Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 4: Great Reports
Jan 28, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Search Marketing, Web Analytics
So by now you should know why you should use Analytics for your blog, how to set-up Google Analytics, and have a basic understanding of the dashboard and the terminology.
Time to see what analytics can tell you about your blog!
Note: There are some differences as far as measurement for a blog than for a standard website such as a corporate site. The biggest difference I spoke about in Part 3, and that is bounce rate. Bounce rate “represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.” (Wikipedia) Don’t be discouraged to discover that you have an incredibly high bounce rate on your blog, someone can visit your blog read the entire post, or even multiple posts should they land on your home page, not click anything and then leave. Despite the fact that they read every word – they will be counted as a bounce, simply due to the fact that they didn’t click on anything.
The stats available on Google Analytics can show you:
- What are the top posts and pages.
- Who are your referrers and what are your incoming links
- What search engine terms did people use to get to your blog.
- What links people are clicking on within your blog.
- What is the busiest day to-date for your blog.
I suggest looking at 2-3 month period to get a good look at your data the first time you do this. Once you have an idea of how your site performs, I am sure you will be checking it daily…but for now 2-3 months should give you a more meaningful look at traffic to your blog.
What are the top posts and pages?
Directions - Content: Top Content or Content by Title
Top Content: Will show you this information by URL. This may not be helpful if your posts use the standard URL system used by Wordpress where each post is given a number example = 303. Unless you have memorized your posts by numbers, you will have to go back and forth to figure out which post Analytics is referring to.
Content by Title: Will give you the same information, however it will list the content by the page Title. Page Title is what appears at the top of your browser. For example if you are visiting my blog to read this post (rather than reading it in an RSS feed reader)- the title on your browser will be Google Analtyics for Bloggers Part 4: Measuring Success: MEGO My Eyes Glaze Over. If you aren’t using an SEO Plug-in that allows you to add titles, consider doing so – titles are more than just pretty – they are important for SEO purposes.
This will give you your top content listed in descending order. It is likely that your most popular page will be your home page or “/” will be your number one page. You can sort this list by a few different metrics, I usually use Unique Pageviews to get an idea of quantity of visitors to that page. If you have goals set up sort by $ Index column ( average value for a page that a user visited before landing on the ) to get an idea of which posts are converted your visitors. Watch for more on Goals in Part 5!
Questions to consider
Do you notice any trends surrounding the topics at the top of the list? At the bottom? Are they what you expected? Are these same blogs ones you have had more comments on – or less? If you are using goals, are the top posts by Pageviews the same ones converting?
Who are your referrers and what are your incoming links?
Directions- Traffic Sources: Referring Sites
Google Analytics Referring Sites
Referring Sites: This is one of my favourite pieces to look at! I believe, it is also one of the most important factors to take into consideration when “pimping” your blog as well. It can tell you what is working, and what isn’t!
Once again you can sort this chart in a number of ways.
Visits: Number of visits the various referrers drove to your site.
Page/Visit: How deep did those visitors go? Remember if they landed on your home page, they didn’t need to go far to read multiple posts, so you might want to figure out where the referrer linked to first. You can do this by clicking on URL listed, it will show you the URL on the referring site, then pull down Dimension and choose Landing Page (see image).
Dimension: Landing Page
Average Time on Site: Sort by time and you will see which referring sites send traffic that sticks around.
Questions to consider
Which sites are sending the most engaged visitors? How did you get that referral – was it due to a shared item on Facebook? A tweet you made on Twitter? A comment on another blog? A link back on someone elses blog? Again, what was the content that attracted the visitors? You also might want to segment by Returning and New visitors by using Advanced Segments (top of dashboard).
What search engine terms did people use to get to your blog?
Directions - Traffic Sources: Keywords
There are three ways a visitor will make their way to your site: direct (type in your URL), Referring site, and Search. From your dashboard or from the Traffic Sources: Overview you can see what percentage comes from each. Search can help drive new traffic your way, or help folks who are looking for your particular blog find you. A blog, due to the content rich nature, tends to be fairly “Search Engine Optimized” to begin with, but there are ways to help it along (please refer to SEO for Marketers). The Keywords report can help you find out what words your visitors are using and clicking on to get to your blog. By looking at a three month period or more you may see words that repeatedly drive traffic to your blog. Are they indicitative of what is on your site? Are they words that fit your blog objectives and goals? Are people searching for your blog name? Your name? What keywords are missing? Is your blog about children’s books, but keyword “kids books” isn’t driving any traffic? That could be because there is a lot of competition for these words, or perhaps when you talk about books you refer to “Children’s” rather than “kid’s” more often? Looking at your keywords can help you understand your visitors, what content they are visiting for, what keywords may be trending in your niche, and where you might be losing visitors due to keywords not reflecting in your content.
Questions to consider
Are you missing traffic from a particular engine? Are you indexed by that search engine? What keywords do you want to place for in the search engines?
What links people are clicking on within your blog?
This is really important on a corporate site or E-com site, to give you an idea of how your navigation is working, give you and idea of where to place your key links, and if your visitors are not finding what they are looking for. Blogs, usually have a limited navigation, but it can still be helpful to see what your visitors are doing on your site, what outgoing links they might be visiting, and what pages within your site they are checking out.
There a few ways to get this information. I will just look at the more simple views for this post.
Directions – Content: Site Overlay
Google Analytics Site Overlay
Google Analytics Navigation Summary
What is the busiest day to-date for your blog?
Directions- Visitors: Visitor Trending: Visits / Absolute Unique Visitors
This will show a bar graph of visits by day. This is a great way to visually see your site’s traffic day by day. You can also look at Unique Visitors in this way to get an idea of how many different visitors come to your blog on a given day.
Questions to consider
Are your busy days reflective of when you added new posts? Is there a trend in most popular days of the week?
Watch for Part 5 coming soon where I will go over Goals and a few other ways to look at your success.
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Tags: google analytics, reports, Web Analytics
Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 3: An Intro
Jan 21, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Web Analytics
If you missed any of this series check out:
After you have set yourself up with Google Analytics you will need to familiarize yourself with the various sections. Feel free to do that now 
Dashboard:
Time Frame: Automatically reviews past month, but you can select whichever dates you want to review. Note: You can choose today but it won’t be complete and usually not accurate to the moment.
Visits: Number of times your site was visited during the time frame given. Click to see daily numbers.
Pageviews: Total number of pages visited by all visitors. For example if I visit a site and visit the home page and two other internal pages I have 3 pageviews. If Joe visits the same site and stays on the page he lands on – he has one page view. If these were the only visitors Pageviews would be 4.
Pages/Visit: This gives an average of how many pages your guests are viewing by dividing Pageviews by Visits. I believe this is more important than total Pageviews as it gives an idea of how involved your readers are.
Bounce Rate: This represents the number of visitors who visit a site without moving beyond the initial page they started on. This can be a confusing point of data for a blog that can have many posts on the directory page. So should a visitor land on your home page, they can read multiple posts in a quick period of time, not click anywhere and be considered a “bounce”. There is also a timeout value – where a visit will be seen as a bounce if site remains idle too long. Avinash Kaushik gives this rule of thumb “It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying”. However, this is certainly a better measure for E-com sites then for blogs.
Avg. Time Spent on Site: I see this as more pertinant than bounce rate. This gives you an idea how long your guests are engaged on your site 2 seconds or 2 minutes makes a big difference. If you have a high bounce rate and a low average time – then it is likely time to worry about how you are connecting with your visitors.
% New Visits: This the percentage who are first time visitors. The remainder are obviously return visitors!
From the dashboard you can visit 4 Sections:
Google Analytics Dashboard 1
Visitors:
From this section you find important information such as-
- Where your visitors are from (pretty map!)
- If they are a new visitor or returning (note this can misconceiving since not all visitors will use the same computer, and IPs can change)
- Total number of visits and unique visitors (again can be off if a reader comes to your site from home some times and work other times)
- Pages per visit (do they visit more than one page while on your blog)
- Time on site
- Bounce rate – people “bounce” if they drop in and then out of the site quickly – usually when they realize your site wasn’t what they were looking for.
Traffic Sources
This will tell you how visitors came to find your site
- Direct – typed in your URL, from browser bookmark
- Referring Sites – Visited by clicking a link from another web page
- Search – Used Google, MSN, Yahoo or other Search engine and found your site and what keywords they used to find you (some will be odd…believe me!)
Content
Here is where you will see what content people are looking at. For bloggers you will find the directory ( / ) will get the most traffic. This of course is your main page which changes as you add new content.
This section will give you information on:
- Top Content – top posts and the number of visits/pageviews/time spent and the % exits from that particular post.
- Navigation Summary – Including Entrance and Exit Pages, content drill down by directory.
- Site Overlay – If you want to see visually where your guest are clicking the most you can use the site overlay. This opens your blog page and shows percentage of click through on each link during the time chosen.
Goals
This is where you can set up conversion goals such as downloads, or link goals. This is a great way to measure your success. More on this in Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 4: Measure Your Success.
Once you have an idea of the different sections you can set up your dashboard by adding and removing modules. Which modules you choose will be based on what metrics you feel are most important to use a blogger. I find that the information I look at the most outside of the standard visitors graph at the top are:
- Keywords
- Map Overlay
- Content Overview
- Traffic Overview
To set up your dashboard you can simply click “Add to Dashboard” within any of the sections you want to add (that aren’t already there!)
You will see this at the top of each section-
You can also move around the modules by dragging and dropping, until you have them in the order you prefer.
Now it is time to use Google Analytics to Grow Your Blog and Measure Your Success (Part 4 – Coming Soon!).
As always – connect on Twitter and Google Friend Connetc (right hand side)
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Tags: google analytics, how to, roi, Web Analytics
Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 2: Set-up
Jan 19, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Web Analytics
Once you have determined that you want to learn more about your blog visitors (Part 1 of this series) you need to set up Google Analytics. Just like Blogging – it doesn’t take a tech wizard to set-up Google Analytics. Here is a quick guide to getting started!
Step 1: Sign-in to Google
If you already use Google for anything else (Google Talk, Gmail, or Blogger) you already have a Google account – so just head to Google Analytics and sign in. If you don’t have one…also go to Google Analytics and get yourself one (free and easy!).
Step 2: Set-up a new Website Profile
Essentially enter information for your URL, location, time zone.
Here is a screen shot:
Google Analytics Setup
Step 3: Here is the code part
Don’t freak out…you don’t need to know any code…you just need to put a piece of already written code onto your blog. AND, if you are using Wordpress there is a plug-in (go figure!) to do it for you.
Once you have filled out the above form, Google will give you a piece of script that looks like this:
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-XXXXXXX-X”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>
The UA-XXXXXXX-X part will be your account number.
On Blogger
Go to Layout>Add a Page Element then select HTML/Javascript. Paste tracking code into body of this box (don’t include a title to the box).
On Wordpress
Go to Appearance>Themes>Editor then select Footer.php. Paste tracking code here.
Alternatively you can use a Plug-in such as Google Analyticator by Ronald Heft Jr. or Google Analytics for Wordpress by Joost de Valk – both of these will input the code for you. All you need to know is the UA-XXXXXXX-X number!
To ensure it is working, head over to Google Analytics and go to Profile Settings and click “Check Status”. If there is a problem a warning sign with exclamation mark will show up under “Status” as seen here:
That is it! You are done, in 24 hours or so you will see some lovely data! Next, you need to figure out what it all means…
Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 3: An Intro
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Tags: google analytics, how to, set-up, Web Analytics
Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 1: Why use analytics?
Jan 13, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Web Analytics
Why do you blog?
Most bloggers will answer that they want to share their knowledge, thoughts, and experiences with others. Whether you write a personal blog, a career blog, or a business blog it is important to know about your visitors. Without visitors you could just simply be talking to yourself, and if that is the case – you might as well write a journal and keep it by your bedside table.
Most of us, don’t blog for ourselves – we blog for our visitors – so knowing about them helps us create content that they will come back for!
Why Analytics?
Using an Analytics package you can find out:
- Where your visitors come from
- How they came to find your blog
- How many pages they visited (what content interested them!)
- How long they stayed and perused your blog
- How many folks return
Pretty valuable stuff. But each on its own isn’t necessarily meaningful. You need to look at the data as a whole to find the the story, and determine what it means to your blog.
As Mack Collier says on The Viral Garden: “Studying the raw numbers really isn’t that important, understanding that those numbers are REAL PEOPLE, and then understanding what’s motivating them to read your blog is what matters.”
What do you do with this information?
- Discover what topics are the most popular to your visitors – the new and the return visitors.
Keep this in mind when you are writing new posts – will your visitors enjoy this content? Is this what they are coming back for? Or has a change in topics caused a shift in your visitors? - Find out the best ways to promote your blog or learn how successful a new link back is:
Did you “pimp” your post in a special way – post it on Facebook, Twitter, send an e-mail blast to friends? Did you gain traffic by commenting on other blogs? Did someone link to you? Can where they came from tell you anything about the people visiting? - Find out what keywords are driving traffic to your blog
They can be strange. But some will tell a story for example: trends and topics of interest. Use the keywords that are central to your blog and that drive valuable traffic to your site in your content. - If you post downloads such as PDFs, or link to internal or external pages you can track downloads and exit pages. This is just one way you can use analytics to measure your success over time.
Using analytics you can focus on the content that is resonating with your visitors – and in doing so encourage new visitors. If you are using analytics what are you looking for? What have you learned and how has it helped you as a blogger? If you aren’t using analytics, why not?
Watch for the next post in this series:
Google Analytics for Bloggers Part 2: Set-up
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Tags: blogging, google analytics, measurement, roi, tools, Web Analytics
#GNO with @jessicaknows: A Summary of Twitter’s Girl’s Night Out
Jan 7, 2009 Advertising, Blogs, Books, Consumer Brands, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, PR, Search Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks, word of mouth
Jessicaknows
I missed some of the #GNO (Girls Night Out) discussion on Twitter last night so I went into Twitter Search and read the discussion. As always, it was a bit of a dizzying conversation last night – trying to keep up with the multitude of posts. So, it was difficult getting all the tips from @jessicaknows during the discussion.
I tried to pull as much as I could into this compilation. I hope this helps others as well.
Attracting PR Peeps for your Blog
A lot of participants were interested in reviewing more products and wondered how to go about doing this more often.
@jessicaknows said that she doesn’t think that there is a magic number with regards to traffic on your site in attracting PR. She noticed a lot of attention once she had about 20,000 monthly visitors to her blog. However, she suggests if you write about the products you are passionate about the PR folks will follow.
My two cents: She is absolutely correct, while the PR people will look for an engaged community the numbers may not matter as much if you are passionate and are considered an “influencer”. In this case, your review would simply be the tip of the iceberg. An influencer will tend to spread “word of mouth” throughout a variety of networks online and offline -giving a lot of added value to the campaign – beyond the blog post. I hope to write more posts on books in 2009 since that is my passion. I don’t have 20,000 monthly visitors – but I have already received two books for review in the past. (Dan Ariely – Predictibly Irrational and Don Tapscott – Grown Up Digital)
Use Social Media to Build Your Own Community
@jessicaknows suggests that you pick 3 social media tools & be consistent use them everyday. She uses three social networks: Twitter (obviously), Facebook and LinkedIn. She also uses StumbleUpon for bookmarking regularly. She uses LinkedIn to connect with lots of PR folks, and mom owned business she can partner and work with in the future. On Facebook she prefers to “friend” people she knows in real-life and friends she has met on other social networks (Twitter for example). For users concerned with privacy and sharing with virtual friends she had a great idea to have a user profile for personal use and a Fan Page for your business/blog/website. While the Fan Page will show you as an author, “fans” will have to request to be a friend in order to see your Facebook profile.
My two cents: I post all blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. I try to avoid using the robot when I have the time by personally summarizing the newest post in my status/tweet. Twitter is also a great place to promote DIY or How To Posts to people who are looking for specific help. I use Tweetburner to track click-through, which can give me an idea of how successful the tweet/status was. Note – don’t just do self-promotion, make sure you tweet other content outside of your own that you think your followers will find value in.
I have just started using StumbleUpon but I have definitely seen some traffic to my site through my profile. StumbleUpon allows you to find “friends” that have similar interests to you which is a great way to find new and interesting websites. Stumble others and perhaps they will Stumble you. All about Karma!
Couple other thoughts on Social Media:
- Use Video to promote your site by placing your URL in videos posted to YouTube
- Participate in Forums and Discussion groups in your topic area
- There are niche Social Networks that you can be involved in TwitterMoms, ClassyCloset and more…Create a profile and participate in the community
- Comment, comment, comment on other blogs. This is an easy way to promote your blog on other similar sites, and show some love to other bloggers.
- Try to link to other bloggers in your blog posts when possible. Give credit where credit is due, and share great information with your community.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There was a great discussion around SEO last night during the #GNO. There were folks on all ends of the spectrum – from questions such as “What is SEO?” to helpful tips from experts. @jessicaknows suggests that this is an important part of driving traffic to your website. For Wordpress bloggers she recommends the SEO Plug-in, and she has signed up for SEOBook training to get up to speed on SEO.
My two cents: Having attended SES Toronto last year, I am a believer in SEO for building traffic to your site. I use All-in-One SEO Plug-in for my WordPress blog. I use H1, H2, H3 headers where possible in my blog posts, and try to include Keywords without sounding “canned”. SEO is great, but you also must use Analytics to compliment your SEO work. If you aren’t following your stats you won’t be able to measure your success, see what is working and what isn’t, and see where you might have holes. Your Analytics program can also tell you before you start SEO efforts what Keywords are driving traffic to your site, and later on you should follow data for trends in keywords and content that you may not have noticed otherwise.
My SEO for Marketers post is a good SEO 101 for new comers, and watch next week for my Google Analytics Series for Bloggers. Also, take a peak at my “learnings” from my analytics a little while ago
Blogger Relations and Onsite Details
A lot of blogger etiquette and on-site promotional ideas were brought up during the discussion, here are some of the points:
- It is all about helping others: @jessicaknows says “I establish relationships by learning about other ppl’s goals & what they’re all about & then introduce to each other”. This includes helping to promote blogs she believe in the most through her sites. I love this quote from her “it’s so easy…the key word is SOCIAL…use the “have a friend, be a friend” mantra in business and you can’t go wrong”
- Write often, and be consistent. She tries to write daily if she can. Obviously that isn’t feasible for everyone – but I know if I blog 2-3 times a week my traffic remains higher than if I blog 1 time a week. Perhaps that is just a no-brainer.
- Encourage conversation and open up channels for two way conversation.
- Show personality in your posts
- Offer Blog giveaways (check out @jessicaknows 15 days of Marketing Post on Giveaways)
- Attend offline events (Tweetups, Conferences)
For those of you who were at Girl’s Night Out – did I miss anything? Any other hints and tips to encourage traffic?
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Tags: #gno, blogging, girls night out, jessicaknows, marketing & communication, promotion, seo, traffic, twitter, Web Analytics, web traffic
