Google Analytics: Visitor Section Reports
Visitors Overview: How many new and returning visitors came to your site and how extensively
did they interact with your content? This traffic overview allows you to drill down into aspects of
visit quality (i.e. average page views, time on site, bounce rate) and visit characteristics (i.e. first
time visitors, returning visits).
Visits: The number of visits your site receives is the most basic measure of how effectively you
promote your site. Starting and stopping ads, changing your keyword buys, viral marketing
events, and search rank are some examples of factors that influence the number of visits your site
receives.
Pageviews: Pageviews is the total number of pages viewed on your site and is a general measure
of how much your site is used. It is more useful as a basic indicator of the traffic load on your
site and server than as a marketing measure.
Average Pageviews: Average pageviews is one way of measuring visit quality. A high Average
Pageviews number suggests that visitors interact extensively with your site. A high Average
Pageviews results from one or both of:
1. Appropriately targeted traffic (i.e. visitors who are interested in what your site offers
2. High quality content effectively presented on the site.
Conversely, a low average page views indicates that the traffic coming to the site has not been
appropriately targeted to what the site offers or that the site does not deliver what was promised
to the visitor.
Time on Site: Time on site is one way of measuring visit quality. If visitors spend a long time
visiting your site, they may be interacting extensively with it. However, Time on site can be
misleading because visitors often leave browser windows open when they are not actually
viewing or using your site.
Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person
left your site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce
rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren't relevant to your visitors. You can
minimize Bounce Rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing
pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.
New vs. Returning: A high number of new visitors suggests that you are successful at driving
traffic to your site while a high number of return visitors suggests that the site content is
engaging enough to keep visitors coming back. You can see how frequently visitors return and
how many times they return in ‘Recency’ report and the ‘Loyalty report’, both under ‘New vs.
Returning’ in the Visitors section.
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Map Overlay: Use this map to visualize volume (visits, page views) and quality (pageviews per
visit, conversion rates, per visit value, etc.) metrics by geographic region. Click on any region to
zoom into the city level.
Languages: Which languages do your visitors prefer to use and how do these groups of visitors
differ with respect to site usage, conversions, and other metrics? This report captures the
preferred language that visitors have configured on their computers. Understanding who your
visitors are is crucial to developing the right content and optimizing your marketing spend. Many
times, geo-location is not enough. Many countries have diverse populations speaking different
languages which present important market targeting opportunities.
Loyalty (Visitor Behavior): Loyal visitors are frequently highly engaged with your brand and a
high number of multiple visits indicate good customer/visitor retention. A high number of new
visitors (i.e. those on the left of the histogram) indicate strong visitor recruitment. On this
histogram, your most loyal visitors are shown on the right and your new and least loyal visitors
are shown on the left.
Recency (Visitor Behavior): The frequency with which visitors return to your site can indicate
their level of engagement with your brand and their readiness to buy. On this histogram, visitors
are categorized according to the number of days that have elapsed since their last visit. For
example, new visitors are included in the "0" bar at the left of the histogram. Visitors who last
visited the site more than one year ago are included in the 366+ bar.
Length of Visit (Visitor Behavior): Length of visit is a measure of visit quality. A large number
of lengthy visits suggest that visitors interact more extensively with your site. The graph allows
you to visualize the entire distribution of visits instead of simply the ‘Average Time on Site’
across all visits. Keep in mind that ‘Average Time on Site’ is skewed by visitors leaving browser
windows open when they are not actually viewing or using your site. You can see whether a few
visits are skewing your ‘Average Time on Site’ upward or whether most visits to your site have a
high average time.
Depth of Visit (Visitor Behavior): Depth of visit is a measure of visit quality. A large number
of high page views per visit suggest that visitors interact extensively with your site. The graph
allows you to visualize the entire distribution of visits instead of simply the average page views
per visit. You can see whether a few visits are skewing your average page views per visit upward
or whether most visits to your site result in a high number of pages being viewed.
Browsers (Browser Capabilities): Which browsers do your visitors use? Optimizing your site
for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can
result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
Operating Systems (Browser Capabilities): Which operating systems do your visitors use?
Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more
engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
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Browsers and OS (Browser Capabilities): Which browsers/operating system combinations do
your visitors use? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your
site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
Screen Colors (Browser Capabilities): How many screen colors can your visitors see?
Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more
engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
Screen Resolutions (Browser Capabilities): Which screen resolutions do your visitors use?
Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more
engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
Flash Versions (Browser Capabilities): Which versions of Flash do your visitors have
installed? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site
more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
Java Support (Browser Capabilities): Is Java supported on your visitors' platforms?
Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more
engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.
Network Location (Network Properties): Which internet service providers do your visitors
use? This report allows you to track the internet service provider (ISP) domains to which the user
resolves. The domain is determined by the internet service that owns the user's internet _protocol
(IP) identifier.
Hostnames (Network Properties): From which hosts are people visiting your site? Hostnames
sometimes provide insight into organizations that are interested in what you offer.
Connection Speeds (Network Properties): Which connection speeds are your visitors using?
Optimizing your site so that it loads quickly for most visitors can result in higher conversion
rates and more sales.
User Defined: This report allows you to compare visitors from custom segments that you have
defined. You define these segments by calling the utm_setvar function in your website code. For
example, if visitors fill out a form on your site in which they provide a professional title (such as
"manager", "technical specialist", "marketer"), you can call utm_setvar to capture and store their
selections in the user defined variable. This report allows you to compare the visitor segments
you have captured.
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