Think of Google Analytics as being your website's heart monitor. Google Analytics are indispensible when maintaining the health and wealth of your company website and profit centre. That is why it's important to stay up and informed on all the new tools, gadgets and gizmos Google continues rolling out and all the hidden gems that are already whirring in the background.
As a Victoria web development company, Market IQ creates custom reports, filters and funnels for many clients. We have developed a list of sorts, which includes the most important website reporting features, performance gauges and analytics tools.
In no particular order:
Real-Time Data Reporting
In the dark ages (last year, actually) Google Analytics took almost 24 hours after the user's visit to provide the user's data. Now Google analytics provides real time data. We can now view reports in real time, letting us view site activity as it happens. This great preparing a campaign launch prior to the launch of the actual campaign.
Custom Dashboards
If you analyze dozens of client sites like we do at Market IQ, it is important to maintain order with reports, clients and their unique requirements. With the new Google analytics, Dashboard lets users create up to 20 personalized dashboards, develop widgets and formats. At Market IQ, we work with numerous insurance agents and companies. Some agencies require different reports for agents, support staff and their advertising agencies. With the new Dashboard system, we are able to provide different reports for every department by creating a unique dashboard for each department. Unique analytics goals and funnels are created based on each department's defined goals.
How Fast is your Website?
Site Speed will tell you. We can now tell clients how long it takes their pages to load. This is very important feature. A slow site can ruin the user experience and search engine ranking of a website. In fact, load time is one of the important factors when it comes to organic search rankings. If a site is lagging, we are able to identify and then modify the server, HTML, Java script – whatever – to get it up to an acceptable speed.
Are visitors doing what you want them to do?
With event tracking, we are now able to treat events as goals. As a Victoria web development company, we develop and place content and information on client sites, including ePubs, PDFs, movies, audio, RSS, subscription services and also shopping carts. With event tracking, we can now find out how many visitors downloaded a PDF or WAV file from a client site. We can also find out how many visitors viewed more than 30 seconds of a video.
Analytics Navigation
While Google Analytics has compartmentalized and clearly delineated reports for different accounts and sites, scrolling through the many accounts has, up until now, been a big aggravation. Under Analytics new interface, there is an activated menu search. We can quickly navigate to the proper reports and clients.
Keyword Trending
The bigger the word, the more popular the word. Already a staple in the Wordpress world, Google has introduced Keyword Clouds to Analytics so that users can easily visualize the top keywords that users are relying on to find client sites.
Webmaster Tools Integration
What was once separate is now combined. Those days of flipping between Webmaster and Analytics accounts are over.
Social Engagement
How sociable is your website?  With the new analytics reports you can learn how visitors socially engaged with the site through tracking of “liked†information.
Reaching Beyond the Confines of the site URL
Google Analytics has let users track visitor movement throughout a website for a long time through the use of custom funnels and reporting. With Multi-Channel Funnels, we can determine the funnel through which visitors arrived at the site. A great tool that helps marketing planning and spend strategies – especially when affiliate marketing is used.