This article will show you the main components to look for so you can hit the ground running. It’s simpler than you might think. Talk to your web designer on getting this installed and running on your site. Then you can log in and check out the reports for yourself.

Here’s a screenshot of your Google Analytics dashboard: (yes, this is a real website with real stats!)

Google analytics screenshot

Quite honestly, this page is all you really need to look at to get started. You can click on each of the areas to get more thorough informaiton, but if you’re just getting started there’s really no need.

Here are the definitions for each component within the dashboard:

The Graph: Shows the number of visitors per day for the date range listed. In this example, the website is a business-to-business site so you see a surge in the middle of the week and a lull on the weekends.

Visits: The total number of visitors on the site, both new and returning visitors. This number may vary dramatically for your particular type of business.

Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed on the site. For example, you first go to the “home page,” then you click on “about us,” then you click “contact us.” This is 3 pageviews (but only 1 visit).

Pages/Visit: The average number of pages all your visitors have viewed per visit. You can multiply Visits x Pages/Visit and they will equal the Pageviews. This number is good to know to see if people are actually using your site or if you’re losing their interest too quickly.

Bounce Rate: A “Bounce” means the visitor went to your home page and left. Usually indicates they didn’t find what they were looking for either 1) not at all; or 2) not quick enough. A good bounce rate ranges between 20% – 50%. You can’t keep everyone, but if you can keep the interest of more than half your visitors, you’re in good shape.

Avg. Time on Site: Shows the average time spent on the site. Closely related to the number of pages/visit. There are a few things to consider here:

• a low number of pages/visit and a high avg. time on site means people are reading a lot and just might find it interesting. (good job- it’s hard to get people to read!)
• a low number of pages/visit and a low avg. time on site probably means people are either 1) finding what they want fast; or 2) not finding what they want and leaving quickly. (See Goals)
• since this is all fuzzy logic, I’ll stop there.

New Visits: The percentage of total visits that are brand new. (conversely, the remainder are returning visitors) The impact of this number depends on what you need from your website. You can multiply Visits x New Visits to get the number of New Visitors: 3562 * .4966 = 1769 new visits.
For this site, we want people to return to the site over and over again 1) to increase the brand identity; 2) to make use of the tools the site provides. If you’re running an ecommerce website that sells inexpensive gadgets, you might want this number to be higher. However, if you have a lot of returning customers (a good thing!) then you might like a lower number. I tend to like something between 40-60% because then you’re getting the best of both worlds!

That’s all you need to know! Just remember that the results are different for every website and for each type of business. Analytics are to be interpreted. Then, tweak your website over time to make it more effective in getting the numbers you want!

For more reading, see Goal Conversions.

Tags: bounce rate, google, new visits, pageviews, website analytics, website tracking

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.