Which Metric of Google Analytics Is Important To Your Goal?

Google Analytics can provide a great deal of insight about your website or blog, what the audience is viewing (or not viewing), as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your site design and content.  It is critical to determine what measurements within Google Analytics are appropriate to evaluate the success of your site’s unique goals.

Goals for an e-commerce website may include goals related to sales, such as conversion rates showing the percentage of people who have completed a sale of those that visited the product sites.  Goals for sites that are trying to build awareness and sell services related to some kind of expertise may measure the number of content pieces read on sites and how much of the content is read.  These types of sites might also like to analyze the success of the keywords in their content pieces by reviewing traffic sources and corresponding bounce rates.  Setting goals is important for the success of your website. 

Malleck Design mentions: “Too many sites lack focus. They want to bombard the user with as much info as possible. People in general (and especially on the web) are short on attention and patience. You need Crystal clear focus on your site to keep people interested.”

My class blog site does not have much in the way of traffic as of yet, so I will be focusing less on assessing the measurement tools that I find valuable in analyzing my blog site, and instead on which tools I think will be valuable when there is a bit more traffic to analyze. 

I will also include some insight based on the tools that I find valuable in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of my personal hobby website; www.virtual-hideout.com.  As an informative technology website, we are not selling products directly, however the product information and personal reviews that I provide about the products and/or services can directly influence a reader’s decision to purchase the product or service. Smart shoppers today are researching online more and more in order to find the best product for their individual needs.

We are interested in two types of visitors: those researching new products to buy, and those that just love to research and learn about the next new thing.  We want both audience segments to read our reviews and news postings.  We also want both audience segments to explore our website for past, and recent reviews and articles on the website.  We want the prospective buyers to also be able to find the information that they need to show that we have the appropriate level of expertise for their needs.

Entry Page and Organic Search Traffic

The entry page measurement is one that can be used to assess keyword usage in content or in advertisements, if used.  When combined with data found in the Organic Search Traffic Report, it is possible to use this information to make changes to improve SEO performance and to gain a reputation as a blogger with valuable insights:

• “Run a new keyword analysis to find more relevant target keywords for content pages (Smart Insights, 2012).”

• “Improve the landing page to make content more relevant to the keywords that are driving traffic and improve calls to action (Smart Insights, 2012).”

• “Remove the landing page from the search index and 301 redirect to the most relevant webpage (Smart Insights, 2012).”

Site Duration

If users are visiting the site and leaving quickly, they are not staying long enough to read and absorb the content you are providing on your site.  Of course, if users are visiting the “locations” page and exiting the page rapidly, there is probably no cause for concern.  If visitors are visiting your blog posts and leaving quickly, this could mean that the content and keywords are poorly correlated, causing search engines to incorrectly direct people to your site content.  It could also mean that your content is poorly written, or displayed, and the visitor is bored or overwhelmed before they read much of your blog post.  Use of this measurement must keep in mind the types of pages that are being viewed and which ones are the exit pages.

Frequency and Recency

These measurements give you an idea of how long it has been since a user has visited your site and how often they visit.  This report gives someone analyzing website data the ability to measure engagement.  The amount of time between website visits is going to vary greatly based on the website itself and the update frequency.  Obviously, one cannot expect the audience to visit frequently when nothing has changed.  One can hope to see people visit a blog site on a fairly regular schedule.  If content is updated weekly, then the administrator should hope to see no more than a week or so between visits, however if the content is updated daily, this amount of time is not frequent enough.

Page Views Per Visit

This metric, especially when shown “vs. % New Visits,” can be valuable in showing how interested new visitors are in exploring your website.  New visitors who are intrigued by the content they found on their entry page are likely to continue browsing through the site, to find out more about the author or to read more content.  However, if page views per visit are a relatively low number, especially if there are a particularly high percentage of new visits appearing, this likely means that the user was not intrigued enough by the content they landed on to bother reading more.

Traffic sources

As you might discern from the term, traffic sources refers to where, exactly, site visitors are coming from. This is a key indicator, as it will help you determine just what platforms are best for reaching the majority of your audience.

Let's say, for instance, the site is receiving a slew of visitors from Facebook, but next to nothing from LinkedIn. This indicates that a higher percentage of your target audience is on the former site than the latter, and that this is where you should concentrate your social media campaigns.

Traffic sources can even be a key indicator for physical activities. You may, for instance, see that the site received a number of hits from a profile on a website for a recently attended conference, indicating the event was a success.

In summary

There are many different metrics and reports showing various combinations in Google Analytics.  Determining the best ones to use for your website should be based upon the unique goals set for your page.