How To Get More From Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best known analytics tools. Although there’s now plenty of competition, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get everything you want from this fantastic Google tool. Here are some of the things you can do to improve your use of Google Analytics.

Leave Yourself Out

If you’ve ever spent some time installing a new WordPress theme or tweaking your site design, you’ll know that you spend a lot of time on the site. You may also spend time adding content, checking that it looks good, tweaking and checking again – and that activity shows up in your site stats. Since you don’t really need to know how often you visit your own site, then it’s best to leave those visits out. Google Analytics makes this easy by letting you exclude your IP address from tracking via a custom filter.

Check Social Media Activity

Ever wondered how you could track all those likes, tweets and shares to see what kind of social media pull your site has? Once again, Google Analytics has the answer with the track pageview function. Add the right piece of code to your social media button (suitably customized so you can tell where the source of the click is) and you will be able to find out how people are sharing your content via social media in your Analytics dashboard. Check this post on on Hongkiat for more detail.

Compare and Contrast

When you log into Google Analytics, you don’t have to stick with the default view. This shows you stats for the past month up to the previous day. There are two things you can do to make this data more relevant. The first is to manually select the last available date to give you stats up to the previous hour – which means you can figure out what’s happening with your site in almost real time. The second is to click the ‘compare to past’ check box to see how interaction with your site has changed month on month. It’s useful to be able to see what content is increasing in importance and what content is less popular so you can make changes.

Report Back

One often underused feature in Google Analytics is custom reporting. This is a great way to drill down into the really crucial data on your site. Want to find out how many people are really engaged with your site? Check out and customize the Non-Flirts report available on Occam’s Razor. Want to know how many people search specifically for your brand? Or how many people came to your site via the links you tweeted, liked or shared? Custom reporting can help you work it out. The feature is easy to use with drag and drop parameters and the ability to test your report to see if it’s giving you anything useful. And to make your Google Analytics reports even more useful, you can email them to yourself (or anyone else who needs access to them).

This was a post by Lior Levin who works for an applicant tracking software company and also advises to a neon signs online store

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41 Comments


  2. ·

    Hi Melanie,

    I must confess I was curious about how you came by all the tech expertise, too, Melanie! Way to go.

    I knew about excluding my IP address but was too lazy to figure out how to do it, so thanks for the nudge. The other things sound interesting too, so I’ll need to check them out! I do love stats.

    Thank you, Melanie!


    1. ·

      Hi Marcia,

      I’m not too proud to say “technical, statistical, and analytical” are adjectives people would NEVER use to describe me.

      I went straight to the short tutorial video Keith Davis posted in his comment here and was able to remove my IP address from my stats — one of the rare occasions where I could actually complete the necessary steps without having to send out an S.O.S. 🙂

      Glad you’re in love with stats. Now I know where to turn when I need help figuring mine out! LOL


      1. ·

        Hi Mel / Marcia
        John Hoff is the sort of guy who will help if you are having problems or don’t follow anything in his videos..

        Whenever I’m really stuck, I send John an email.
        He’s a great guy.

        How did it go with the Royal Wedding?
        I watched some of it and had a good time.


        1. ·

          Hey Keith!

          I phoned my Aunt Sonya yesterday. She lives 3000 miles away and it was her 74th birthday.

          Guess what she was planning to do to for fun on her birthday?

          She was setting her alarm clock as she headed off to bed so she could awaken to watch the Royal Wedding! She’s absolutely enamored with British royalty. 🙂

          Thanks again for directing everyone to John Hoff. He comes across as a genuine soul. Good to know he opens his mail.

    2. Lior Levin
      ·

      Excluding your IP address is one of the best hacks for small websites as it really changes the way you understand your analytics.


  3. ·

    I need to go explore that custom report feature and use it more. Google Analytics is worth the time to explore in terms of all the amazing info we can get and improve our websites/blogs with.


    1. ·

      Hi Michelle,

      Sounds like a plan! Let us know about your exploration through the custom report feature. Better yet, put up a blog post and we’ll dash over to read all about it. 🙂

      Your content repurposing challenge looks awesome! I’ll be stopping by to post my link and which platforms I’ll be choosing to transform my post. Thank you!


  4. ·

    Great tips!! Now I need to find the time to use them!! Thanks!!


    1. ·

      Hello Holly!

      Learning how to maximize on everything Google Analytics has to offer you is well worth the time! Just knowing where your visitors are coming from is absolutely priceless. That piece of information will help you know precisely where you want to focus your efforts.

      If most of your visitors are coming from Facebook, for example, where do you think you need to be hanging out? (not a trick question) 🙂

      Thanks for the visit today!

    2. Lior Levin
      ·

      Time is money Holy 🙂

      Learning more from your analytics is worth money!


  5. ·

  6. ·

    Analytics is good and free. 🙂

    Honestly, Google Analytics is a big help to improve my blog since it provides the complete data of traffic related information.


    1. ·

      Hello Dana!

      I have a feeling you keep a close watch on your stats. Good for you! 🙂

      Glad you stopped by today.


  7. ·

    I love google analytics! Google offers such great tools for FREE! Can’t beat that plus they are really awesome!


    1. ·

      I’m with you, Jen — ya can’t beat awesome tools that are FREE, to boot!

      Sounds like you’ve got a good grip on Google Analytics. And given your expertise, I’m sure you know a heck of a lot more than I do about all the functions and features. I’m envious! 🙂

      Thank you so much for coming by.

    2. Lior Levin
      ·

      They are great. And they just launched a new version recently. What else can you ask from a software provider?


    1. ·

      Super helpful, Keith, and thanks!

      I just viewed John’s video on creating a filter in Google Analytics to block your own IP address. Very nicely done and easy to follow.

      Appreciate your thoughtfulness and support. 🙂

      Mel


      1. ·

        John is one of the web’s good guys.
        He has a great ability to explain technical things in language we all understand.

        And his voice…
        I kid him that he has the sexiest voice on the web.
        What do you think Mel? LOL


        1. ·

          Oh, I’d agree with that, Keith! No question about it … very sexy. 🙂

          He did such a bang up job in his tutorial video, I’ve already completed the entire process and I’m now officially filtering out my own IP. Only took a couple of minutes.

          And it’s all thanks to you. 🙂

          Mel


  9. ·

    Melanie,

    Okay, saw the title of this post and had to come see just how techie you had become! Surprise Surprise. Borrowing expertise from another makes for a great guest post.

    I did know about leaving myself and all other admin personnel out of my analytics. If you are using WordPress that option is usually given right in the settings of your analytics plugin.

    Thanks for the links I am always up for making the most of the tools I use. These are two really great references.


    1. ·

      I hope you didn’t faint at the title of this post, Sheila, thinking I was suddenly and somehow, magically, cured from technophobia. LOL!

      I need to be careful — I don’t want to cause any heart palpitations, shortness of breath, or any other other medical conditions directly related to my blog. 🙂

      Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll check out the referenced posts. Might be a nugget or two within, even for someone with your level of expertise.

      On another note …

      Your headline-writing contest is about to come to a close. Just a few more days. I’m SO anxious to see the entries! Thanks again, Sheila, for recruiting me as one of your three judges. Exciting opportunity! 🙂


    1. ·

      Hope you can implement an idea or two here, Leanne, and thank you so much for taking time out to come by and read Lior’s guest post.

      Appreciate you more than you know. 🙂


  11. ·

    Really informative piece! Thanks Melanie and Lior! =) I had no idea that I could exclude my IP. I’ll have to remember to do so though, every time I reset my router when there are lightning bolts here!

    I also loved the Hongkiat article on tracking social media buttons. I hope I figure out how to work with that code. =P


    1. ·

      You’re welcome, Sam!

      I know what you mean about adding a piece of “code” to your website. Frankly, I’m clueless so I hope I can figure it out, as well.

      I hesitate to try and “edit” anything on my site. Some part of me keeps saying … “Hands off! Off limits to you!” I have this big fear of going way over my head and screwing something up big time. I have a feeling I’m not alone in my thinking. 🙂

      I didn’t know I could exclude my own IP, either. But I do now — thanks to Lior.

      Appreciate seeing you here today.


      1. ·

        Nice post on GA here Melanie. GA should be every webmaster’s and owner’s best friend. 🙂

        Hey Sam,

        You can use events, or use “onclick” to track your social media buttons’ activities.


        1. ·

          Thanks for participating in the conversation, Jun, and it’s nice to meet you!

          I’m sure Samantha will appreciate your suggestion. Very nice of you to offer the help. 🙂

          Looks like you’re talking about SEO over at your blog. Great! I’m getting better at it and starting to understand more about it, but I’ve got a long way to go.


          1. ·

            Nice meeting you too Melanie. Yep, I’m into SEO and PPC campaign management where Google Analytics plays a very important role. 🙂


        2. ·

          Thanks so much for the suggestion, Jun! =) That doesn’t sound too difficult at all!

          P.S. I love how our last names are so similar. =P


  12. ·

    Wow Lior – you are giving up the goods with this post! The Occam’s Razor article is long and has some great tips! The Hongkiat article is excellent too!

    Thank you. This will definitely improve my use of Google analytics. And… as I learn more tools and functions, I can look for them in other analytics software such as clicky. Knowledge is power.

    ~Theresa

    Thanks for having such a great guest post Melanie!


    1. ·

      Agreed, Theresa — knowledge is powerful!

      Thanks for swinging by to give Lior’s post a read.

      I don’t know much at all about analytics so it’s wonderful to have access to some super helpful resources, tips, and further reading.

      Sounds like you and I are going to be busy for a while gleaning all we can about how to get a lot more from Google analytics! 🙂


  13. ·

    This is a great post. Apparently analytics will do far more than what I understood previously. I’ve dug around on there quite a bit, even so far as viewing many of the pages that are linking to my site, but I was not aware of keeping track of your social status like this. Thank you for sharing.


    1. ·

      Thanks for the visit, Bill, and it’s nice to meet you.

      I’m glad you were able to grab a little nugget from Lior’s post in regards to tracking your social media stats.

      Take a couple of minutes and check out the other links he’s included here, too. Looks like some darn good info!


  14. ·

    I recentl signed up for Google Analytics and being the technology crippled I am this comes at a great time!
    There are so many of these things I didn’t know.,Will check them out and get back on it worked!


    1. ·

      Hi Hajra,

      They say “timing is everything in life”, so I’m happy to hear the timing of this guest post was right and ripe for you!

      I’m technology-crippled, too — so take some solace in knowing you’re far from being alone. Be sure to click the links in Lior’s post because I have a feeling you’re going to find a lot more very helpful analytics information.

      I wish I had a prize for who shows up first here in the comment box — YOU are oftentimes first. 🙂


      1. ·

        Ooo…you should do that… the prize thing!

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