Google Analytics Toolbox for Webmasters
Analytics

Google Analytics Toolbox for Webmasters

12th April 2013

There are four speakers on stage for this session at BrightonSEO and I am covering the presentation from Anna Lewis, looking at Turning Google Analytics into a Webmasters Toolbox.

This is the second time we have seen Koozai’s Anna Lewis speak at BrightonSEO and her presentations are always packed full of actionable insights and tips for using Google Analytics. Let’s get started!

First up, if you would prefer to look at her slides, Anna has uploaded them to SlideShare and you can click through them here:

Custom Reports

Anna loves Google Analytics, which is always very easy to tell when ever you speak to her, read something she has written or listen to her on stage. One of her favourite ways of using Google Analytics is creating Custom Reports. The standard reports you get from GA are great but creating custom reports that work for you is key to making the most out of the interface.

(not provided)

A great way of getting around the (not provided) data is by creating a report that looks at the landing page for all the data from (not provided). You will have an idea of the type of keyword you are targetting for each landing page so using this report, you can see traffic to a landing page and make your prediction on what keyword will be associated with that search.

The report can be found by navigating Google Analytics:
– Traffic Sources
– Sources
– Search
– Organic
– Secondary Dimention = Landing Page

Dashboards

Over the past year, when ever I have seen a presentation that Anna gives she always gives us access to dashboards that she has pre-built and this presentation wasn’t any different.

Here are two dashboards that you can use right away:

Understand Users’ Technology
Understand Site Performance

Event Tracking

Event tracking is great to use if you are looking to track custom data within a site. Some of the reasons that you might want to use Event Tracking include:

  • Video actions
  • Scroll reach
  • Form submissions
  • Social shares
  • Carousels
  • Downloads
  • Blog comments
  • Drop down menus
  • External links
  • Rank tracking

Using this form of tracking allows you to have more flexibility than if you were to just use Goals.

Conversion Rate Optimisation

With Content Experiments now sitting within the Google Analytics interface, users should be making use of them to

  • Make the most of your traffic
  • Test variations
  • Improve results

The process that Anna recommends when it comes to Conversion Rate Optimisaton is

  1. Choose pages
  2. Indentify objectives
  3. Review goals
  4. Implement tests
  5. Analyse results
  6. Test more!

One of the biggest tips is that when you are running any experiment, you need to ensure you have enough data before you make a decision. Content Experiments can run for up to three months so if you are not getting much traffic or many conversions, don’t be worried about leaving experiments to run for the entire time period.

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Written By
Samantha Noble is the founder of Biddable Moments and a former editor and contributor to State of Digital.
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