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Every month when I go to check how my blog is doing, I continually get confused with what each item on the Google Analytics means. For most blogs, it is crucial to focus on these numbers in Google Analytics because they truly tell you how your blog is progressing, if your readers continue to return to your blog, and so much more. I recently began using it about a year ago and it has completely changed my life. Here is a look at when I first began focusing on my blog and how to interpret Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a great way to learn more about what my readers like to see and things they do not. When I change things up, I can see if they reacted in a good way or if it was a bad move and that I should rethink.
Interpret Google Analytics
- Sessions– This is the number of visits you have to your website. From the moment a user clicks to your site until they leave that is one session
- Users– This is your number of unique visitors, which includes new and returning users. If you want to see a breakdown of the number of new and returning visitors, you need to go to the left sidebar:
- Click “Audience”
- Click “Behavior”
- Click “New vs Returning”
- Pageviews- This is the number of clicks from page to page from a visitor which also includes if they went to a page multiple times.
- Pages/Session- This is the average number of pages viewed per session.
- Avg. Session Duration- This is the average duration of a session.
- Bounce Rate- This is the percentage of single page visits where a visitor enters your site and leaves before interacting with the page. [You want this number as low as possible. I have been able to get to 70% which has been a positive thing for me!]
- % New Sessions- A percentage of the estimated number of first time visitors.
Now, you can check how your website is doing. And the best part is you can customize a date range with Google Analytics and you can compare different months by customizing in the top right. How do you interpret Google Analytics?
What is your favorite thing about Google Analytics?
