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Getting Started With Analytics
Monday, May 14, 2012
It’s often hard to know how to improve your website. Sure, you may have the greatest resource hub ever, but are people actually using it? What’s the deal with metrics like time on site--is longer better because people are exploring your great content, or is longer worse because people are confused and lost?
Google Analytics
, a free tool that provides detailed information about your website traffic, can help you answer these questions. Once you’ve installed it on all pages of your website (instructions
here
), you’ll be slicing and dicing data in no time!
The first step towards analysis with Google Analytics is thinking about the different groups of people who might visit your site. Say your organization tutors low-income students. You might have three types of people visiting your site--donors, volunteer tutors, and the students themselves. Take a second and make a list of all the different sorts of people who might visit your own website.
Next, think about what these groups of people might be looking for. The students might want to know when you’re closed for holidays, or they might be looking for resources to help them with that tricky geometry homework. Donors could be trying to donate online, or maybe looking for more information about your organization’s mission. Volunteers may be looking for a list of upcoming volunteering events, or for a sign-up link for your newsletter.
Once you’ve figured out who is visiting your site and what they might be looking for, it’s time to use Analytics if these people are getting what they want. The
“Goal”
feature of Analytics is designed for just this purpose. URL destination goals are a great place to start. This goal type allows you to track visits to specific pages of your site--for example, the “Thank You page” that comes up after a successful online donation, or a page with information about volunteering hours. You’ve already figured out what your visitors are looking for--now translate these into URL destination goals!
Once you’ve created these goals, they’ll show up each of your
reports
within Analytics. You’ll be able to look at goal completion rate, which is one way to measure your website’s effectiveness. You can compare goal completion rates for different referring sites or landing pages, allowing you to see which of your partnership efforts is the most effective.
Now that you have a good sense of how your website is performing, you can begin to find ways to make it even better! One great report to look at is the
“Visitor Flow”
report, which shows you the pages people visited en route to your goal URLs. Take a look at these paths and see if anything looks unexpected. Did a high number of users end up on the resources section of your site after visiting the donation section? Did many users visit ten pages before finally finding your hours of operation? Are there popular paths that involve both pages targeted specifically at donors and pages targeted at beneficiaries? If so, this may suggest that the flow of your website is confusing. Consider including more direct links to your goal pages on your home pages to facilitate use of your site.
Your website should make it easy for all of your visitors to find what they’re looking for--you wouldn’t want to miss out on potential donors because the online donation process is confusing, or turn away volunteers who can’t find an updated calendar! With just a little set-up, Analytics can help you determine whether your website is helping you or hindering you--and it can show you what you can change to improve your performance.
Posted by Eva Breitenbach, AdWords Team
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