Web analytics is not just a tool for measuring web traffic and can be best used for business and market research, and to improve the effectiveness or further optimize the performance of a web site.
Google Analytics is an awesome tool to measure website performance.It has got all the useful features that can serve your purpose.You don’t have to pay for any other web analytics tool, if you have got hands on knowledge of Google Analytics.
In this article,I am going to cover basic terminologies and definitions in web analytics,that is required in your daily measurement of website.
Common Web Analytics Terms Explained
Alerts
Alerts are notification sent to you,if anything abnormal happens with the overall website measurement.You can setup customized alerts. For eg: You can setup an alert if your website crosses bounce rate beyond a particular percentage.
Bounce Rate
It is the percentage of visits in which the visitor only views one page of your Website before leaving.Always make sure to lower your bounce rate.The less is the bounce rate,more is the engagement on your website.Bounce rate too is an important signal that affects google rankings.
Click
It is a single instance of a user,that follows to another URL/page through an hyperlink,either to generate an action or for better usability on a website
Conversions
Every webmaster has a goal and is waiting for that particular conversion to happen.These conversions could be a sell of a particular product, signing up for newsletter or downloading a document.you can always measure these goals in your analytics tool.
Cookies
Cookies are small text that resides inside your browser.These cookies track every activity,or to be precised every page a user visits.Users can always clear these cookies,whenever required.
Custom Reporting
Google Analytics provides a feature to create your own custom reports based on your own dimensions and metrics.You can keep them organized and access them whenever required.
Filters
Through filters,you have got every right to either eliminate or allow a particular traffic source to be measured in Google Analytics.You can eliminate traffic from particular IP or even a subdomain if required.
Goals
Goals are “something” you want to measure in analytics tool.As mentioned above,this could be a sign up or any product sell.Goals must relate to a quantifiable action that your Website’s visitors take.
Hits
A hit is a request for a small image file. This image request is how the data is transmitted from a website or app to the data collection server.
Impressions
The display of your website name in Search Engine Result Page for particular keywords generates an impression.Impression is also generated whenever your ad is displayed for a keyword in search engine.
Landing Page
Landing Page also known as entrance page is a page that a user lands upon directly either through search results or any referral source.
New Visitors
Users who have either never visited or recently not visited your site are new visitors. If a user has deleted his cookies or his cookies are expired,then the user is treated as a new visitor.
Organic Traffic
The traffic your website gains through search engines is an organic traffic.It is also termed as natural traffic.
Paid Traffic
The traffic your website gains through paid campaigns like Pay-per-click Ad campaigns is a paid traffic.If you are into multiple paid traffic channels,this data helps you in analyzing a quality paid traffic source for website.
Page View
The amount of times visitors land on different pages of your Website. If a user reloads a page, that action will be counted as an additional page view. A person on page A,moves on page B, and again lands on page A, then total page views are 3.
Referring Sites
Other websites that send visitors to your website are referring sites.You can focus more on these sites that are referring more traffic and analyze campaigns on sites that are not driving much traffic.
Returning Visitor
A visitor who come backs to your website in a defined session is termed as returning visitor.Whenever a visitor returns to the website,it means visitor is interested in your website or product.
Session
When the analytics tool detects that the user is no longer active it will terminate the session and start a new one when the user becomes active.
Most analytics tools use 30 minutes of inactivity to separate sessions. This 30-minute period is called the timeout.
Time on Site
An average amount of time a visitor spends on a website is termed as time on your website.You must have a good engaging website to increase an overall time on your website.Try to build an interactive website,that will increase duration and engagement of your website.
Tracking Code
A small piece of javascript code that helps you in tracking website traffic through Google Analytics.It has to be placed on those pages which you want to track.Remember to place the code before </head> of your web page.
Traffic
An overall count of visitors of your website through all different sources is termed as traffic of your website.
Unique Visitor
The number of non-duplicate or non-repeating visitors to your website in a particular session are termed as unique visitors.
Visitor
A person visiting your website is termed as a visitor in web analytics.
Visits
The number of times website is being accessed by visitors is defined as visits to your website.
With all above Google Analytics terminologies
explained and the amount of data you have,You can definitely optimize your website in a better way and take it to the next level.