Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed some quiet time during the holidays. Looking at my visitation data for the past 2 weeks it looks like many off you stayed off-line. I know I did!
I’d like to take a second and thank all of you who take the time to read this blog and provide feedback. I’d also like to thank the web analytics community for all their support and encouragement. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Here’s a light post to start the new year, a review of some important Google Analytics topics that I covered in 2006. I think that all of the posts listed below are very helpful to a new or experienced GA users. Without further ado, my Top 5 Google Analytics Resolutions for 2007.
5. I will always test my Google analytics settings using a test profile
Remember, an incorrect filter of goal setting can ruin the data in your Google Analytics reports. Bad data means bad analysis. Test all of your settings using a duplicate profile before changing the settings on a ‘production’ profile.
6. I will always tag my advertising links
One of the most useful features in Google Analytics is its ability to track online marketing campaigns. We all know that GA works great with AdWords, but it can also be used to track banner ads, CPC ads and even your off line ads. If you do any online advertising you should track the performance at the most granular level.
4. I will export data from Google Analytics and create my own key performance indicator and reports
I’m lazy :) I expect all the data I need for an analysis in one place. I don’t want to hunt through 4 or 5 Google Analytics reports to find the data for my analysis. I define key performance indicators for a site and monitor then using a single report. Take the time to export data from Google Analytics and into some other application (like Excel or PowerPoint) so you can instantly gauge the health of your website.
3. I will avoid the most common GA configuration mistakes
Getting Google Analytics set up correctly will insure the quality of your data. I’ve seen lots of GA setups, some good and some bad. I’ve got a series of posts describing some of the most common problems people make when setting up profiles:
Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #1: Missing Default Page
Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #2: Query String Variables
Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #3: Third Party Domains
Not sure if you have GA set up correctly? Here are a few ways you can identify configuration mistakes.
2. I will exclude myself (and my employees) from Google Analytics reports
While the data quality in Google Analytics may not be 100% accurate, you should try to make it as accurate as possible. One such way is to exclude all the traffic that you and/or your employees generate. If your office has a static IP address you can use a simple exclude filter. But, if you have mobile users or a rotating IP address you need another solution. I suggest excluding visitors using the Google Analytics custom segment technology.
1. I will understand that Google Analytics is a tool and Web Analytics is a process
Google Analytics provides data about how people find your website and how they use it. This data needs to be part of your normal business decision making process. Should we spend more on AdWords? Check the data. Should we change our checkout process? Check the data. Get the picture? You should have a process in place to use the data generated by your website. Even better, you should use the data generated by your website to identify new business opportunities.
Did I miss something? Feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about? Leave a comment.
No, I feel that you included quite a bit in there. Excluding traffic based upon the company and consultants is very important. All too often we’ll have clients who look at the geo map, see a huge blob where they’re located and not realize that that is their own internal traffic, not a huge surge of competitors in the area that are necessarily scoping them out.
I think this is a great post, particularly the excluding traffic by cookie! Thank you.
I have been searching in vain for a particular Analytics solution and am surprised there seems to be no discussion out there on the topic.
-How, if at all, can you set up Analytics to track restricted users?
For example, we have registered users (user IDs / password) to parts of our site. I’d like to monitor some user IDs within Analytics, such as how many pages did a particular user ID visit, was a particular user ID active that day, was a user ID leaked (I can see multiple domains now used by that user ID), etc.
Any ideas?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Mike,
Per the Google Analytics privacy policy, you can not track any personally identifiable information using Google Analytics. This would include a user ID or password.
Justin
Hi Mike,
Thank you for this valuable resource. My question. If for example I only wanted to get data on Independent Lens sites but not PBS as a whole, can you just use http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/ as the default page during set and only install the code on Independent Lens pages OR do have to install it on the PBS.org page since it is the root. Thank you Mike. Hope to hear back.
Hi Mike,
The default page must be a page, not a directory path. There is no need to install the code on all PBS pages, you can just add it to to the Independent Lens pages. Then, the default page setting for the profile will be the default page for the Independent Lens sub directory (i.e. index.php, index.html, etc).
Hope that helps,
Justin
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title . Thanks for informative article
Wonderful advice. I was searching for tips on excluding a directory from my GA stats and found resolution #5 especially helpful. I hadn’t even thought of creating a backup profile. GA has a good description of how to go about creating a duplicate profile by the way.
Thank you so much for the a great post and useful advice. It’s really useful to me. In fact, I have some question to ask. But seem I have got the answers from all of you already.
Thank you once again for your kindness!!!
Thank you so much for the a great post and useful advice. It’s really useful to me. In fact, I have some question to ask. But seem I have got the answers from all of you already.
Thank you once again for your kindness