In our continuing series on the most useful functions within Google Analytics, this month we review the use and creation of Custom Reports. These are most useful when you have to combine metrics and dimensions that are not included in the standard report layouts, or when you want to simplify an existing report format by removing data that’s not relevant.

Building a tailored custom report in Google Analytics is easy and means quicker access to the information you’re more interested in, with less data overload and easy exporting. It allows you to create, save, and edit reports that present the information you want to see organised in the way you want to see it. A drag and drop interface lets you select the metrics you want and define multiple levels of sub-reports. Once created, they can be exported in the usual way of clicking on the export button on the top of the dashboard and choosing the format in which to export it.

It’s easy to navigate to the custom reports by just clicking on the ‘Custom Reporting’ link in the menu on the left-hand side of the main dashboard. Then choose some of the Analytics data from the left hand side menu that can be classified in two simple ways: Metrics or Dimensions.

A metric is the horizontal column heading(s) in the report that is a quantitative measure of how visitors interact with your site. Metrics are always numerical and include things like page views, time on page and bounce rate (the percent of visitors that leave your site after only 1 page).

A dimension is the vertical row(s) in the report that is a characteristic of a visitor or a page on your website that you can use to organize your metrics. Dimensions are almost always text, such as “new” vs “returning” (visitor type) or “North America” vs “Europe” (region).

You can choose any metric to build your custom report with. You also don’t have to pair them with dimensions, which means there are no restrictions to which metrics you can use. However, when they are paired with dimensions, metrics are subject to certain restrictions.

By using custom reports, it is possible to drilldown to five levels deep into the data or to keep the reports more simplified than the ones displayed on the standard dashboard. So the choice of creating simple or complex reports is entirely yours with the flexible and extremely useful Analytics Custom Reporting Tool.

For more information or help on the Custom Reporting function in Google Analytics, please contact us now.

One of the features that is often overlooked within the Google Analytics service is the ‘Site Overlay’ option. This can visually display the percentage of visitors who click upon standard links that are embedded on a particular page of a website and can be a valuable source of information on the ways users are actually navigating through the site.

For example, one way that Site Overlay can be used is to visually show what percentage of visitors clicked through to the main pages linked from the website’s Home Page, or within the main navigation menu. This is a great benefit to website owners as it gives them a clear depiction of which page most of the visitors go to from the initial home page, or the primary landing pages used in a search advertising campaign. Therefore it’s instantly possible to see the most popular paths that visitors follow and the most visited pages. By hovering the mouse over the percentage box in the Site Overlay, another box appears that displays the actual number of clicks to that page and the number of conversions to a particular goal on that page.

If the link is clicked upon, the Site Overlay takes you to that next page and then displays the information according to the links from that page. It’s therefore possible to see which are the best performing links or pages in terms of click density and what the most popular route to a particular goal is, without necessarily having to set up small qualitative research groups. This information can enhance a website’s optimisation by allowing site marketers to experiment with different landing pages, layout, content and navigation routes, leading to a much more effective streamlining of visitors to converting customers.

The Site Overlay tool does have some restricted functionality, however. Currently the results are only displayed on static (as opposed to dynamic) pages that have unique links to content located elsewhere on the website. So if a page has numerous links pointing to another page, the total of clicks for all those links will be displayed in each of those site overlay boxes. Other limitations include the inability to function within frames, with URL redirects, or with Javascript or subdomain links so that in these cases the Site Overlay stats are not displayed.

Overall though, the Site Overlay is a very useful addition to a website’s analytics toolbox, and should be reviewed at least monthly. If you’d like to know more about how Google Analytics could be used to enhance your website’s performance, please contact us.

Another way to improve response rates from online advertising is to use Google’s Website Optimizer tool. This is designed to enhance the return on investment (ROI) for websites that use some form of ‘conversion tracking’ to record the number of enquiries or sales generated from a landing page – the point of entry that visitors arrive on a website, either from a search or other form of online advertising – by creating a series of tests to identify the best performing web pages.

The Website Optimizer tool effectively complements Google AdWords or Google Analytics by providing more information beyond just showing how effective a site’s content is in currently getting conversions, to indicate how to improve this content to get more. It’s a testing tool that allows users to analyse different aspects of a website’s landing page content to indicate which alterations may improve or reduce the conversion rate.

This is done through two different types of ‘experiments’ performed upon either complete pages of the website, or their individual elements. These types of experiments are known as A/B or Multivariate tests. Website Optimizer will not help a website to increase its SEO or PPC ranking positions, but it targets the actions that users may take once they arrive on the website page to result in an eventual outcome.

The Website Optimiser tool provides results on the estimated conversion rate range when comparing the original and revised versions of a web page. It requires advance planning to determine which elements of the website’s landing page/s will be tested (such as a headline, an image, or changes to an enquiry form) and it requires changes to the website to add JavaScript code that controls and manages the different test elements.

Depending on the type of testing undertaken, the Website Optimizer tool also needs a good statistical sample of site visits and actions to generate a meaningful percentage likelihood that a new page has to beat the original in this respect. In addition, the report logs the likely improvement, which is a projected percentage of conversions over or below the original web page, which would be generated by implementing the tested variation compared to the original.

Overall, Google’s Website Optimizer is a useful addition to their arsenal of website data feedback tools. It fills a niche through its ability to rapidly compare variations of a landing page or series of pages and so it should prove to be effective in allowing website designers or marketers to become pro-active in ongoing site development so as to reduce costly redesigns based upon guesswork, whilst simultaneously succeeding in the goal of increasing a site’s conversions.

If you’d like to know more about using the Website Optimizer tool to support your online marketing activity, please contact us now for a discussion.

The use of statistical information by companies to review how their websites are being found and used is now increasingly important to help understand where usability and marketing improvements can be made. The position of Google Analytics in this sector is now very strong as a free, high quality data source. This newsletter will be covering different aspects of using Google Analytics in forthcoming issues and this month we look at ‘bounce rate’.

The bounce rate figure shown within Google Analytics is one of the most useful indicators within a website’s activity data and is a figure that’s not included in some other analytics products. Bounce rate is described by Google as ‘the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page’.

The figure is shown as part of many of the default data tables within Analytics, such as referral traffic by website or keyword, and by page use within the site. Shown as a percentage figure, bounce rate essentially measures visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors, whereas a low rate means that visitors have progressed further into the site to find information or to take an action.

Of course, as with much of the Analytics results, you need to infer from the data what might be happening once a visitor enter the site. For example, your web page may give visitors exactly what they are looking for (such as a dictionary or other reference site) and so they leave straight away, which will show a high bounce rate. However, all websites ideally need to develop ’stickiness’ that will retain visitors so that they follow links and use more of the site.

From a marketing perspective, high bounce rates can indicate that the site is attracting the ‘wrong’ type of visitors, or that the landing page is not compelling enough to retain visitors and to convert them into enquiries or sales. If you are running PPC advertising or other online marketing campaigns, a high bounce rate can indicate issues with the keyword targeting and the quality of the landing page, so that changes should be made to the search terms or the content of the page to try to reduce this bounce rate percentage.

If you’d like to know more about Google Analytics and how bounce rates can be used to improve your site conversion, please contact us for further information.

Search engine marketing may be considered by some to just be about search engine rankings and search referral traffic. However, any true search engine marketing campaign is ultimately about increasing business enquiries from search, which means that the conversion rate from a website or business process also plays a key role, as does the impact of competitor websites.

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Last month we considered ways that ecommerce sites could increase the sales conversions from the number of visits they received by improving issues on the site. This month we consider the issues that could drive visitors away from a site and many of these factors can impact all types of website.

Web users are an impatient breed. As they rest their hand on the mouse they can so easily click away from a site if they don’t see what they want, or things take too long to happen. The web is used in a highly visual manner, issues of site usability are important and every business website needs to consider – or preferably research – the issues that may be driving potential customers away.

Web users don’t like to waste time. However, they will linger and read content if the initial indications from a website that they are visiting - whether for a product, service or information - are good. Web designers and online marketers need to consider ways to retain users on a site and to get them to move through each stage to an ultimate contact, whether it’s an enquiry or a sale.

Your website needs to strike a balance between your own business objectives and the needs of your audience, which may be product related or general web behaviour. The following are some of the factors that research has shown can lose visitors within a mouse-click:

1) Provide too many options or choices – sometimes too much choice creates indecision or confusion. Good website navigation may help to channel users to the products or information that they’re looking for and other ways to guide users can also help. Ecommerce sites can focus on bestsellers or new products, or websites can highlight the areas that have proved to be most popular in the past.

2) Provide too much information – this can have the same effect on site visitors and so content needs to be organised and presented in an accessible and manageable way. Content has to be meaningful and to grab and retain attention from the prospective customer, so avoid irrelevant content that won’t engage the reader on that page.

3) Provide too little information – do users have to work hard to find the information they need, such as total prices or delivery information on an ecommerce site being hidden on the final order confirmation page after a user is forced to enter all their details. If users have to register to access parts of the site, what will they get for their effort?

4) Provide too many distractions – a website needs to work efficiently to direct the visitor to the intended aim. Distracting advertisements or flashing content can take away a visitor’s concentration or lose them to another website if they follow the links.

5) Provide too many barriers – the time that a website can take to load pages is always an issue that will drive users away. Also having too many levels to click through to can be frustrating, or getting lost within the site and having no clear ‘Home Page’ link can also be a negative message.

6) Provide too many ‘red flags’ – site visitors can be instantly turned away by small but irritating issues, such as outdated content, dead links, no obvious contact details or other information that may indicate whether the company is legitimate or not.

7) Provide detailed forms – web users hate to fill in lengthy forms or proceed through several levels of form where they can’t see at the outset all the information that’s being requested. Make your website forms as simple as possible whilst collecting the information that you need.

8) Provide unusual design layouts – most web users recognise the accepted ‘norms’ of web design, such as consistent navigation styles, Home Page links or page structure. The issue of usability is vital to enable users to work through your site with the minimum of effort, so anything that may detract from that is likely to drive users away.

9) Provide confusing information – poorly worded content or explanations about a website or the product or service being offered will confuse and deter users from trying harder. Your site needs to sell but also to be written for your target user in plain, uncomplicated, English.

10) Provide too many reasons to look elsewhere – together with the above factors, there can be a myriad of other reasons why your potential customers may give up and look elsewhere. Consider how your site compares to competitors in your market – not just on product / service range or price, but on functionality, usability, content and relevancy.

You may be able to identify some factors that could distract users straight away. Others may need an independent view or more detailed user research to indicate the key elements that are losing you business. We can provide a range of services to help you identify the issues that could be affecting your online business, so if you’d like to know more, contact us now.

With the average cost of PPC advertising continuing to rise in many markets as new campaigns are added by companies that also recognise the advantages of this activity, then conversion costs can also rise and so reduce your return on investment. This means that every visit has to count and sales conversion rates need to improve.

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We reported last August about the introduction of a Quality Score measure by Google AdWords, which was designed to make advertisers gain from the relevancy of their adverts. Google has now taken another step forward by displaying the Quality Score within the AdWords control panel.

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In late June Google launched its payment processing service, Google Checkout, which is currently only available to US merchants and customers. We’ve reviewed its main features and issues in anticipation for a UK launch.

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It’s common knowledge that if you don’t get your site ranking in the first few pages of a search engines results, then it isn’t likely to attract much traffic for that search term. New research in the US has now identified the likely traffic volumes for the first 3 pages and compares this to previous results, demonstrating that the top 30 results are essential places to be.

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