features on a monthly or even weekly basis. Thus, a tutorial that is even a month old can be obsolete. The following summarizes what the Associate discovered when he went through the “Acquisitions” Tab and the “Audience” Tab in Google Analytics, feature by feature. Acquisitions SIS has a great interest in where their visitors are coming from, so the Associate decided to explore the “Acquisitions” set of GA features first. The Associate looked at the “Acquisitions” section/tab in order to determine what information he could access. “Acquisitions” both the “Overview” and the “Channels” section are marked as “NEW” so not a whole lot of information is available about them as far as tutorials are concerned. The “Overview” reports how many people arrive at your site from Referrals (being directed from other web sites), from direct traffic, from searching on Google and from social media. “Channels” shows the same information as “Overview”; however, it gives a little more detail (the addition of the number of new visits, percentage of new visitors, bounce rate and average visit duration). This section also allows you to drill down deeper. “Referrals” you to the actual sites that led users to the SIS sites. “Organic Search” shows the actual keywords typed into Google, “Social” shows the traffic from social media sites. “Direct” is the traffic that went right to the sites. (For “Organic Search” Google sometimes reports “Not provided.” This occurs when someone is searching while logged into their Google account. If someone is logged into Google (Gmail, Google+, etc.) it does not provide the search terms used.) “All Traffic” simply gives a ranking of the most popular traffic sites irrespective of the source (i.e. referral, direct traffic, social or an organic search)
map indicating where in the world people are accessing SIS Web site. (You can drill down to the city-level). The “Behavior” section has a “New vs. Returning” subset that shows new and returning visitors. The “Frequency and Recency” shows the number of people who visited, how many pages they viewed while on the site and how often that person visited in the specified window of time. For instance, the page/dimrc.html had 19 people who came to the site 201 or more separate times, in the same month. While they were on the site they visited 24 pages. (This could be people who work in SIS.) “Engagement” shows how long visits lasted. The “Technology” section has a subset called “Browser and OS,” which tells what Internet browsers people used to access the sites. It also tells what operating system visitors used as well as the screen color and resolution. (This might be helpful in the future if SIS wants to update some of its Internet resources. SIS could use this data to optimize performance and display for the most frequently used operating systems, browsers and screen resolution and color.) “Network” shows what Internet service provider is used by the visitor to SIS web sites. (Universities’ networks appear and networks from corporations also appear.) This may help indirectly answer some of the questions regarding the demographics of the web sites’ visitors. Under “Mobile,” the “Overview” section tells you how many people access SIS sites via desktops, tablets and mobile phones. (It addresses new visits and bounce rates, etc. just like it does in the regular “overview” section for traditional traffic from desktop/laptops). “Devices” shows the actual device that people use to access the sites. SIS is not using the “Custom” section as of yet. The “Visitor Flow” section shows the same information that is presented in the “Geo” Tab. “Visitor Flow” just shows it in a different layout. SIS will not pursue the “Interest” and “Demographics” reports, so the Associate did not explore these subsections. Step 4: a Google Analytics Dashboard that Provides Insight
Step 3: The Dashboard appears full screen. There are several options for editing and adjusting the dashboard. Option: Changing the title of the dashboard. Step1: click on the title and it will turn yellow. Edit the text in the yellow region and click “save.” Option: Editing a widget in the dashboard. Click the “x” to remove a widget from the dashboard and click the “pencil” icon to edit the widget. Editing the widget allows you to adjust its appearance on the dashboard (pie chart vs. bar graph vs. line graph, etc.) The pencil icon will also let you change the name of the widget. Option: Adding a widget to the dashboard Step 1: go to the main page of the Google Analytics account you are working in and click on “Standard Reports.” Then pick a report that you want to view. Step 2: For example clicking on “New vs Returning” brings up that report. Click “Add to Dashboard” and follow the prompts. This will put the widget on the dashboard. (There is a limit of 12 widgets per dashboard) Step 3: Click on “Dashboard,” under “My Stuff” and select the Dashboard that you sent the widget to. Then the widget will appear.