This posts I’m just going to explain a little about the basic use of google analytics, but we’ll start off talking about bums… 5 bums on a rugby post – It’s a simple saying that I used to use all the time in corporate world when I ran training courses on questioning techniques.

I really miss the interaction of group training sessions, I’m at my best when I’m training, it’s a real buzz knowing that you help folks to achieve isn’t it!

5 bums sitting on a rugby post

I suppose I better explain that one first right? – It’s my way of remembering how to start an open question. When in a group training session, I often take a minute of two to check that what I’m training, is getting through to my trainees… To do this I would ask the trainees specific open questions to gather information and test their understanding.

Open questions start with on of 6 words these words are – How, why, who, what,where & when.

A well crafted open question forces the person giving the answer to use a sentence whilst referencing the question. – A simple example of an open question is: How many spots on the red ball? The answer can not be  a yes or a no, plus will give an understanding of whether the trainee understands the topic.

In that example we are checking the understanding of the colour red, recognizing spots and simple maths.

Analytics Answers Questions

Every newbie get’s an ear bashing about adding analytic tracking, either via a plugin or pasting the script somewhere.  It sounds like a really technical process – But it’s super simple. If you haven’t installed google analytics on your blog yet, I’ve listed a couple of good walk-throughs below.
Welshy@ Open Education Project video
Carson @ Open Education Project Text

As soon as google analytics is installed it starts working away, in the background gathering information about your users. This data is then made easily accessible on your analytics dashboard.

You’ll have all the answers to questions that google is gathering on your behalf.

A Few Questions Analytics Asked

What – What device did you use to view us, desktop or mobile device? 

When - What page did you land on when you arrived here, what time was that?

Who – Who sent you here, google search, adwords or another website referral ?

Where – Where in the world are you visiting from, where did you go afterwards?

Why – Why did you visit, what keywords brought you here?

How – How long did you stay visiting, how many pages did you view?

 Knowing the answers to those questions above really gives to great insight that only analytics can give you. I’ve experienced plenty of occasions when analytics highlights a particular page of post as a traffic magnet that I would have easily missed.

Knowing what content really turns your readers on is crucial. I’ve often moved popular posts to their own static pages to capitalize on information gathered from google analytics. This is the simplest way to reverse engineering your own popular content and expanding on it.

Answers Form Analytics

There are so many questions that analytics asks that the answers can really open up a whole new direction and ideas for content for your site.

Real-Time reporting: Measure intrtaction as it happens

See exactly how many people are on your website today, where they came from and just what they’re seeing. With Real-Time, you’ll know whether new material on your site is popular, whether today’s promo is driving traffic to your website, and you can see the immediate effects of social media like tweets to your blog posts

Custom Reports: Get detailed info that you want.

Set up your own metrics dashboard in minutes. Instead of wading through information, you can have instant access to the answers that you need. Create reports to share with your coworkers and see insights form 3rd parties like facebook.

Advanced Segmentation: quickly evaluate particular areas of your traffic.

Why do some visits to lead to a sale while others don’t  You could find out, using Advanced Segments. Apply predefined sections such as “visits that convert” or “Free organic traffic”, or create your very own segments. Analyse individual sections and pull out what you ned.

Visualisation: Find out the path your visitors take on your website.

Google Analytics offers a variety of powerful visualization tools consisting of flow visualisation and in-page analytics. Flow visualisation reports monitor the path that a site visitor takes on your website. While in-page analytics helps to visually examine how individuals interact  with your web pages. What gets clicked on and where the mouse goes is always great information to use don’t you think?

I’ve only scratch the surface of the many benefits of installing google analytics on your websites. If you haven’t yet tried analytics give it a shot, you’ll be glad you did I guarantee it…

I do hope you enjoyed this post, if you have any questions – as always just drop them in the comments box and I’l do my best to answer them on the fly!

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