Google's Site Overlay: Visual Website Design Analysis

The Google Analytics has innovative new features that make a huge difference in how we understand website traffic patterns. I was going to save the best feature for last, but the Site Overlay feature is SOooo COOL I just can't wait. Under the "Navigational Analysis" section of Google Analytics is a report called "Site Overlay." When viewing this report it loads your website into its proprietary "browser" that is built into the system. As you look at your site in Analytics, it overlays a graphic bar next to each link on the page. The bar graph represents the frequency each link has been clicked from that page. Clicking the bar displays more detail, reports exactly how many times the link has been clicked, and shows its overall click percentage. It's like retracing the footsteps your visitors took as they visited your site.

A cursory review of the Site Overlay applied to the Newfangled site shows how effective it is. When I looked at the footprints from the Newfangled home page, I saw that the overwhelming majority of my site visitors follow one of two paths from my homepage. They either go to the pricing page or to the portfolio. I knew from our previous reports that these two pages were among the most popular pages on my site. I did not know that they were hit so directly and consistently from the homepage... so much so that all of the other content was being overlooked. The Site Overlay report demonstrated to me that if I don't make the case of Newfangled's differentiators on these two very specific pages, I will lose my opportunity. As it is, most of our differentiators are found in our "Invention" section, which in contrast to the pricing and portfolio pages is almost completely ignored from the homepage. Alas, it's time to sharpen the axe again... stay tuned.