Introduction Some of this section has been excerpted from Wikipedia.2 Google Analytics (GA) is used supply information about the visitors’ usage of your department’s Villanova website. You can see how many visits your site received, average time spent on the site, new or repeat visitors, referring site, when visitors viewed your site, if visitors used a mobile device, what browsers visitors used, bounce rates, visitor’s geographic location, etc. Each department has their own gmail account and password to access GA for your department’s website. UNIT has done the java script coding on your department’s webpage to enable GA; so you only need to (1) login to GA using your department’s gmail account and password; and then (2) view and analyze the data being reported. GA's reporting approach is to show high level -type data, and give you the ability via links or drop down menus to analyze more in-depth data further into the report. See Wikipedia for additional information. Data Accuracy-Limitations Quoted from Wikipedia: Filters: Many ad filtering programs and extensions (such as Firefox's Adblock and NoScript) can block the Google Analytics Tracking Code “GATC”. This prevents some traffic and users from being tracked, and leads to holes in the collected data. Privacy networks like Tor will mask the user's actual location and present inaccurate geographical data. JavaScript: Some users do not have JavaScript-enabled/capable browsers or turn this feature off. The largest potential impact on data accuracy comes from users deleting or blocking Google Analytics cookies. Cookies: Without cookies being set, GA cannot collect data. Any individual web user can block or delete cookies resulting in the data loss of those visits for GA users. Mobile Phones: Because GA uses a page tagging technique to collect visitor information via a combination of JavaScript and cookies, it has limitations with websites browsed from mobile phones. This is because only the latest phones are currently able to run JavaScript or set cookies. Before You Begin You need to know your department’s Google email and password. You can request this via a help desk ticket (assigned to Operations) or ask someone in your department who currently has access to give you the Google Analytics credentials. Access Google Analytics Open your browser Navigate to www.googleanalytics.com
The Map Overlay section displays (in gradients of color) your visitors’ geographic location. Click the “view report” link to display additional details by each geographic location. Traffic Sources Overview Section This section displays numbers and percentages on how your visitors arrived at your site: a referred site, via a search engine, or via a direct URL. Click the “view report” link to display the traffic sources and also view the keyword search sources. (See the YouTube video listed in the Reference section on keywords and bounce rates.) Content Overview Section This section displays numbers and percentages for each pageview in your site, listed by its URL. Using Analytics Tips: When viewing various sections of your Google Analytics report, don’t forget to click links and check out what options are in drop down menus. Email Reports to Yourself You have the ability to have a custom report emailed to you and others on the spot or scheduled when you want, e.g., daily, weekly, etc. To Send or Schedule an Email Report: Click the “Email” icon at the top of the Dashboard. Two tabs appear in the Set Up Email: Dashboard: “Send Now” and “Schedule.” Complete the fields on the preferred tab. Click the “Send” (or “Schedule”) icon when finished. Villanova’s IP Address Villanova’s IP addresses start with 153.104.xx.xx Additional Resources “Google Analytics Guide” from GA’s Help link Google Analytics from left menu Google Analytics YouTube : LinkedIn Group: Google Analytics Action Items Obtain your Google Analytics login credentials for your department. See which pages drive the most page views on your site from the Top Content report. This report can answer questions you have about your most or least effective pages - for example, a (>70%) indicates a landing page that should be considered for redesign. Schedule an email to send automatic reports, e.g., monthly which compares the previous month.