What To Know About Google Analytics Data

However, only small number of people who fully comprehend the huge impact of the data into business, whether it’s big or small business as both can use the data to form different aspects in the business.

Taking time to learn techniques from smart web analyst like Avinash Kausik gave an eye opening experience on understanding the art of interpreting data, including understanding that data can be more that you see with your own eyes.

The following are few data points that website owners usually monitor regularly, including with explanation on how the data can be misinterpreted. Having full understanding on the data and what it tells can bring new possibilities in managing website and business, so take your chance to learn it.

Pages In Each Session

The number written on this subject is often used as sign of user engagement, especially in websites that’s used for the purpose of content marketing, such as blogs and web articles. The metric presented is crucial for those who use ad impressions as the foundation of their business model – ad impressions that you get is strongly related to the number of pages that your users visit, and if users visit more pages then you’ll gain more money from the advertising.

It’s different if you aren’t focusing your website on advertising. Having only small number of pages in each session doesn’t meant that your website not performing. There are other possibilities, such as using your website for lead generation. If lead generation is its main function then you need your visitor to do certain task such as call the contact number, download file, or fill in online form. It will make sense that your website is created to allow those tasks in the most simple steps. It will be different if the website is designed to do conversation with most of the traffic goes right to converting landing pages. It’s likely that the pages in each session metric is only few, which makes good thing on this matter.

It’s a brief explanation to understand how certain data placed in the analytic leads to different situation and what to be expected from each scenario. Take a look at other examples that will give better comprehension on “less being more” concept used in website analytics.

High Bounce Rate

It’s another example of things that clients often noted when they look at the report (often lead them to think that they have understood analytic data) with expectation of high bounce rate. Bounce rate is often used to locate bad website, but it actually can indicate other things in the website.

Taking on the example above, an entertainment website usually used business model that based on pageviews and ad impressions. Website owner wants to keep visitors to stay around and go to all pages to read all contents in the website. High bounce rate also indicate the content or navigation on the website require more work.

It’s a different case if you see high bounce rate around the month of July with the thought of your content-driven site. It can indicate viral campaign becoming the result of it. It often happens with blog post gets increasingly popular over social media. The traffic goes high, as well as bounce rate. What makes it happen?

To understand it requires deep comprehension on different types of traffic and its effect in analytics. Social traffic, especially in a brand new website/blog, is mostly used to promote article and then send this article to some other forms. You often experience going to a website to read the content online and stay in this website to read other contents even though it’s your first time visiting the website. Usually, nobody wants to spend their time like this and it’s the basic norm used on this type of traffic. For such situation, bounce rate is not an effective measurement tool, because visitor will usually leave after reading the content.

On the example above, a page purposedly designed well to make conversion will give the smallest number of steps that visitor must take to complete a task. The same pages on such thing get high bounce rate (taking out the possibility of visitor being led to “thank you” page after completing the task) with one reason – visitor don’t need to visit other page after visiting the site and being converted to a lead.

Google Analytics Data

 

Duration In Average Session

One more example that will drive the point home (you might have figured it out if you’ve comprehended it). Time spent in the site becomes another metric place in front-and-center in the typical dashboard of Google Analytics and it make everyone fexed.

You need to keep in mind that you are joining a game for ad money and high metric is important – take example on what a popular site like Facebook has in its session duration.

If your website is in the other examples mentioned above (sites with high social/viral traffic and also high converting pages) then duration of visitor spent in the site will be low. Social traffic doesn’t stay long enough to check on other things in the site, it gives low average duration for similar visits, because most people will choose to scan content and go with it. The same thing applies for pages that can convert into leads perfectly well – the logic is like this, a visitor trust website owner and willing to learn new things on the website after logging in for a few second, do they need to waste more time?

Other metrics discussed above lead you to understand that a website that’s being good in converting leads compared to other metrics (you might have set up as goals in the GA) becomes the most important thing in your business. Going to analytic account will bring tons of data – take time to fully comprehend all possibilities that the same data can lead you to focus on things that may only impact the bottom line of your business (not the ego).

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