google_analytics

You may have noticed in your weekly Google Analytic Reports that are being emailed to you every Saturday (let me know if this isn’t happening for you!), we have enabled demographic tracking for each of your sites. I will walk through what gems you can find on that report as well as point out a few other statistics you can find in your Dashboard that you may overlook.

Here is a breakdown of the new statistics available in your Google Analytics Dashboard:

weekly_dashboard

  • Go to Dashboards > Weekly Dashboard
    • Here you will see statistics for the following ::
      • Unique Visitors
      • Pageviews
      • Pages / Session
      • Sessions / Day Of Week
      • Most Popular Hour
      • Sessions By User Type
      • Sessions By Source
      • Pageviews and Avg. Time On Page
      • Users By Age
      • Sessions and Avg. Time on Page
      • Website Search Terms
      • Search Keywords and Bounce Rates
    • This is the report emailed to you once a week on Saturday.

demographic_dashboard

  • Go to Audience > Demographics > Overview
    • Now you will see statistics for Gender and Age of your readers.
    • Obviously a majority of our readers will be female in the mid-twenties to early thirties, however it may surprise you the number of males reading your content or even women aged forty-plus. This may inspire you to write daddy-focused or grandparent focused content to engage those readers as well.

interest_dashboard

  • Go to Audience > Interests > Overview
    • Here you will see statistics for your reader’s interest.
      • Affinity Categories :: Affinity Categories identify groups of users on a broader scale. While the Other Categories identify areas of interest based on the type of content users consume, along with how recently and frequently they consume, Affinity Categories broaden the scope to identify users in terms of lifestyle; for example, Moms, Sports Fans, Cooking Enthusiasts, etc. These provide an opportunity to understand the behavior of your audience and also allow you to target your content and even advertising.
      • In-Market Segment :: In-Market Categories identify groups of users who are in the market for specific product categories. Meaning, the user has either recently searched for or visited sites representing that specific product category.
      • Other Categories :: Other Categories are used to classify groups of users based on the specific content that they consume, along with how recently and frequently they consume that content. This category data provides a more focused view of your users, and lets you analyze behavior and target content and ads more narrowly than Affinity Categories.
    • This feature allows you to really dig a bit deeper into what your readers are interested in, have purchased, are looking to purchase and could help guide your content as well as potential partnership opportunities with brands and sponsors.

realtime_dashboards

  • Go to Real-Time > Overview
    • Here you will see a literal snapshot of who is on your site in “real-time”. Yes, kinda like cyber-stalking!
      • Number of Active Users
      • Mobile vs. Desktop
      • Top Referrals
      • Top Social Traffic
      • Top Keywords
      • Top Active Pages
      • Top Locations
    • This feature, while not really an analysis tool per se, gives you a good idea of who is on your site at any given moment. However, it doesn’t really allow you to see patterns of behavior. It would be worthwhile to check out during what you think is a “peak” traffic time just to get a sense of the device your readers are using as well as what pages are active and to see how many visitors are actually on your site during naptime or first thing in the morning, etc.