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NEWSLETTERS | JANUARY, 2009 Google Analytics' Top Content ReportThe Long Tail of ContentThe image below shows our Top Content report in Google Analytics. This is one of the most important reports, as it helps us to understand which pages are performing best on our website. You can see that in the last month, users viewed 1,738 different pages on our website, contributing 31,285 unique pageviews total. That's a lot! But also notice that within the top ten pages, we have a range of 3,032 pageviews (for our homepage) to 514 pageviews (for the page about our employees). Even within the top ten, we're starting to see what will be a very long tail of content, where the majority of the 1,738 pages viewed are contributing small numbers of pageviews. By the time we reach the 352nd most popular page, it and the rest leading up to 1,738 are all contributing only 20 pageviews or less each (click here to see the full top 100). This is why active content creation is the most effective means of generating and maintaining website traffic.
If I look more closely at an individual page, I can get a better sense of how it is performing. I've chosen to look at the page titled "Web Development Prototyping Process." As Eric has written, prototyping is really at the heart of how Newfangled works, so this page is really important to how we convey our message to potential partners and clients on the website. From the screenshot below, you can see that this page got 428 unique views last month with the average user spending almost 3 minutes on the page. That's not bad; people are reading this page. The bounce rate (don't worry, more on this later) is about 67%, which is definitely on the higher side, but I'm actually not too worried about this. Because we're describing a prototyping process for web development projects, many of this page's viewers are likely developers themselves, so once they've read about our approach, they're probably going to hit the road and get back to their own work. No big deal.
Where Do They Go Next?The next step that I normally take is to look at the Entrance Paths report (see screenshot below), which you can get to by clicking the second link underneath Navigation Analysis on the Content Detail view. This report shows me the top 10 pages that users clicked to after reading the Prototyping Process page. What interests me here is that the second most commonly clicked-to page after the prototyping page is our Pricing page. This potentially tells me two things: 1) After reading about our process, viewers become a bit more interested in working with us and then want to know how much we cost and 2) We've done well by placing a sidebar widget about our pricing (with a link to the pricing page) on this page.
Remember, the marketing value of your website is completely dependent upon how people interact with your content. By using these content reports in Google Analytics, you'll be able to better evaluate which pages of your site are the most important and then where to place important calls to action.  |
  Subscribe To Our NewsletterFebruary 2010 How a Website is Built, Part 2  |
For those viewing the SlideShare presentation, I neglected to mention that on Slide 18, I had extended the date range to show 1 calendar year rather than just the past month. I did this in order to point out that our monthly newsletters (sent out at the end of each month) created a pattern of spikes in traffic. Also, for the slides showing the Advance Segments filtering (Slides 20-23) I also extended the date range several months back in order to have more data to show.
I agree completely. Google Analytics blows away Webtrends or any other web analytics package I have ever used. And it is so granular and free. There is a bit of a learning curve, but well worth it to analyze your visitors...
Nice work, Chris. Great intro to GA. Some follow up notes for your readers: Although Google limits the number of Goals to 4, that limit is per profile, not per account, so by adding new profiles to the account, you can add as many Goals as you need. (Slide 3 is actually displaying a list of profiles) I am sure Chris would agree that Goals should not only be part of your Analytics strategy, but part of the website development and prototyping process (that Newfangled does so well). By prototyping around your website's objectives, which often involve some sort of conversion (download, viewing, registration, purchase, etc.) will make it easy to keep your goals organized later on. For instance, will all conversions have a unique set of characters in the URL? If so, you can create one goal just for those characters, saving your other 3 goals for that profile for something else.
Some of you might have also noticed a link/image labeled "Website Optimizer." This great tool helps you identify what combination(s) of content and images work best at converting website visitors. [Contact Mark or Chris @ Newfangled about how to incorporate this feature into your NewfangledCMS environment]
Eric,
Thanks for reading and your comment.
You make a great point (which I hope all our readers pick up on) about Goals. Your suggestion of consolidating goals and using multiple profiles to extend the limit is right on. Everyone take note! (For those who don't know, we've worked with Eric for years now- he knows his marketing strategy. Check him out at Red Ember Marketing.)
Also, thanks for getting in touch with us about the Website Optimizer. We'll definitely be getting on that.
Chris
Hey Chris,
Cool presentation about GA, I am sure many will benefit from it. One thing I feel that is missing, are analytics directly infused in applications for startups.
You should check out http://mixpanel.com, they have a pretty cool analytics package that does a few things GA sorta sucks at.
Richard,
Thanks for the link. I'd be interested in your take on what features Mixpanel has that Google Analytics doesn't have. From a cursory look at the site, they look pretty comparable. Anyway, Google Analytics must be good enough for them, too. You can tell from the page source that they're using Google Analytics.
Chris
I noticed that Google Analytics has an XML export feature. What data is included in the feed? Can we tie it in with our CMS?
Brian,
There is an XML feed for every unique report available in Google Analytics. In fact, each report can be exported as a .CSV or .PDF file, too. Our Engineering team has been experimenting with including the XML feed as part of the newest version of the NewfangledCMS by making a curl() to get the XML and then displaying it in our GUI. Right now, we've limited our trials to the basic traffic report, but multiple report feeds could be pulled and combined as needed.
Google has not yet released a data API, so for now, finalizing implementation in our CMS is risky since Google could change the format of the XML feed at any point and our tool would no longer work. At this point, it's also rather slow to pull real time reports in context on a page by page basis in the CMS, but the API should take care of that, too.
So, once the API has been released, our Engineering department will finalize the Google Analytics data integration with the CMS, and it will be available for those that upgrade to the latest version.
Great question, by the way!
Chris
You guys are awesome. Newfangled is an invaluable resource.
Chris,
Thanks for your kind words! We've enjoyed working with you all, too.
CB
Hi Chris,
Interestingly, you should read their blog post:
http://blog.mixpanel.com/2008/12/introducing-analytics-for-startups/
Thank you for this post! As a new Google Analytics user, I am having a difficult time understand the concept and all those graphs inside. This video has definitely increase my knowledge on how to use GA.
We've been receiving a lot of traffic from a mistaken referrer, whom we've tried to contact and request to remove the link pointing to us. How can we filter out this traffic so that we can see what our actual stats are without it?
Hi William,
To view your data without the influence of an errant referrer, I would highly recommend using the Advanced Segmentation tool that Google Analytics offers.
I'll set up a blog post just about Advanced Segmentation shortly on my blog for Newfangled. On a side note though : your issue can be addressed by using Filters as well. (My blog post about Filters in Google Analytics) Filters can cripple your incoming data stream if done improperly, so be careful if you choose that route. (read my blog post above to find out why Filters can be dangerous).
If you wanted to set up an Advanced Segment for your website, do the following.
1. Dashboard view of your Google Analytics account.
2. Top right hand corner, click on "All Visits" next to the Advanced Segmentation.
3. Click on Create a new advanced segment
4. On that page, you will see a dotted box that says "dimension or metric" and a box on the left side with criteria that can be dragged into that dotted box.
5. Expand the Traffic sources box. Click and drag "Source" into the dotted box.
6. Pull down Matches exactly to, does not Match exactly.
7. Type in the domain of the referrer that is sending you errant traffic.
8. Name the segment, and click the button that says Create and Apply to Report.
This advanced segment will show your data without the referrers traffic skewing your data. On any of the criteria that Google Analytics allows you to segment your data by, you can get a definition of what that criteria is by clicking on the question mark that sits next to it (very helpful if you're confused as to which criteria to use).
Let me know how that works for you.
Brian
Google Analytics does indeed have superior data but for my market I am quite happy with the basic stats package. I agree that is can be enormously valuable for those who need to delve in at a deeper level than I do though.
Thanks for this article Chris. Google analytics has taken analytics industry to the next level. The best thing about Google Analytics is that is free. I was using statcouter before but I was worrying about the 500 count limit. Now I switched to analytics and I love these graphs.
Thanks Chris, very useful information. Google analytics has so much to explore. I'm just on my way as a beginner and the resources you provided at this post helped me. Thanks again:)
Email bounce rate is probably due to the ip or domain being banned. I prefer to use whitelist providers Aweber or Getresponse. Alternatively, try to get a dedicated ip so that your domain will not be affected by spammers using the same virtual host and same ip.
Wasn't there on the web a cheatsheet?
Hi, I just wanted to thank you for a really clear, informative presentation on google analytics. As someone with limited tech/computer experience, it was really easy to understand. Thanks and keep up the great work!
I am a newbie. Please help me to answer: is it possible if I put tracking code in a JS file and include it in my page?
Thank you very much.
Anh
My first reading and exposure to Google analytics and the power behind the reports. Thanks for explaining a complicated tool into basic segments.