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Tag: google analytics

  • Browser Size Tool Comes To Google Analytics, Lets You Analyze “Above The Fold”

    Google announced the launch of the Browser Size analysis tool in Google Analytics, under the In-Page Analytics report. The tool shades the portions of a page that are “below the fold,” and shows you what percentage of users are seeing how much of the page.

    “What is actually ‘above the fold’ on a web page is a significant factor to conversion rates,” says Gaal Yahas from Google’s Analytics team. “If visitors have to scroll to see an ‘add to cart’ button, or some other critical element, they may never get around to it. Analyzing the percentage of visitors for whom page elements fall beneath the fold or off to one side is difficult, so we’ve created a visualization that lets you quickly determine which portions of your page are visible to which percentages of visitors.”

    Browser Size in Google Analytics

    This may prove to be a helpful SEO tool, as well, considering Google’s recent “Above the Fold” algrorithm update, which penalizes pages with too many ads above the fold. In January, Google’s Matt Cutts wrote, “We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.”

    In fact, in that post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog, Google suggested using the Browser Size tool, which at that point was just part of Google Labs. That version will be sunsetting in a month, and you’ll have to use Google Analytics.

    This seems to be becoming a trend with site optimization tools from Google. Google’s just building them into Google Analytics. Last week, Google announced the addition of Content Experiments in Google Analytics, which is taking the place of Google’s Website Optimizer:

    Both the Browser Size tool and the Content Experiments tool are rolling out to Google Analytics users over the next few weeks.

  • Content Experiments in Google Analytics Replace Google Website Optimizer

    Google announced the launch of Content Experiments in Google Analytics, as a way for webmasters to test different versions of pages to see which ones convert the best. It is replacing Google Website Optimizer, as it carries out much of the same functionality.

    “Over the last 5 years, it’s been great to see how many marketers and publishers have improved the web by using insights from Google Website Optimizer to create better site experiences,” says Nir Tzemah on the Google Analytics team.

    Website Optimizer will be going away on August 1.

    “Content Experiments helps you optimize for goals you have already defined in your Google Analytics account, and can help you decide which page designs, layouts and content are most effective,” explains Tzemah. “With Content Experiments, you can develop several versions of a page and show different versions to different visitors. Google Analytics measures the efficacy of each page version, and with a new advanced statistical engine, it determines the most effective version.”

    “Content Experiments is a somewhat different approach from either standard A/B or multivariate testing,” Google says in a help center article. “Content Experiments is more A/B/N. You’re not testing just two versions of a page as in A/B testing, and you’re not testing various combinations of components on a single page as in multivariate testing. Instead, you are testing up to five full versions of a single page, each delivered to visitors from a separate URL.”

    Content Experiments will let you test up to six variations of your page. It includes a setup wizard to walk you through the process, and uses Google Analytics tags so you only need to add one more tag to the original page.

    Daniel Waisberg at MarketingLand did a good enough job of pointing out the advantages of Google Analytics Content Experiments over Website Optimizer, that Google Analytics endorsed his bullet points in a Google+ post:

    Google Analytics
    Google Analytics   12 minutes ago Check out +Daniel Waisberg's post over at +Marketing Land on our just announced content experiments.

    Daniel outlines the advantages of content experiments over website optimizer, such as:

    –Only the control script will be necessary to run tests, the script that redirects the traffic from the original page to the variations.
    –Google Analytics advanced segments and page metrics will be available along with optimizing goal conversions based on your test pages. 
    –Improved statistical engine for analyzing experiments, which will help making decisions faster about the winning/loosing pages.
    Dynamic Traffic Allocation functionality: traffic will be shifted away from low-performing variations, over to higher performing ones.

    Be sure to read the whole post for even more detail.  4   0 Powered by socialditto

    Google also suggests reading what Cardinal Path has to say about A/B testing with Content Experiments:

    Google Analytics
    @googleanalytics     Check out @CardinalPath‘s take on A/B testing and Content Experiments: http://t.co/xUksKNdM
    2 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    Google says you should start any new experiments in Content Experiments, as opposed to Website Optimiser, given its pending demise. The feature will be rolling out to Google Analytics users over the next few weeks.

  • Google Analytics Switching Over To Core Reporting API Next Week

    If you’re a user of Google Analytics, then no doubt you’re familiar with the Data Export API. You are also probably aware that Google replaced the Data Export API with the Core Reporting API in December of last year. Google gave developers six months to switch over to the new API and those six months are just about up.

    Google announced today that the Data Export API in Google Analytics will start the process of being shut down next week. If you have an app that uses the outdated API, it’s suggested that you switch over to the new Core Reporting API. If not, your app will “experience service outages.”

    The “service outages” will be caused by Google redirecting Data Export API requests over to the Core Reporting API. This is all part of the process of taking the Data Export API out back. It will be finally laid to rest on July 10. During the next month, you should start seeing Data Feed requests returning Core Reporting API responses.

    Back when Google first announced the Core Reporting API, they had prepared two versions for developers. One was version 3.0 which is an entirely brand new API that supports all kinds of nifty new client libraries like PHP, Ruby, Python, JavaScript and Java. You’re probably going to want to build a new app using this API because it’s the only version that’s going to get new features.

    Some people don’t like change and actively avoid it whenever possible. For those people, Google has also released version 2.4 of the Core Reporting API. It’s backwards compatible with Data Export 2.3 and won’t cause any conflicts once the change occurs.

    Since most sensible people will be starting with version 3.0 and going from there, Google has created a nice developer guidel. It contains sample code from the major client libraries that the Core Reporting API supports.

    If you’re new to the Analytics API in general, Google has also created a dedicated tutorial to show budding developers how to take advantage of Analytics. It’s pretty in-depth so it should set you up with all the knowledge you need to start building applications that use the Analytics API.

  • Google Analytics Social Reports Move To Traffic Sources

    Google recently announced some new social reports, and now the company has announced that it’s consolidated the locations of social reports in general.

    Specifically, the Social Engagement, Social Actions, and Social Pages reports, which were previously listed in the Audience section, can now be found in the Social section under Traffic Sources.

    Social Plugins Report

    “Users now have access to both onsite behavior, the existing data, and off-site social activities of partners such as Google+, Digg, and Reddit among others,” says Linus Chou of Google’s Anaytics Team. “Below is a summary of how to access the data from the old reports in the new ones.”

    “To access onsite activities use the Traffic Sources -> Social -> Social Plugins report,” explains Chou. “Here you see the social activities broken down by content. Selecting a specific page shows you the social activities by network for that page. Click the ‘Social Source and action’ tab highlighted in the screenshot below to see a breakdown of the itemized activities.”

    Last week, Google launched a Google Analytics page on Google+. Here are a couple of the most recent updates:

    Google Analytics
    Google Analytics   25 minutes ago All types of organizations, including non-profits, greatly benefit from effective use of analytics. Learn more about how +PBS and +SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) use analytics to improve their results. 3   0 Powered by socialditto

    Google Analytics
    Google Analytics   23 hours ago "The big question remains however: What is the value of all that [social] activity? While reporting number of tweets and retweets are fine measures, you can go further in your measurement analysis and connect your social activity with your website activity." 3   0 Powered by socialditto

    The first links to this blog post, and the second links to this Likeable article.

  • Google Analytics Gets A Google+ Page

    Google announced that there is now a Google Analytics page on Google+ that users can follow for updates. I’m not sure what took them so long, but it’s here now.

    “We’ll be sharing the latest and greatest about Google Analytics and digital marketing overall to help you become a better practitioner and achieve more with your efforts,” says Adam Singer of the Google Analytics Team.

    Google Analytics
    @googleanalytics     The rumors are true …we’re now on Google+ …read more about what you can expect here: http://t.co/zxMueuCI #measure
    2 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    “Expect everything from how-to’s/tips, technical advice, interesting stats, plus some fun mixed in for good measure,” he adds. “In addition to useful updates, we’re planning to give you the opportunity to hang out live with some of the team members behind Google Analytics.”

    Those hangouts will likely be where the unique value of the page comes in. Google Analytics already has a Twitter account, which provides updates, a YouTube channel with various tips and of course the Google Analytics blog where it makes product announcement. The Hangouts, however, will give users the chance to have a direct dialogue with Google about Google Analytics, and potentially get questions answered that Google may not be able to address as easily through other channels.

    Google currently has a comment thread going on Google+, where users can suggest things for them to cover:

    Google Analytics
    Google Analytics   2 days ago Welcome to our official Google+ page for Google Analytics!

    We’re excited to share tips, trends and ideas with you related to digital measurement, marketing and analysis. If you already read our blog or follow us on Twitter, you'll want to circle us here too for unique and useful ideas.

    We’ll also be featuring a regular mix of interactive opportunities to engage with our team, such as Hangouts and open discussion threads.

    Have anything specific you’d like to see us cover? Let us know in the comments. 19   16 Powered by socialditto

    Here’s another example of a post you might see on the page:

    Google Analytics
    Google Analytics   23 hours ago Here's Google Analytics Product Marketing Manager +Ian Myszenski with her Analytics Android. They both wish you a happy Wednesday! 17   5 Powered by socialditto

    With Google often releasing new features and reports (such as the new social reports) for Google Analytics, users should find the Google+ page to be a pretty useful resource.

  • Google Introduces Analytics Easy Dashboard Library

    Google Analytics is a really useful tool, especially for site administrators. The only potential problem is that you might not know a lot about code to really take advantage of the Analytics API. To fix this, Google has joined forces with a team of University of California Irvine students to create a new Analytics tool that simplifies the process down to a few simple steps.

    The new tool is called the Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library. It’s a first party tool that takes advantage of the Analytics API to create Google Analytics dashboards with minimal code and time. It should be a big help to site admins who don’t know a lot about coding as the three steps to get it up and running are super simple.

    First, you’re going to want to register with the Google APIs console. After that, just copy and paste the JavaScript code that Google provides. From there you just have to configure the code to collect the data you need and the type of chart you want it displayed on.

    I’m not the best with code, but even this seems super simple to me. It’s a huge advancement in making code accesible and easy for all types of people from hardcore developers and programmers to amateurs starting out with their own Web site.

    Here’s an example of the code required, besides the library itself, that will create a fully featured Analytics chart.

    Code:

    Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library

    Resulting chart:

    Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library

    In other good news, Google is working on ways to simplify the library even more. They will be partnering with a new group of UC Irvine students for three quarters on this new venture. If you plan on using the new tool, be sure to send feedback and bug reports to this Google Group. It’s linked to the students working on the project so they can know what it’s like to work on a widely used piece of software.

    See, you’re getting simpler Analytics and furthering a child’s education. It’s a win-win for everybody.

  • Google: How to Find Other Sites Linked to Yours?

    If you’ve ever wondered how to track which pages are linked to your own, Google has been working on a solution for you. It comes in the form of some refinements to their tools for analytics. They put it like this:

    “Now you can see all the backlink URL’s, post titles, and more right within the new Social reports.”

    Here’s how Google+Analytics+Blog%29″>they explain it:

    “The concept of trackbacks, a protocol by which different sites could notify each other of referencing links, first emerged back in 2002. Since then, the blogosphere has grown in leaps and bounds, but the requirement for each site to explicitly implement this protocol has always stood in the way of adoption. If only you could crawl the web and build an accurate link graph. The good news is we already do that at Google, and are now providing this insight to Google Analytics users.”

    “These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content. Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but we see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.”

    So if this sounds like something you could use, get started with Google Analytics right away. If you want to know more, you can click here for an in-depth example of how it works. There’s a lot of resources within Google Analytics and there’s also a lot of ways to get help using them. Enjoy!

  • Google Analytics Social Reports Get Backlink URLs, Post Titles

    In March, Google announced the release of new social reports in Google Analytics. These included an Overview Report, a Conversion Report, a Social Sources report, a Social Plusgins report, and an activity stream tab. Today, the company announced some further expansion of social reports. Google’s now showing backlink URLs and post titles within the social reports.

    “The concept of trackbacks, a protocol by which different sites could notify each other of referencing links, first emerged back in 2002,” says Ilya Grigorik with Google’s Analytics team. “Since then, the blogosphere has grown in leaps and bounds, but the requirement for each site to explicitly implement this protocol has always stood in the way of adoption. If only you could crawl the web and build an accurate link graph. The good news is we already do that at Google, and are now providing this insight to Google Analytics users.”

    Social Reports with Trackbacks

    “These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content,” says Grigorik. “Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but we see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.”

    The social reports are certainly welcome to Google Analytics users, and any data Google can add to the mix is a good thing, especially since so much of it is now “not provided“.

    There was actually an interesting report from Poynter this week about the impact of the “not provided” data on news sites, citing Adtrak, indicating that it’s having a huge effect. Poynter revealed that 29% of its own searches in April were not provided.

    The “not provided” data, of course, comes as a result of Google’s encrypted-by-default search experience for signed in users.

    Hopefully some of the new data Google is offering will help ease the pain.

  • Google Analytics Gets New Site Speed Report, User Timings

    Google announced today that it has added a new site speed report to Google Analytics, called User Timings. The report lets users track custom timings, and shows the execution speed or load time of any hit, event or user interaction.

    “This can include measuring how quickly specific images and/or resources load, how long it takes for your site to respond to specific button clicks, timings for AJAX actions before and after onLoad event, etc. User timings will not alter your pageview count, hence, makes it the preferred method for tracking a variety of timings for actions in your site,” explains Google’s Analytics team in a blog post.

    “To collect User Timings data, you’ll need to add JavaScript timing code to the interactions you want to track using the new _trackTiming API included in ga.js (version 5.2.6+) for reporting custom timings,” Google adds. “This API allows you to track timings of visitor actions that don’t correspond directly to pageviews (like Event Tracking). User timings are defined using a set of Categories, Variables, and optional Labels for better organization. You can create various categories and track several timings for each of these categories. Please refer to the developers guide for more details about the _trackTiming API.”

    Users can check the report under the content section, by clicking “User Timings”. From there, you can select “Explorer,” “Performance” or “Map Overlay” for different views.

    Google announced the actual Site Speed reports last month, including the Site Speed Overview. Now, you can get even more insight into how your pages are performing.

    Google has said flat out that speed is a ranking factor in Google, though Google’s Matt Cutts kind of downplayed how often it really makes a huge difference. So, kind of a mixed message, though from the user experience standpoint, you’ll certainly want your pages performing well. Nobody wants to stick around on a slow site.

  • Nine Analytics Tips to a Hassle-Free Site Migration

    Many site owners and marketing managers experience data loss and lose visibility into their marketing activities and site performance which potentially could negatively impact the bottom line. This article examines practical steps to maintain and improve the quality of your data when upgrading or redesigning a site, or migrating to a site/new content management system. While the examples used here are Google Analytics specific, the approach is applicable to other analytics solutions.

    Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

    With a little bit of planning, business owners, marketing managers and webmasters would immensely benefit. Here are few items to review prior as you plan to upgrade your site:

    Tip #1 – First and foremost review what are conversions (goals, users actions) you are measuring on the current site and how it’ll apply to the new site. You might be adding video, or downloads or new lead form, these new user actions should be tracked as goals in Google Analytics. Plan for it. Or maybe, you’ll be selling online on the new site, if so, plan for eCommerce analytics to measure where your online sales will be coming from, average order value and top selling products. If you will be using Google Checkout or Paypal, let your analyst/developer know to integrate.

    Tip #2 – You’ve heard that “segmentation” is really important to understand the behavior of different users (new vs. returning, customers vs. non-customers, etc.), and you want to apply this concept to the new site. Identify those segments clearly and pass on the information to your analyst/consultant/developer and they’ll help you track it on the new site.

    Tip #3 – Third-Party Systems: start looking beyond just your website. Are you passing information to SalesForce, SugarCRM, or other CRMs? Look for other tags from advertising and affiliate platforms and include them in your site upgrade plan, including Google AdWords tracker, comparison shopping sites tags, doubleclick or other tags.

    Tip #4 – Analytics and websites do get technical so if you are a marketers, this is a opportune time to be super nice to your technical team :). Have a meeting with your analyst (or consultant) and go over your list of marketing and business measurement goals we discussed above, and ask them to plan the Google Analytics Tracking Code implementation for sub-domains or cross-domain tracking, or if you are using events or firing virtual pageviews, they might need to make updates necessary to maintain the same data collection method. Also, have your technical team pay close attention to URLs/redirects, especially for landing pages, redirects can create all sort of data mess if not handled properly.

    Note: if the URL structure and page naming convention is changing, one or more of the following could be impacted, so plan for the necessary updates at the time of site upgrade: filters, goals, e-commerce variables, custom variables, advanced segments, custom alerts, custom reports with filters, dashboards with filters.

    Site Launch – Congratulations!

    You are very excited about the your new site launch, and you should be. Few more steps and you’ll be ready to celebrate!

    Again, marketers and webmaster must work very closely here.

    Tip #5 – First and foremost, and right after the site launched or if you had a site in a staging environment, you want to validate that the analytic code is on all your pages (turn to your favorite site scan software). Pay extra attention to key pages (landing pages/static pages and conversion pages such as thank you pages, form completion pages, e-commerce purchase complete pages, etc.). And while you are at it, run a quick hostname report. In Google Analytics this can be found under Demographics -> Technology -> Network to ensure you are collecting data only from your production web properties.

    Tip #6 – You might be experiencing slow load times when you launch your new site for a variety of reasons. Don’t despair, GA has some powerful reports that come to the rescue. Discuss the Site Speed Reports (under Content) and identify and fix page or server issues.

    Tip #7 – Go the GA reports and set up a date range comparison (equal number of days, and days of week before and after launch), then monitor your most important metrics. Here are some starting points: under Audience, run a report on traffic/key metrics/conversion by browser. Any major peaks and valleys pre/post site launch? If so, immediately inform your webmaster, there are potential issues with browser compatibility. Also, examine your traffic sources and goal conversion carefully. If the domain/sub-domain configuration wasn’t set up properly, you’ll see all sort of issues with self-referring traffic, visit inflations and other side effects. Don’t forget to review your Pages report for any error pages (404 pages) that site visitors might be experiencing.

    Tip #8 – Automate. Yes, let Google Analytics do all the heavy lifting for you. Set up Custom Alerts (Intelligent Events) on all vital metrics. Without needing a degree in Statistics, GA will report to you if and when any of these metrics fall outside the norm. This is very powerful and a great time-saver. You’ll be notified when there is an issue (or a good thing) and you’ll act on the finding accordingly.

    Tip #9 – Annotate – yes, you’ll few weeks down the road, you’ll forget what changes you made on your site. So take few minutes to annotate (by date) when major changes occurred, day of site launch, etc. Your colleagues (or consultants) who come after you, will be very thankful for the context you’d provided.

    Note: while the above tips focus on analytics and maintain data quality, site migration or upgrade planning should include SEO and SEM planning. Look for the for search engine traffic and landing pages and report drops in ranking, traffic, engagement or conversion issues to your search marketing team.

    Equipped with the above nine tips, you’ll be closer to a hassle-free outcome. By following these suggestions, your site will not only have that fresh new look you develop, but you’ll also have the necessary data you need to measure and improve the site and marketing performance and keep your visitors (and boss) very happy!

    Editor’s Note: For a comprehensive checklist on analytics tips for a hassle-free site upgrade and migration, check out Feras’ recent post on the E-Nor Digital Marketing Optimization blog.

  • Google Analytics Has Over 10 Million Users

    One interesting detail that I’ve not heard or seen anywhere else, which emerged from Google’s earnings call today, is that Google Analytics has over ten million users.

    From large e-commerce sites to small blogs,” Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora says, ten million businesses rely on Google Analytics.

    He mentioned that there have been several new features introduced recently. The new social reports, for example.

    He didn’t talk about it, but it looks like Google+ Page data is coming to Google Analytics soon, as well.

    View all of our Google Analytics coverage here.

    Small business use of Google Apps is “on fire,” as well, according to Arora.

    More on today’s earnings report here.

  • 500px Offers New $20 Premium Plan

    Toronto-based image hosting site 500px, which calls itself ‘the best photography site in the world,’ has just unveiled a new level in its pay plans, simply called called ‘Plus.’ At first glance, one might suspect that 500px is to Flickr as Vimeo is to YouTube: it’s a flashier looking platform, catering more exclusively to artists than to the masses. Below is 500px interviewing one of its contributing photographers:

    For a long while, 500px offered an “Awesome Membership” for $50 a year, twice as much as Flickr Pro at $24.95 annually. So now, for $19.95, one can obtain the pro-level features at 500px for $5 less. According to the site, Plus features include unlimited uploads, a personal store, unlimited collections and advanced statistics. The only thing missing from the Awesome Membership is a personalized portfolio, featuring customizable domains and the inclusion of Google Analytics. Yahoo’s Flickr has yet to offer much by way of targeted maketing, and appears to be catering more towards social networking, putting 500px in a good spot as a choice for photo professionals and freelancers.

    500px, sporting a front page reminiscent of Pinterest‘s interface, was founded in 2009, and grew to over 3 million registered users by 2011. Each user gets a ‘flow’ page, where his/her activity on the site appears. Followers can rate user pictures, with highly voted ones ending up in the ‘popular’ field. Other categories making up the sharing community include editor’s choice, upcoming, fresh and market – these represent highest rated, trendy, newest and for sale.

  • Google+ Pages In Google Analytics Soon To Be A Reality

    It looks like Google may be gearing up to offer even more social data in Google Analytics than originally thought.

    Arvid Bux at DutchCowboys.nl (via State of Search) blogged about a presentation Google gave, indicating that you will soon be able to connect your Google+ Page with Google Analytics.

    WebSonic posted the actual slide, revealing the news. It says the feature is “coming soon”:

    Connect Page To Google Analytics

    Last month, Google announced that it would soon be releasing new social reports in Google Analytics. Google said the reports were aimed at helping users: identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to conversions, understand social activities happening on and off site to help you optimize user engagement and increase key performance indicators, and make better, data-driven decisions in your social strategies.

    There is a Social Sources report and an activity stream, which does include data from a lot of places, but lacks some key social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon.

    Since the announcement of the social reports, Google has also announced new site speed reports, as well as new email and PDF exporting features.

  • Google Analytics Email, PDF Exporting Features Announced

    Google announced that Analytics reports in Google Analytics can be sent to users via email from within Google Analytics itself. They can be scheduled to be sent daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly.

    Reports can also now be exported to PDF documents so they can be saved/shared in that format.

    The options to do these things can be found in the utility bar at the top of the reports. “In order to provide maximum flexibility, this functionality is available on standard reports, custom reports, and dashboards,” says Chris Anderson from Google’s Analytics team. “Clicking on the ‘Email’ button on a dashboard pulls up the same email scheduling dialog as in standard reports and offers the same feature set.”

    Google Analytics Email

    “For those who have used the email scheduler in the old interface, this new emailer system operates independently and has enhancements in reliability and ease of use,” says Anderson. “We are putting the finishing touches on the look and feel of exported reports, and anticipate that these will be finalized soon.”

    This is just the latest in a string of recent improvements to Google Analytics, including: multi-channel funnels, the realtime analytics feature (which can be quite addictive to watch), flow visualization, and the premium version.

    A couple weeks ago, Google introduced new site speed reports. In addition, they announced new social reports, which should be rolling out soon.

  • New Site Speed Reports In Google Analytics

    Google announced today that it has released a new Site Speed report, with “all the key metrics” in an easy-to-read Overview report.

    “The Overview report provides an at-a-glance view of essential information for measuring your site’s page loading metrics: Avg. Page Load Time by Browser, Country/Territory, and Page,” explains Google’s Mustafa M. Tikir. “Plus you can compare your site’s average performance over time to forecast trends and view historical performance. All of these tools can help you identify where your pages may be underperforming and adjust so more visitors land on your site instead of waiting in frustration or leaving.”

    “Previously there was only one Site Speed report, this has been renamed to ‘Page Timings’”, adds Tikir. “On the Page Timings report, you can view your site’s load times in three ways: use the Explorer tab to explore average load time across dimensions, use the Performance tab to see how the load times break down by speed ranges, or use the Map Overlay tab to see how the load times breakdown by geography.”

    site speed overview

    Google notes that it has also updated the Intelligence Reports to include average site load times and all Page Timings metrics.

    In addition to all of this, sites with less than 10,000 visits per day can increase the site speed sample rate up to 100% and get full samples for page load time.

    Note that speed is now a ranking factor in Google.

    These aren’t the only improvements Google announced for Analytics this week. On Tuesday, the company announced that new Social Reports are on the way.

  • Google Referrals To Get Even More Mysterious

    Last fall, Google launched encrypted search (via SSL) as the default setting for signed in users, expanding the feature to the worldwide level earlier this month. The amount of encrypted searches may soon go up .

    Webmasters, SEOs and marketers haven’t been entirely thrilled with the whole thing, because with the encrypted search, much of the Google referral data in Google Analytics is now marked as “not provided”. WebProNews talked to several SEO professionals about the changes last fall, who expressed their discontent:

    Christopher Soghoian at the blog Slight Paranoia figured this out, then Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land received a statement from Johnathan Nightingale, the Director of Firefox Engineering, who said that Mozilla is testing using the SSL for built-in Google searches, and that if no issues are uncovered, it will ship to all Firefox users (after going through Aurora and Beta channels). That would include non-English versions of Firefox too, by the way.

    This is particularly significant given that Google and Mozilla recently renewed their deal to keep Google the default search in Firefox.

    If the encrypted search was turned on by default for searches performed from the Firefox search box, the number of “not provided” referrals would be increased by a tremendous amount, given the popularity fo the browser. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable makes the point that they could easily add this to Chrome at some point as well. And why wouldn’t they, if they feel that this is the search experience that is best for users? Given all the privacy concerns that are always circulating around Google’s practices, this is one area, where they could make people feel easier, even if SEOs, webmasters and marketers aren’t huge fans.

    There could be potential issues with Internet Explorer as well, if users set their default search to Google, which given Google’s share of the search market, it is highly likely that many will still do.

    The point is, for those keeping up with their analytics, those Google referrals might even become more mysterious if encrypted search is expanded across the browser level, which it appears is about to happen with Firefox.

  • Google: Hits Are How Idiots Track Success

    Google: Hits Are How Idiots Track Success

    Google posted an hour long video of a Google+ hangout about Google Analytics and how to get more out of it as one of a series fo “Help Desk Hangouts”.

    Here’s the official description for the video:

    You’re looking to grow your business, and we offer a ton of tools to help you do just that. But sometimes, you need a little help learning all the options and getting started. On the Google+ Your Business page, we’re hosting a new series of Help Desk Hangouts On Air to put you in touch with teams who can help you get the most out of our products and features.

    In the video, Google’s Analytics advocate Justin Cutroni notes that “hits” stands for “How Idiots Track Success”.

    By the way, Google just announced some new social reports for Google Analytics that certainly go way beyond “hits”.

    On Google+, Cutroni listed some help links discussed in the video:

    – Tagging your pages with the Google Analytics code (http://goo.gl/qO25U). Remember to tag every page!

    – Link your AdWords account to Google Analytics (http://goo.gl/XqenG)

    – How to track marketing campaigns (http://goo.gl/Fd401), like email, display ads, etc.

    – Tracking business outcomes (leads, transactions, etc.) with Google Analytics (we call them Goals – http://goo.gl/9ACPy)

    – How to delete your Google Analytics account (http://goo.gl/19SGY)

    – Some information about the EU cookie directive and how you can comply (http://goo.gl/L4upO)

  • Avinash Kaushik Keynote At SES NY Pushes Marketing Focus

    Avinash Kaushik Keynote At SES NY Pushes Marketing Focus

    Google Digital Marketing Evangelist Avinash Kaushik opened Search Engine Strategies New York this morning with a keynote, which was largely advising digital marketers to get better and more focused in their marketing strategies.

    It just so happens that Google announced new social reports for Google Analytics to help marketers do just that.

    Here’s one brief video one audience member uploaded to YouTube:

    Based on the Twitter reaction, the keynote went over very well with the audience:

    @lisapeyton
    Lisa Peyton    @meg_hartley @avinash was amazing! Likely the highlight of the entire #sesny event. 4 minutes ago via HootSuite ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @ShaneAJennings
    Shane Jennings    @avinash keynote was funnier than I thought it would be. #sesny #ppcchat 18 minutes ago via Mobile Web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @AlbumOfThoughts
    Ally Mookerjee    Avinash Kaushik: All the Big Data in the world doesn’t mean a thing if decision makers can’t act on it. all http://t.co/JOZDADu6 #BigData 2 hours ago via Buffer ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @theeagleacademy
    Eagle Academy    Companies are no longer the centre of the universe…. Companies no longer have the right to shout a message…. Avinash #sesny 2 hours ago via twitterfeed ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @nagini_i
    Nagini Indugula    Loved @avinash at #SESNY on economic value attr to channels, Wish he spent more time on how to get to that optimal channel mix using data. 3 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @nagini_i
    Nagini Indugula    “Giving credit to firstclick in MultiChannel attribution is like giving credit to my first girl friend for marrying my wife” – @avinash #LOL 3 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @nagini_i
    Nagini Indugula    Optimize for economic value says @avinash at #SESNY which includes both marco & micro conversions, not just for the short term marco ones. 3 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @unbuttonmyeyes
    Violet Lucca    Surprised at how common sense most of @avinash‘s advice was. Don’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t have impact in the real world…#SES 4 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @maureensweet
    Maureen Sweet    As a student, @avinash‘s keynote at #sesny completely blew me away. So pumped to learn more about digital marketing! 4 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @rpmkel
    Rich Kelley    So @avinash sold & signed 100 copies of his new book & now they’re all gone before I could get one. So where’s the @Wiley booth? #SESNY 2 hours ago via Seesmic ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Ashley Zeckman at TopRank Online Marketing Blog put together a nice recap of the keynote with 7 things he taught her about optimization. She provides more explanation, but these essentially boiled down to: don’t just optimize for a small group of people, identify both micro and macro conversions, focus on a more broad scale, salary should be based on economic value you deliver, figure out how to move past the 2% (because it only delivers short-term value) and understanding/testing/being “less wrong” are the key things to do when participating in multiple channels.

    aiClear Blog has a more in-depth piece on the keynote, concluding with Kaushik’s “high-level takeaways”:

    1. Focus on measuring holistic success.
    2. Be less wrong over time. Understand, test, learn.
    3. Rethink social. Dig into the So what?, Where?, and Why? .
    4. Stop guessing. Use controlled experiments.
    5. Have insane focus. Have a clear line of sight.

  • Google Analytics Social Reports Coming Soon

    Today, Google announced the release of some new social reports in Google Analytics, aimed at “bridging the gap between social media and the business metrics you care about”. Well put, because measuring social media has been one of the biggest obstacles businesses have faced since the rise of the social networks.

    It’s certainly become easier to measure it, over the last few years, after numerous tools have been launched by numerous companies, but lots of businesses rely on Google Analytics to track the success of their sites, and the better GA is at social, the clearer the success (or non-success) of social strategies will become.

    Specifically, Google says it wants to help you: identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to conversions, understand social activities happening on and off site to help you optimize user engagement and increase key performance indicators, and make better, data-driven decisions in your social strategies.

    A new Overview Report lets you see social performance “at a glance” and how it is impacting conversions by comparing numbers and monetary values of goal completions vs. those that resulted from social referrals. “A visit from a social referral may result in conversion immediately or it may assist in a conversion that occurs later on,” explains Group Product Manager Phil Mui. “Referrals that lead to conversions immediately are labeled as Last Interaction Social Conversion. If a referral from a social source doesn’t immediately generate a conversion, but the visitor returns later and converts, the referral is included as an Assisted Social Conversion.”

    Social Value in Google Analytics - Overview

    A new Conversion Report shows which goals are being impacted by social media by letting you measure the value of each individual social channel by seeing the conversion rates of each one and the monetary value they’re driving. “For example, you can see the effect that social content (i.e. a new video you created) had on conversions,” says Mui. “Look at the time graph to see whether Goal Completions via Social Referral peaked after the content was published. Remember that you need to define goals and goal values in order to see data in this report, so tailor it to the things that matter to your business. Networks with a higher assisted / last interaction conversions ratio provide greater assisted conversions.”

    A Social Sources report lets you see how site visitors from different sources are engaging and converting. Social Plugins shows which articles are most commonly shared, recommended, and on which social networks. There is also an Activity Stream, which shows the ways people are engaging with your content off of your site. Of course, it is missing some key data, with the absence of Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn, Pinterest and StumbleUpon are some other key networks that arren’t included.

    What it does include is Google+ and the partners of Google’s “Social Data Hub,” which ingclude:

    AllVoices
    Badoo
    Blogger
    Delicious
    Digg
    Diigo
    Disqus
    Echo
    Gigya
    Google+
    Google Groups
    Hatena
    Livefyre
    Meetup
    Read It Later
    Reddit
    Screen Rant
    SodaHead
    TypePad
    VKontakte
    yaplog!

    Google says all the new reports will be available to all Google Analytics users over the next few weeks. They’ll appear under the Standard Reporting tab.

  • Google Analytics Gets Some UI Tweaks

    Google Analytics Gets Some UI Tweaks

    Google announced the launch of an updated user interface for Google Analytics. The company says the tweaks were in response to user feedback (they do listen sometimes).

    “We are particularly proud of the attention to detail that our user experience team has put into making the interface easy to use, understandable, and beautiful,” says the Google Analytics Team in a blog post.

    “The primary goal of this update is to bring more attention to the things that matter — your data, and how you analyze it,” the team adds. “We improved legibility of score card and table data, and refined our color palette to draw attention toward data instead of navigation elements.”

    Other adjustments include: changes to information hierarchy and the graphed metric and select a comparison metric directly from the graph.

    Graph and Table options have been made more visible, Metric Group selection has been improved, according to the company, and they’ve added some new icons to the left navigation for Audience, Advertising, Traffic Sources, Content and Conversions.

  • Google Analytics Updates To Custom, Organic Reports

    Google Analytics Updates To Custom, Organic Reports

    Google Analytics is getting some updates.

    For one, there’s a new “Customize” button in the action bar on all tabular standard reports. When you click this, it loads the custom report builder. Google suggests using this for the following cases:

    • New metrics, familiar reports – The best metrics are the ones that provide actionable insights into your business. Try adding different metric groups to your favorite reports to see if how it impacts your view of conversion rates.
    • Drill down into your data – Sometimes, the best route to a particular piece of data is a drilldown not found in any standard report. You could customize the Language report to drill into search terms for a language-by-language comparison of your organic search traffic.
    • Filter to find insights – Ad campaigns can span many networks. Try customizing the AdWords Campaigns report and applying a filter for Ad Distribution Network matches “Google Search” to see your performance on only Google Search.

    Note that not all standard reports can be turned into custom reports – only the ones where you see the customize button.

    Create Custom Report

    Here’s the step-by-step process for customizing standard reports, as Google lays out in its help center:

    1. Open the report you want to use as the basis for a custom report.

    2. Click CUSTOMIZE above the report title.

    3. Under General Information, enter a new name for the report.

    4. Under Report Content:

    – Name: Enter a name for the tab.

    – Type: Click Explorer to create a new version of the Explorer tab. Click Flat Table to create a data table.

    – Metric Groups: (Explorer) Enter dimension names and select metrics; (Flat Table): add dimensions and metrics.

    – Dimension Drilldowns: Select the dimensions you want to drill in to, for example: Continent, Country/Territory, and City.

    5. Under Filters, select the metrics by which you want to filter.

    6. Under Profiles, add additional profiles to which the report is available.

    7. Click Save.

    Separately, Google Analytics is adding some search engines to organic reports, according to Daniel Waisberg at Search Engine Land, who says he’s confirmed as much with Google. The search engines: rakuten.co.jp, biglobe.ne.jp, goo.ne.jp, and startisden.no/sok. Additionally, he says, search.conduit.com, search. babylon.com, search-results.com, isearch.avg.com, search.comcast.net, and search.incredimail.com will also be added to the default list of known search engines.

    According to Waisberg, the company has also changed how GA recognizes search engines. “Before this change, if a URL contained the word ‘search’ and a query parameter ‘q’, Google would attribute it to the search engine search.com, which led to inaccurate reports, especially as a consequence of big customized search engines, such as Conduit, Babylon and others,” he reports.

    This week, Google also launched Analytics in 9 new languages, including: Arabic, Croatian, Hebrew, Hindi, Latvian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, and Ukrainian.