website monitoring

some parameters to watch – who, what, where, how, when, why

GA

Google Analytics https://analytics.google.com/

audiences overview

the classic matrices

users
new users
sessions
number of sessions per user
pageview
pages/sessions
avg. session duration
bounce rate

insights

not good signals

new users lower than forecast

pageviews drop (vs. spike)

fewer returned users

home

devices

you may have to worry if your mobile pie slice is <20% (be careful what the tablet lovers told you vs. reality)

Channels

Organic Search vs. Direct

it is kind of unusual if you see something like this, 80+% organic search is most likely

GA top channels chart #1 48% organic search

GA top channels chart #2, 86% organic search — v

source/medium

which search engines? (usually mainly google, like it or not)

social

diverse enough? how many different platforms? only coming from 1 or 2 ?

Behavior Flow

don’t spend too much time on your navigation with drop off between iterations like this. they most likely come from search and leave after landing page (may be back to search if not what they want)

Active Users

more info than in home screen
may want to worry about the big drop off (if not “normal” seasonal)

Demographics

10% 18-24, your main audience not likely perspective students

GA Demographics age chart #2 - only 3 groups

interest

Geo

ok not intended for international audience, otherwise, something to look at

something may be wrong if the dashboard report has unexpected result like this

vs. reaching 200+ countries, almost 10 thousands cities

extra

you can also exclude domain from report e.g. if you want to filter out on campus (and VPN) traffic – add exclude *.wfu.edu

site speed

how many pages > 1 seconds? (how many of your top 10 are >3 seconds, you got a problem – is it the server? plugin? for those >10 seconds, > 20 seconds, > 30 seconds … …

OS

trust your number, not what each of the religions enthusiasts told you what they think

search console integration – queries, CTR

< 10 positions? > 90% click through rate. what’s the chance someone click on something > position #20

GA SC search query average position chart

Google Search Console

https://search.google.com/search-console/

other things you can look at going direct into the service instead of using GA integration

position

> 10? >20? (when was the last time you click to page 3 of google search results?) improving over time?

clicks & impressions

dropping over time is not good

mobile usability

any errors?

redirection wordpress plugin

https://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/

if you didn’t delete any page (did you? why? OCD? shame on you, put a redirect in at least), 404 mostly just robots with wrong addresses, and attacks (some with questionable user agents). you may need to drill down into raw access, error logs or metrics analyzers (analog, awstats, webalizer) to find more information