All posts tagged analytics profiles
Real Time Analytics is Now Available
Google Analytics is one of the most widely used web analytics tools available, perhaps more than any other tool. The ability to track visitor behavior allows you to determine what is working for you, and what isn’t. That said, many people who use the tool have found themselves wanting more. Google has responded to these needs, and has now added new real-time capabilities.
In the past, Google Analytics was used entirely to measure the behavior of site visitors in the past. This is great for getting an idea of what worked in the past, but it doesn’t allow you to respond to problems and behavior as it is emerging. Real-time tools are nothing new, but in the past they were only available on paid services. Google’s software is available for free, so this will change the way many site owners approach the web.
Those who are already familiar with Google Analytics and like the interface will be happy to see that the real time interface fits right in. It maintains the same color theme and has a similar menu system. Real time is located in a drop-down on the left side of the home page of the analytics interface.
Options available include overview, locations, traffic sources, and content. Most people will be content to use the “overview” option, which includes a summary of all the most relevant information about what is happening on your site right now. This includes information about how many visitors are currently on the site, the top keywords, the top locations, and the most popular content.
Real-Time Offers a Number of "Real-Time" Metrics
One of the most helpful things about getting real time information is the fact that you can determine what time of day your site is busiest. This lets you make changes regarding when to submit new posts. It also allows you to determine what content is most popular during which times.
Real time is also very useful for visitors who are bringing traffic to their site through social media. By monitoring when a social media channel stops bringing in traffic, you will know when to post a new tweet or another announcement of Facebook, for example.
Perhaps the biggest complaint that most people have about the real time feature is the fact that it is “too” real time. In other words, it only tells you what is happening on the site right now. The standard analytics tool still offers information about daily traffic, but there is a gap between standard analytics and real time analytics. You can obtain information about the past several days, weeks, or months, and you can obtain information about what is happening right now, but you can’t obtain information about the past ten minutes or hours.
This means that in order to determine what times of day are most popular, you need to actually be in your analytics account watching what is happening. Taking full advantage of real time requires constant monitoring, which can be a little excessive.
All in all, the real time analytics update is a very helpful tool to take advantage of. It will be most useful for sites that need to change and adapt to the behavior of their visitors as it is happening. This means that blogs and news sites will benefit the most. Sites that want to make sure they are properly capitalizing on current events will be able to benefit from this tool more than anybody else.
More serious sites will need history of traffic throughout the day, rather than just what is happening right now. While they will not be able to rely on Google Analytics exclusively, they will be able to use it as a comparison in order to make sure that their other tracking software is working properly.
There’s Nothing Wrong with Profiling
Setting up a profile or, better yet, profiles in Google Analytics can turn off minds that are not comfortable with figures, screenshots, and technical options. Yet, Google has made profiling one of the best features available in Analytics. It’s like an unknown secret yet very informative if used to your advantage.
To clarify, a profile allows you to:
1. Track a single web property (or specific pages from an existing web property)
2. Track multiple independent web properties (www.domain1.com and domain2.com) owned by an individual or organization
3. Determine which data from your site appears in the reports.
But why would I want to set up another profile, you ask? Here are just some of the benefits of profiling:
- Improve and control the flow of information about your website
- Manage multiple web properties
- Segment your visitors
- Set up reporting access for a variety of users
- Create custom reporting
- Reveal trends
- Track various, specific outcomes with goals
- Obtain information on internal search habits
- Establish a back up for your main profile
Below is great overview provided by Google of how profiles can work with a personal Analytics account and a company account (ex. googleanalytics.com) shared with co-workers.
Adding a profile is the easy part. The more challenging task is configuring your profile so that it is pulling in the appropriate data. There are a variety of options to make your account run more efficiently so make sure you do the following:
- Specify the Default Page option
- Apply AdWords cost data
- Consider adding the Site Search option
- Set up at least one goal
- Filter your results to set up different properties that will affect your reports
- Add other users whom you want to have access to this profile only
Here’s a few other important notes to keep in mind…
- When setting up an Analytics account, it is a best practice to make the first profile for a property the “master” profile. A master profile should have no filters so that it contains ALL historical data since tracking began. Once this is set up then leave this profile alone!
- Make a back up of the master profile. This should be common sense with no further explanation needed. Especially since it is very easy to accidentally hit the “delete” link by mistake. And once a profile is deleted, the profile data cannot be recovered.
- When you set up a new profile, tracking begins as soon as the tracking code is installed on the website and a visitor’s browser loads a page.
- When you add an additional profile from an existing website with its own profile, then the additional profile will not contain the historical data that you see in the first profile.
Setting up profiles rewards your effort with great customer insight. You can then leverage that insight to your advantage by developing better content or redesigning your page flow. The end result will help you market your product/service to your prospect-turned customer.
So, in the end, for all the negativity that profiling in the “real world” receives, this is one area of your life where profiling actually does some good.
