How many presentations do you see that show traffic stats like these?
Or this:
Or this:
These charts aren't wrong, per se. They're not lying to you, but they are obscuring the truth, and they're making it impossible to know what's going right and wrong.
The problem isn't that the numbers are inaccurate, it's that no website is just ONE SITE. A website is a collection of pages, and oftentimes, a collection of lots of different KINDS of pages. Even the simplest of sites, built on blog CMS' like Wordpress or basic CMS' like Drupal have unique sections within them - the homepage, individual posts, static pages (about, contact, et al.), categories, search pages, posts by month, author, etc. - all of these have different formats, different functions and, almost certainly, different visitor stats.
Yet, for some reason, when we as marketers look at a site, we don't ask "how are the category pages doing this month?" or "how is the blog performing compared to the white paper articles?" We ask, "how's the site doing."
The singular answer to that question often obscures a more nuanced, but valuable truth: Different website sections perform differently.
If your car starts having trouble accelerating up hills, you don't blame the entire car for the subpar performance, you start to examine potential causes (electrical system, engine, tires, etc.) and break these components down until you find the cause. Likewise, with a website, every piece should be performance tested, tuned and monitored on a regular basis.
Don't do this:
The total page views data is fine as an overview, but we need to monitor each individual section to really understand what's gaining vs. falling.
Do this:
By segmenting out traffic to URLs that include */blog/* and those that include */ugc/* (YOUmoz), we can see when/where/how each section is rising or falling in traffic and contributing to the overall site's performance.
Even better, we should do this:
How did I make that chart?
Step 1: Separate the areas of your website by the words/characters in their URL string (or other identifying factors like keywords in their titles). For example, on SEOmoz, we've got:
- The Blog - all URLs include /blog
- YOUmoz - all URLs have /UGC
- Guides - nearly all have /articles
- Tools - most URLs are different, but there's only around 20 so I can lump them together
- etc.
Once I have these segments, I'll use the URL structures to get data about pageviews (or any other metric I care about) separately through analytics.
Step 2: Use the content filter in Google Analytics to select only those pages that contain the URL string you're seeking:
By using the simple filter for URLs "containing" /article, I've got a segmented report I can now use to start seeing what's really happening on my site.
pretty simple, right?
Step 3: Filter on each report and grab out the relevant pageviews number on a weekly basis:
I grab those numbers for each of the segments each week (well, actually, Joanna does - but she says it's less than an hour of work) and plug them into a spreadsheet.
Step 4: Create a spreadsheet and a stacked graph
This spreadsheet shows the number of pageviews to each section of the site
This stacked, area graph shows where traffic is shrinking (e.g. the Beginner's Guide) vs. growing (e.g. the Blog)
When you run these over long periods of time, you can really see the impact a new section is having, or where problems in traffic might exist. If you neglect to break things out in this fashion, you'll often find that traffic from one section's gain may overshadow the loss in another area. This over/under-compensation can hide the real issues for a site, especially in SEO (where indexation, rankings and keyword demand all play inter-connected roles).
Joanna, in her post on benchmarking, shared this chart:
This helped us to realize where things had gone awry and why (the problem stemmed from some poorly done redirects from Linkscape to Open Site Explorer). I can't recommend this practice enough - if more marketers managed their analytics in this fashion, we'd have a much easier time identifying potential problems, opportunities and understanding not just the quantity of traffic, but the "whys" behind it.
Anyone with some clever Google Analytics methodologies to build these faster/more efficiently than my Excel hack, please do share!
UPDATE: Some friends from Maki Car Rental put together a stacked pageviews PHP code that pulls from the Google Analytics API here. Thanks!
BTW - For anyone who lost traffic in Google's MayDay update, this sort of chart should be a great way to discover which sections of your site's content may be lacking in uniqueness/robustness and require additional TLC. I saw this type of analysis for a few folks and the chart really makes problem areas clear.
Just be sure to also filter by pages receiving traffic from Google Search so other sources don't cloud the issue.
for those MayDay sufferer's - another key aspect is to preclude any brand biased searches from the results, ie. NOT include searches like:
"BRANDNAME Blue Widgets"
I set all our filters to remove such traffic from our reporting. It gives a much more accurate picture of the issue.
Hi Rand. I would suggest you to create one website profile for each section of seomoz and keep one profile as unfiltered (as google can't recprocess the raw traffic data once it has passed through a filter).Then apply appropriate filters to these website profiles. For e.g. To track seomoz blog traffic, add a new website profile within your existing profile and name it 'semoz blog'. Then go to the profile settings page of this new profile and add a new pre-defined filter 'include only traffic to the subdirectorties that begin with' /blog. In this way your new profile will report only traffic from your blog (and not from other sections of your site) and you don't need to manually apply filters all the time. You can replicate this process by creating such profiles for other sections of your site. Now you can easily see/download traffic report of any section of your website.
Thanks! I created some custom filters, but I think I need to use your described system, as simply using visits that contain those pages doesn't work. Will try that tomorrow.
Yet another approach based on custom filters is to create a series of filters which match on, in your example */blog/* in the page request and then overwrite it with, for example aBlogPost. And so on.
That way all the relevant page views are summarised as one entry.
I work only on ecommerce sites and usually use this approach to create a special "Summarised" profile with a limited series of pages such as "aCategoryPage" , "aSubCategoryPage" and so on.
This can be very useful for all manner of navigation and landing page reporting.
I usually adopt the same approach with keywords so that all the searches which include a brand term have the keyword rewritten as "aBrandSearch".
The camel case re-labelling is helpful to make the fact that these are NOT normal data stand out.
There are so many different ways of approaching this subject, as the comments illustrate. I don't wish to add confusion. But this is a very useful and powerful form of analysis and I'm glad you raised the subject.
Custom advanced segmentation would do this job better than creating numerous of filtered profiles. Just set up advance segments filtering traffic only to a specific content and choose the relevant from the drop-down menu whenever you want to analyse something. Additionally, you can apply advance segment for any piece of data in the past, when filtered profile would work only with a data you collected after creating that profile.
This is the quick and easy way. Unfortunately, you can't use secondary dimensions or pivot charts on reports with advanced segments. That can be a hinderence if you really want to dig into the data.
You can use the API (see ex on salomonitc's comment) and advanced segments to get more info about each segment and creat a graph like that.
Well, it would work for analyzing visits, not pageviews.
Just be careful with this method, cause Advanced Segments on specific pathes will have a higher amount of pageviews, cause the segment will take the metrics for "anyone that goes thorugh" /blog or whatever.
The filters handle pageviews better. Just keep in mind that the filtered profiles will get the same referrals from the root - unless you try to use setCookiePath but this would be a other so so long history. :)
Best,
@diogenespassos
Hello there!
Very useful information Rand, and I agree with the tip that seo-himanshu gives because it seems to be the fastest and easy way to track all that data separately.
I think I can put some PHP code together which queries the Google Analytics Data and puts out a csv in less than an hour: https://code.google.com/intl/de-DE/apis/analytics/docs/gdata/gdataReferenceDataFeed.html
Anyone interested? ;-)
I love it - and I'd be happy to link over to the project from the post, too.
Hi rand,
its done.. just have to polish it a bit..
here you go: https://bit.ly/9Yf9nR
This is my first post here, in SEOmoz. I've been reading some very good articles before, but this one I find so helpful, that I just couldn't stay quite any longer and I felt I had to say: Thank you :)
Hey Lezuzius, welcome to comment land dude! I hope to hear more from you now that you've come out of hiding ;)
Hi Rand,
I have just be trying it out on a site i look after. With regard to pulling the data straight from GA you could try: https://www.automateanalytics.com/2009/08/excel-functions-for-fetching-data.html (create by : Mikael Thuneberg)
Mikael's excel template / spreadsheet can be used to query the GA api. Once you have your filters setup should take about 30secs to update each week.
It good to have something on hand to show people whats working or when you need to help identify problems / opportunities.
How about conversion rate optimization? I wish there is an app that can help track all of these metrics you've shown here - all in one place. It's time-consuming already to track the pages on your site every week, where it can be spent in other online activities. Thanks for sharing this post as it helps me come up with what metrics to measure in my site.
If you're looking for a single tool, then you're looking to spend some $$$. The down side is that no packaged software does everything you want. Expect customization charges.
But try looking at it from a timeline perspective. First you need data then you decide what CRO stuff you want to focus upon. Therefore you will need an analytics package and then a CRO toolset as well. There's nothing wrong with that.
If you're arguing about time management, then all you need to do is be perfectly clear on your KPIs, goals and targets. In this way you're only looking at a few data points. You don't need to do a thing unless there's a tremor in the force. Only when Yoda starts talking like a French Canadian do you need to take action.
I'm sure UnBounce and HubSpot (among others) are good places to see about key metrics measuring with CRO built in ... sort of.
Actually there is an API where you can get a lot of data about your analytics profile. Take a look at salomonitc's comment on this post.
Great post Rand! I couldn't help but notice that this is really easy to do with Next Analytics for Excel, so I posted the step by step on my blog (https://bit.ly/cfXNuT). No need to create special profiles or advanced segments, and no need for playing with programming -- it can all be done from the application. When you are done, simply click Refresh to update the Excel workbook. Check in daily for unexpected changes and send it to your boss at the end of the month.
Its really good and valuable ..........
I applied it and much of my confusion got vanished. I am surely going to explore it more....
I want to work on automating this type of reporting and using oAuth to allow for the tool to use your GA data and you can revoke the access token at any time... there are alot of cool ways we could visualize this data and i think Juice Analytics is one example and we need to come up with more.
This is why I love SEOMoz, actionable information in the posts and comments! :)
Great post! Visualising trends this way makes it much more intuitive to see where opportunities lie and where your efforts should go to.
If your site uses a directory-style URI structure, you can use GA's "content drilldown" function to get the aggregate data for each type of content more easily. For example you can quickly get the data forn /articles/ and /blog/ separately via Content Drilldown.
Good tips. Google Analytics is such a powerful tool that most people don't take full advantage of, myself included. Just what I needed to give myself the boost of motivation to set up some more detailed tracking.
Excellent work Rand! This really doesn't take that much extra time and makes for a much more valuable reporting metric.
Thanks :)
great tips! i think segmenting data by page types like this is going to be very helpful.
Rand,
Amazing post on how to use Google Analytics to work for you. For a free product , Google Analytics really comes up to par with enterprise tools. What I appreciate most are the custom variables and visitor metric across all dimensions.
New Visitors(Unique visitors) vs Normal Audience (which comes to my website often) is a graph that I pay utmost attention to along with where they are going on my site and what audience love to enjoy.
Google Analytics have implemented some really cool features lately like, Expand Mobile Reporting and Advanced Analysis Feature(which is where lot of what you posted in your blog comes into play)
“Google Intelligence” is very cool. It is definitely a step in the right direction, however, there is still something missing - the answer to the question "why", i.e. why did the amount of visitors to my site dropped yesterday.
Thanks for sharing
really it's very useful details.
can u explain me about chart?
i m not excetly getting ideas about chart.
THanks in advance.
Rand,
In order to make this easier, could I just create an advanced segment out of the filter? When you create an advanced segment using the "page" dimensionyou can apply filter criteria (like those you used in your example) and then create a segment out of it.
I have done this but haven't tested to see if it's accurate. It's just that I want to apply segments like the one's you listed above to a lot of different reports in GA...
Either way- great post.
I've created a tool for exactly this kind of analysis: it automatically fetches the data thru the GA API, does the pivots and creates the charts. You can check it out here.
I am surprised! There is always something new in analytics to learn. Thanks for writing a great article here. Really Helpful stuff. Will make work more easier and less time consuming.
Thumbs up Rand!
Great work, Rand! Reminders are always good. It makes me laugh when people expect a report to be an overview rather than an in-depth look at everything that's happening on the site.
It takes me back to the days when people used to print out server statistics and think all of those huge numbers meant anything.
Very interesting and also completely relevant as working in a customer focussed business we have to send analytics out to clients on a regular basis. Of course the overall scores sometimes look better and it is only when you break down the various elements do you perhaps notice more useful information, good or bad. Similarly, if the overall results don`t look that impressive, you can generally get a better picture of what`s happening by studying the individual performance of the pages and in some cases these are more relevant results anyway.
Thanks Rand; nice step by step guide with great visuals -- I love using filters, especially when researching search terms: eg. company name vs new optimized kw's ---> it's one easy way of showing growth/decline in seo efforts :-)
Cool tips, will use them soon.
thanks.
Great stuff. I have really been pushing into my analytics knowledge lately. Its at my current top of the tree to get right list, so this article was really interesting to me.
A great post Rand, following your system in my own analytics pages I have already identified two areas that need work, areas that I thought were solid enough ...
As usual, Great analytics tip from Rand. But it applies only to those websites, which have sections, say blog,products page etc. I would like to know how can i apply this segmentation for a 4-5 pages website.
Here's a few ideas for you, seo2005:
Make a similar graph based on your referrer to keep tabs on search traffic, referral, and direct (maybe your direct traffic has gone down while search traffic has gone up, and you don't realize it), or if you have some large numbers from particular referral sites use that.
Make a graph to see which pages are bringing traffic to the site (not pageviews, but them acting as a landing page - not sure how easy this one will be to set up).
Track your top 5 or 10 keyword traffic over the weeks to see how they're performing and how they correlate with your rankings.
The phrase:
"They're not lying to you, but they are obscuring the truth, and they're making it impossible to know what's going right and wrong."
...was music to my ears, and I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately for me, the post went completely off the rails when I was presented with the graph that apparently cures all your ills. If anyone on my team presented me with a graph that looks like that, they'd get quite a short shrift from me.
I understand you are now desperately stabbing your thumbs down button, but allow me to say:
Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not intelligence, intelligence is not wisdom
What we have here is basically data presented in a graphical way. ("Well, duh, I hear you cry, of course that's what it is...") Well for me, we've barely achieved "information" on the scale above let alone "Intelligence", which is what we should be aiming for (wisdom comes only with age).
I see a graph with no title, no labelled axis and ambiguous date range. Yes, this is a little harsh, I understand that is it largely a technical exercise so I can ignore these Crimes Against Analytics for now. The thing is, there are way too many segments of data here, it looks like a geological map with an oil field at the bottom. The user is bombarded with so much that we cannot take it in and make much sense of it, especially if this were in a presentation where we don't have long to study it. Sure, do this for yourselves but don't present this to anyone. It is too complex and does not allow someone who is not intimately familiar with your workings instantly grasp the subject matter - they cannot glean much information from it to formulate knowledge. It is very unclear how much traffic each segment is actually sending and we have no idea what the numbers actually mean.
Analyics is simple: Why; What; What Next.
Why do you want a figure, what are the numbers showing me, what should I do about it from a commercial stand-point.
I very much look forward to the stimulating debate on this matter!
From a pure business person's perspective this stacked chart looks to be a great starting point for any number of conversations. The key is that the business person is a part of the conversation; while perhaps driving parts of it.
Very quickly, we understand content consumption for each section. Then the critical questions that follow would point us towards our next reports and investigations.
Take the new Beginner's Guide, for example. Is the Mid-July dip in traffic reasonable? Personally, I can argue for both sides and then figure out poignant questions for a deeper dive, if needed. All of this is achieved without overloading the "client" or the business mind.
On the other hand, we could completely bypass the judgment of good or bad and move straight to critical decision making. If advertising money is spent on that page then we clearly see it's time to take action. Rather than losing months, we now can take action in a couple of weeks. Do we investigate further or review the CTAs that get viewers to that page? Do we care? Maybe it's time to reallocate funds regardless and in a few seconds I can find likely candidates to adjust spending.
This chart offers so many starting points for deeper conversations and investigation. All without confusing the non-analyst.
Everyone can participate in the discussion and the analyst can interject ideas and best practices and next steps. I think everyone wins with an approach like this.
I agree with you when you say it is hard to get some information on this greaph. There is too many segments which can get anyone confused when looking at it.
But the idea of segmenting your analytics data instead of just looking at one segment (which is the bottom line of this post) is really good.
You don't need to creat this specifically graph to know what is going on with your website, but you do need to segment your data to get relaiable information on how each section of your website is performing.
andfl, which is basically what I said! The thing is, many people are scared and intimidated by graphical information. They don't like numbers. So an analyst has a responsibility to make this vital information easily accessible to a wide variety of business stakeholders. A complicated stack graph (with all it's shortcomings I outlined) does not do this. Just because you understand something because you created it doesn't mean that anyone else will.
So in my opinion it's a very sound idea, but poorly executed.