What is the best way to learn google analytics?
-
Hi I'm trying to get my head around google analytics as a first time user.
Can any suggest the best place to start after I have taken a look through the whole thing, how do I go about managing and tracking performances on my website?
eg: Registrations/sign ups, conversions all that sort of thing
Some advice will be much appreciated
Thanks
-
Hi Justin,
I can see that you already got good answer from Dirk & Christy. I would also like to share few Google Analytics resources on my personal experience
http://www.lynda.com/Google-Analytics-tutorials/Google-Analytics-Essential-Training/160343-2.html
http://www.lynda.com/Analytics-tutorials/Google-Analytics-Tips-Tricks-Tutorials/135364-2.html
Currently 10 days free trial available on Lynda.com**
Thanks
-
Thank you Christy
-
I second Dirk's recommendation for Google Academy. I would definitely master the first two lessons in order, which will give you the skills you need to get started tracking the performance of your own website, and make use of the supplemental forums and videos for each course. Self-study is available year-round, and group study, facilitated by a Google staffer, is held a few times a year.
When I first started working with Google Analytics 7 or 8 years ago, I thought that Google Analytics was fairly intuitive, and most people could dive into it head-first (trial and error style.) However, I would not recommend anyone just getting started with GA today take that route.
-
Thank you Dirk
-
Google Academy http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/index.html would probably be a good starting point. Or just trial/error with some support from online help. It's pretty self-explanatory.
rgds,
Dirk
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How does Google treat significant content changes to web pages and how should I flag them as such?
I have several pages (~30) that I have plans to overhaul. The URLs will be identical and the theme of the content will be the same (still talking about the same widgets, using the same language) but I will be adding a lot more useful information for users, specifically including things that I think will help with my fairly high bounce rate on these pages. I believe the changes will be significant enough for Google to notice, I was wondering if it goes "this is basically a new page now, I will treat it as such and rank accordingly" or does it go "well this content was rubbish last time I checked so it is probably still not great". My second question is, is there a way I can get Google to specifically crawl a page it already knows about with fresh eyes? I know in the Search Console I can ask Google to index new pages, and I've experimented with if I can ask it to crawl a page I know Google knows (it allows me to) but I couldn't see any evidence of it doing anything with that index. Some background The reason I'm doing this is because I noticed when these pages first ranked, they did very well (almost all first / second page for the terms I wanted). After about two weeks I've noticed them sliding down. It doesn't look like the competition is getting any better so my running theory is they ranked well to begin with because they are well linked internally and the content is good/relevant and one of the main things negatively impacting me (that google couldn't know at the time) is bounce rate.
Search Behavior | | tosbourn0 -
HUGE spike in Google Analytics Traffic
Hi there, I am witnessing a giant spike in my Google Analytics data (website: www.exchangecapital.com ) and I am completely stumped. My website usually gains roughly 15-20 visitors a day at most--and as of 11:10 am today my sessions for the day are up to 150. The traffic spike started on Friday at 132 sessions, Saturday at 261, Sunday at 247, etc. It's common that our sessions don't even hit the double digits over the weekends, so you can imagine my confusion. After trying to pin down some irregularities in geography, browser, and behavior, I'm still at a loss. I'm seeing a big spike in organic traffic (all not provided), as well as direct page visits, and I'm gaining traffic from US, Brazil, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Malaysia, etc. etc--so not just one specific area. Is anyone else witnessing this in their data? Does anyone have any insight or ideas as to how I can look further into this? I am at a loss and any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Lauren McLaughlin
Search Behavior | | LMcLaughlin0 -
Google keyword planner shows low search volumes
Hello, There are some terms that you'd expect to see a lot of results. In fact, in the old days of Keyword Tool, I recall seeing thousands of results for a keyword like "anderson cooper". Today, I see a small amount as a monthly average. Am I doing something wrong? All I really want to do is find search volumes on particular keywords either globally or local to a country. And it's proving soo hard! 😞 Screen_Shot_2013_11_26_at_11_13_20_PM.png
Search Behavior | | mhamilton0 -
Using Google Analytics to See What Time of Day Visitors View My Site
Hi folks, My company has Google Analytics setup for all of our websites, but I am a bit stumped on something. Now, this may not be possible, but am I able to see what time of day visitors most frequently view my blog? I would like to optimize blog post publishing for when I know we have in influx of visitors, yet I cannot find this information on GA. Any input would be much appreciated. Regards,
Search Behavior | | Instabill
Meghan0 -
Safari Has Top Browser in Google Analytics?
I find this hard to believe but it looks to me as though Safari has jumped ahead as our top browser in the month of January. At first glance I would think it was combining mobile safari with desktop safari numbers but then on the 5th spot I see Safari(in-app) which after looking into could be multiple things from safari mobile, bookmarked pages, or Chrome for ios. Just looking for thoughts on this, are others seeing a large uptick in Safari traffic for desktops?
Search Behavior | | sknott0 -
Recovering from a Hack: How long until Google reindexes changes?
In a previous post I made, I was able to determine that one of my sites; http://pokeronamac.com/ was hacked and was feeding spam perscription drug content to search engines, then redirecting to another site when clicked on Google. I then contacted my web host, and, after they did a scan of our files, they determined that something within the wp-includes directory was compromised and malicious. They removed the file, though they weren't able to determine the source of the attack, or how they god in (should we be scared?). Anyway, its been several days now ~5 and if I do a site search the spam pages still show up, but the redirect is no longer working. At this point, I am at a standstill, because i'm loosing traffic on my site by about 90%, and google hasn't sent us any warnings of malaware or the like. I know I was recommended against this before, but should I attempt to submit a reconsideration request, or should I just wait it out? Thanks for your help, Zach
Search Behavior | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Pro/Cons of JUST using Google Analytics
I find myself in a situation where I am having to defend why purely relying on just Google Analytics for site data i.e. exit pages, keywords, bounce rate etc... is not good practise. So I thought/wondered if other people have come up against this. What are the Pro and Cons for ONLY using Google Analytics for your site data....
Search Behavior | | JohnW-UK0 -
Google Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter: How does your site perform?
With Google recently releasing benchmarking data I am curious as to what you all see across the various types of website niches that you work with (eCommerce, news, blog, services, small business, etc). And how SEO'd websites compare with this "raw" data provided by google. We have one medium size (12,000 products) strictly eCommerce website that has a bounce rate of 37% and an avg time on site of 5:20 While two other medium size eCommerce/blog sites have a bounce rate of 57% and 59% with average time on site of 2:37 and 2:30 respectively. Finally, I manage a website for a local small business that provides business and home cleaning services. This site has a bounce rate of 45% and 1:40 average time on site. How do your sites perform in these areas? Is it typical to see this great of a disparity between strict eCommerce websites and those sites that are both informational and transactional in nature? What about other kinds of websites? Cheers!
Search Behavior | | prima-2535091