WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GOOGLE ANALYTICS - PART 2 - Visitor Overview
The Visitor Overview provides information about the people who have visited your website. At the top of the page is another chart tracking the number of visitors for the past 30 days. Change the date range just as you would on the Dashboard.
The most important thing to remember with the Visitor Overview is that the term visitor is different from the term visit. A visitor is defined as actual unique people rather than the number of times they have visited. Yes, the same person can visit your site multiple times, thereby increasing your visit numbers but not your unique visitor numbers. The key thing to take away from this is that to truly know how many people are visiting your website, you need to know how many Absolute Unique Visitors have come to your website.
Other really cool things about the Visitor Overview is that it displays the number of pages the visitor has viewed (PageViews), an average per visitor (Average Pageviews), the percentage of visitors who have left immediately (Bounce Rate) and the percentage of visits that are from new visitors to your website (New Visits).
The coolest thing however - in my opinion - is the Time on Site results. This is the amount of time your users spend on your website and is part of what is known as "stickiness". I'll discuss stickiness in more detail in a future post but for now just keep in mind that the higher the Time on Site results the more time your visitor stays on your website - leading to greater stickiness. One rule of thumb I've heard is that any Time On Site over 30 seconds is a success. That means the average of all visits to a website has been over 30 seconds. Keep in mind, though, that Time on Site can be skewed by people coming to your website and then leaving their browser window open without ending the session. So while it is is a cool number to know, drill into the numbers to see if it is a trend or just a fluke. Time will tell.
Also on the Visitor Overview is Visitor Segmentation which allows you to see the Languages your website has been viewed in (this tracks the default language selection as defined by the user's browser), Network Locations (helpful in determining trends among users) as well as Browser Profiles (allowing you to customize your website to your users technical capabilities - things like Flash version, browser/operating system combination and screen resolutions most visitors use to access your website.)
Lastly, on the Visitor Overview you will see the Technical Profile of your visitors. This is a list of the prevalent Browsers your visitors use to access your site as well as their Connection Speed. Why is this important?
Browsers Knowing which browser your visitors use to access your website may impact how you interact with them and what applications/plug-ins you offer (example: some applications/plug-ins don't work very well with Safari browsers - if you have a lot of users coming from Safari, you may want to re-think using that applications/plug-ins).
Connection Speed Connection Speed is becoming less relevant with the expansion of broadband acceptance. However, if you find that you have a lot of dial-up users, you may want to avoid using a lot of video on your website (for example).
Visitor Overview: What you need to know The Visitor Overview tells you if your traffic is coming from a few people visiting you many times or several people visiting once. It also allows you to see how sticky your website is (more on that in future posts) and what technical issues may be impacting your traffic.
As LoudClick has evolved, we've recognized how difficult it is to market online - particularly if you have a national brand and would like to market locally. Since coming to this conclusion, we have been in development of a unique new product; an automated solution we've named ClickWrite. Read More
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Media Waters Series - Part 4 In this final post in the "Sticking a
Toe" series we will discuss what didn't worked in our experiment and
why. Read More
Sticking A Toe In Social Media Waters
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Sticking A Toe In Social Media Waters Series - Part 2
OK, last week I started this experiment by signing up for a Twitter
account and built a Facebook Fanpage. Here are week one's results: Read More
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post and we battered back and forth as usual. This time, however, we
came up with an idea that I'm going to pursue - something based upon an
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media so I'm going to write about my left big toe." Absurd, yes, but
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relationships with potential friends and customers. Yet some continue to see this as a one way street... Read More
Just take a stroll down memory lane for the last 15 years......
Look
at where the recording industry was 15 years ago. Rolling along,
getting over 80's rock and not a competitor on the horizon as far as
the eye could see...
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communication, social media, etc. Some specific milestones can be
identified and are a good way to gauge a person's ability to interact
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When you complete this list you will find you have better search engine
results, your site will become more interactive and you will be able to
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component of content marketing - the need to be socially adept is even
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of it makes some people upset; particularly website owners concerned
they may not get the same search ranking as before the change. Is this
concern justified? What should you do about it? Read More
Facebook's deal to allow Bing to index public statuses has some
relevance to businesses with Facebook fan pages. This is the first time
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business, it may be a good time to get yourself a fan page on Facebook.
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Knowing how valuable the concept has become is the proverbial
carrot to dig in and learn what you can. There are a few
basic themes that apply to most social networks and provide a roadmap
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Every day I set aside some time to comb through my twitter account, RSS
Reader and social networking sites. I believe that when you run a
website/blog it is important to stay on top of it, get involved in
social networks, attract new readers through social media and just
generally stay informed. The online landscape changes so quickly - you
have to commit to it day to say on top. Read More
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around. So here I am doing my part - passing on the good stuff to you. Read More
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simple. I've run into several people who are not yet convinced that
social media is important. I can't decide if it's because they are not
willing to try or not willing to fail. In either event, they miss the
opportunity that comes from expanding your box and learning something
new. Read More
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this phrase is overly used it remains true. However, not all content is
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This is done by displaying a map of the world and highlighting the
countries that have provided traffic to your website. Read More
Think of your website as a garden and content is the water that feeds
it. You need to create content on a regular basis or your website will
wilt and die.
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sometimes it is downright painful. When those days arise that are
painful, look to some resources. Read More
The Google Analytics Visitor Overview tells you if your traffic is coming from a few people visiting you many times or several people visiting once. It also allows you to see how sticky your website is and what technical issues may be impacting your traffic. Read More
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When talking about SEO, Google should be your first stop. They have many tools to help you optimize your website and get the best possbile search engine results. Read More
