Understanding Google Analytics
"Google Analytics is a FREE tool that you SHOULD be using to monitor your website performance."
Google Analytics is a free program offered by Google that allows you to answer two very important questions.
1) How are visitors finding your website?
2) What are visitors doing once they're on your site?
If you don’t know how to use GA, there's no reason to install their code. Understanding the language of Google Analytics will empower you to get the most out of their tool and your SEO campaign.
The first thing you see after logging into Google Analytics is the dashboard. Understanding the terms used on the dashboard is key to understanding Google Analytics. Below you will find a basic Google Analytics Glossary. We hope you find this information useful.
Visits
The number of visitors entering your website. Keep in mind that visits are recorded by IP address, so this figure is not unique.
Page Views
The number of pages within your website that have been viewed. This is the total amount of page views from all visitors within a given amount of time.
Pages/Visits
The number of pages the average visit generates. This, of course, is an average number.
Bounce Rate
How many visitors bounced off of your website. A bounce is a visitor that enters your website from any entry page then exits the site without visiting a second page. For example, a visitor that enters your website from a search engine, spends 35 seconds on that page, then clicks the back-button without clicking on any links. This visitor bounced.
Avg. Time on Site
How long the average visitor stays on your website. As funny as this may sound, you may want users to spend a lot of time on your site OR very little. This is completely dependent on your goals. For example, if your goal is to streamline the check-out process of your ecommerce site, you're probably going to put effort into "encouraging" users to proceed from entry to conversion.
% New Visits
How many of your total visitors are new visitors versus how many of your total visitors are repeat visitors.