Find yourself overwhelmed with reporting options in Google Analytics? Not sure where to start your analysis on a regular basis? It does, after all, contain nearly everything and the kitchen sink.
Here’s an easy way to get started and a great feature to show to your team. It’s Intelligence (beta). Go to your Google Analytics, click Intelligence, and select Weekly Reports. (daily’s not necessarily all that helpful)
Now you can see major changes in your analytics data from one screen, like a “what’s new” for your data. In the example below, I can see that referrals to this site were up, as were new visitors. That tells me that folks are coming here from links on other sites. If you look on the right hand side, Google even ranks the different pieces of information by what it thinks are events of greater or lesser significance.
Click the Group by switch to change from metric to dimension – this is more or less like a simple PivotTable for the intelligence. Now, I can see that my referrals, which were up in the previous statistics, had some interesting behaviors. Their bounce rate was lower and their time on site was higher. This tells me that whatever they were coming to this site for, they found it (bounce rate dropped) and it was compelling enough that they stuck around (time on site).
Armed with this information, I can take a look at the content I created that week and any links I might have shared on Twitter, Facebook, or other places I share.
The Intelligence feature isn’t a replacement for hardcore analytics analysis by any means, but it’s a great way to start your day if you manage a web site. Intelligence will give you some initial areas to start digging into, some things to investigate as you prepare for your day.
Try it out!
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Thanks for sharing the info on Google Analytics. It probably would have taken me another month or two (maybe longer) to find that feature. As much as people bash Google, they do deliver some great tools for webmasters who are looking to create genuine value. This is great stuff, and your breakdown lessens my learning curve. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing the info on Google Analytics. It probably would have taken me another month or two (maybe longer) to find that feature. As much as people bash Google, they do deliver some great tools for webmasters who are looking to create genuine value. This is great stuff, and your breakdown lessens my learning curve. Cheers!
Thanks Christopher, a helpful article. I'd been hearing things about the new feature, but this is the first article I've read about it.
Anyone know if there is a delay on the info being collated? I have a whole heap of insights from the 2nd week of January and next to nothing after that.
(p.s. isn't that a photo of Chris Brogan? Did I miss the reference??)
Depending on what setting you use, there may be a delay. Also, this feature is less helpful if you have steady, unchanging traffic that doesn't exhibit any major wild swings worth noting by the software.
And yes, that's Mr. Brogan. We shot that in Canada at Podcasters Across Borders.
I'd be interested to know at what point you start receiving Intelligence updates. I only get about 500 visits/month at the moment and haven't received a single Intelligence notification. I cannot get enough Google Analytics.
Thanks Christopher, a helpful article. I’d been hearing things about the new feature, but this is the first article I’ve read about it.
Anyone know if there is a delay on the info being collated? I have a whole heap of insights from the 2nd week of January and next to nothing after that.
(p.s. isn’t that a photo of Chris Brogan? Did I miss the reference??)
Depending on what setting you use, there may be a delay. Also, this feature is less helpful if you have steady, unchanging traffic that doesn’t exhibit any major wild swings worth noting by the software.
And yes, that’s Mr. Brogan. We shot that in Canada at Podcasters Across Borders.
I’d be interested to know at what point you start receiving Intelligence updates. I only get about 500 visits/month at the moment and haven’t received a single Intelligence notification. I cannot get enough Google Analytics.
I think Google Analytics is great, but anyone doing web development should really insist on server-side analytics. Because Google requires a return response from a person's computer, it does often miss things. It is great for trending and for those that can't afford a server-side analytics package.
I think Google Analytics is great, but anyone doing web development should really insist on server-side analytics. Because Google requires a return response from a person's computer, it does often miss things. It is great for trending and for those that can't afford a server-side analytics package.
I think Google Analytics is great, but anyone doing web development should really insist on server-side analytics. Because Google requires a return response from a person's computer, it does often miss things. It is great for trending and for those that can't afford a server-side analytics package.