pageviews, Bounce Rate and New Visits.

At the bottom of the Visitors Overview page, you'll see something we haven't looked at yet: the Technical Profile.  On the left, you'll see a breakdown of how many visits to your site used Firefox, Internet Explorer and so on.  On the right, you'll see the speed of the connection used (e.g. cable, DSL, dial-up).

Beware of inconsistent wording!

There are a few small inconsistencies between the Dashboard and the Visitors Overview.  On the Dashboard we had "Pages/Visit"; here we have "Average Pageviews".  They are the same.  Similarly "Average Time on Site" and "Time on Site" mean the same thing.

If you're familiar with these terms and you're wondering why I'm mentioning the inconsistencies, bear in mind that Visits and Visitors are also very similar terms but are quite different.  This has a lot to do with why I try to avoid using jargon without explaining it - even if you know what it means, there are plenty of similar terms to really confuse you.

Finding out more

All over the page you'll see links that will take you to other pages.  We're not going to look at every single page in great detail though.  Once you understand the terms, such as visits and pageviews, it's a good idea just to try clicking on a link and look at the graphs.  You can always return to the Dashboard using the navigation menu on the left.

There are lots of other screens to look at.  Let's start with one that might be very interesting to you.

Time on Site

From the Visitors Overview page, click on the Time on Site link - it's the fifth one down, next to the only statistic that looks like the numbers on a digital clock.  In the above screenshot it's 00:01:57 - here's a bigger version so you know where to find it.



I know only too well that when a web page has as much information on it as this one does, simply telling you to "click on this link" will probably make a few people wonder where on earth the link is.  Until you've used Google Analytics a bit more, it can take some time to find your way around, so consider this an extra helping hand.



The graph at the top of the page shows how the time people spend on your site has changed over the last month (or whatever time period you choose).  This is one of the statistics where you'll probably consider a high figure to be better than a low one.

The above screenshot shows that visitors are spending an average of 1 minute 57 seconds on my site before moving on.  That could be as long as it takes to read the latest post, or to look around my site and maybe skim a few posts, or read my About page and possibly even subscribe.  You don't know exactly what people are doing from this time, but I'd say that I could be a lot worse off here.

One of the best things about these graphs is that you can hover over one of the circles and get an exact figure for that date.  I mentioned this in part 1 but didn't give you a screenshot.  Here's an example:



You can also scroll down and look at the blue bars that go across the page.  At the end of each bar you'll see the average time spent on the site for that day.  Handy if you don't want to hover over every circle one by one.

Mysteriously disappearing statistics

One thing you may notice is that if you have a graph that ends on the current day, it can look like you have a lot less activity on that day than you actually do.  My advice here is just to ignore the last point on the graph and instead look at the rest of the graph.  You could change the graph so it doesn't show the last date, but it's not difficult just to ignore it.

New vs. Returning

This is another screen you might be interested in.  In the navigation menu under Visitors, click on New vs. Returning and you'll see this screen.



The basic idea behind this screen is that you can see what percentage of visits came from people who were visiting for the first time, and those who were coming back for more.  For the above screenshot I changed the date range to show more than just the last month.  I can see that 27.78% of visitors were "returning".  I'd like this to be higher, but it does show that a lot of new people are finding my site.

How to use statistics to your advantage

One of the biggest issues with statistics is that it's all too easy to stress over whether your bounce rate is too high, or the fact you don't have enough returning visitors.

Where do you draw the line?  That's very difficult to do.  It varies a lot from one site to the next.  And while it might be useful to be able to compare your statistics with other sites, many people won't show you all of this information.  So how do you know whether you're doing well or not?

I think the best thing you can do is to look at your own statistics over an extended period of time.  Compare recent stats with past stats.  If you get more comments on a post than usual, wait for a day or two and then go to look at your stats.  See what happens.  Sometimes you may find that you get a sharp increase - a "spike" - and other times you won't.

Don't lose hope if you get a large spike then a sudden drop.  This does happen.  What you'll start to realise is how you can get a spike.  Writing a really good post is the best way.  But this is a topic for another day.

This isn't the end.

In part 3 I'll be looking at the Traffic Sources screen in Google Analytics.  These guides are quite long so I may take a short break from this series and return to some "normal" posts before continuing.  If you want to hear when the next post is coming, subscribe to my site.

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