Google Analytics for Your
Department’s Website
Quick Start Guide
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 rates1, 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
dashboard-type data, and
give you the ability via
links or drop down menus
to analyze more in-depth
data further into the report.
Data Accuracy-Limitations
Quoted from Wikipedia:2
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.
See Wikipedia for additional information.
Before You Begin
You need to know your department’s Google
email and password. You can request this via a
1
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits
or visits in which the person left your site from the
entrance (landing) page. <70% is a good rate.
Villanova UNIT Training© Sept. 2011
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics
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Google Analytics for Your
Department’s Website
Quick Start Guide
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
Dashboard Section
The Dashboard defaults to display one
month of site views.
Use the “Advanced Segments” drop down
(top right) to change All Visits options; or
use the “Date” drop down to change the
time period
and/or to
compare to
another
time period.
Use the “Visits tab” drop down to view
other options.
Click Access Analytics
Type in your department’s gmail account
and password
You are automatically taken to your
department's analytics site.
Reports Overview Screen
Your report is broken into different
sections. The top has menu items. The left
side is the navigation pane. The dashboard
is on the right which displays a quick
overview of your site usage.
Use the “Graph by: Day/Week/Month”
icons to change the displayed time frame.
Site Usage Section
This helpful section gives you a quick
overview of how your site traffic is doing.
Below the Dashboard are various
information panels which display different
types of data and may contain links or drop
down menu.
Villanova UNIT Training© Sept. 2011
It displays the number of visits to your site,
the number of individual pages viewed
within your site, averages how many pages
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Google Analytics for Your
Department’s Website
Quick Start Guide
a visitor viewed per visit, displays the
bounce rate1, the average time a visitor
spent at your site, and the number of new
visits to your site.
Each site usage name can be clicked to
reveal greater details.
For example, clicking the “Visits” link
provides additional daily detail:
You can easily track if a marketing event,
such as an email blast with your URL, is
successful.
Map Overlay Section
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.
Visitors Overview Section
The Visitors Overview section displays a
graph of data points and allows you to
mouse over a point on the graph to obtain
more detail.
Traffic Sources Overview Section
Click the “view report” link to display
visitor segmentation (languages, location),
and technical information (browsers used.)
Villanova UNIT Training© Sept. 2011
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.
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Google Analytics for Your
Department’s Website
Quick Start Guide
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.
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.
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
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.
Villanova UNIT Training© Sept. 2011
Additional Resources
 Wikipedia
 “Google Analytics Guide” from GA’s
Help link
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Google Analytics for Your
Department’s Website
Quick Start Guide
 Google Analytics Product Tour from left
menu
 Google Analytics YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/googleanalytic
s?utm_source=newbieemail0&utm_med
ium=email&utm_campaign=en_us#p/u/
14/_qfG2d9etvk
 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 high bounce rate
(>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.
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