I'm a simple guy. I like things just as simple as they possibly can be. For this reason, I'm starting this blog. I'm trying to make Google Analytics simple for both myself and others.
Already, I can see that Google Analytics is a powerful powerful tool. Here's some of the things it allows you to do:
- Keep track of your website traffic. This is the primary purpose of Google Analytics. If it were not for website traffic, Google Analytics would not exist.
- Keep track of how long your web visitors stay on your website. This is important! There's very little to be gained if your web visitors take one look at your website and then go somewhere else immediately.
- Not only can Google Analytics tell you how long, on average, your web visitors stay on your site, it can also tell whether or not your visitors decide to look at a second page on your site.
Think how you would feel if every time someone came over to your house for a visit, they left immediately, within 15 minutes. I assume you'd feel badly, unless, of course, you sell pizza out of your garage, or something like that.
On the web, 15 minutes is 15 seconds. If web visitors don't like your site, or feel that it has nothing to offer them, they leave immediately, in just a few seconds. Google Analytics can tell you whether or not this is happening.
People blow through websites the way they blow through TV channels when channel surfing with their remote. If something does not catch their fancy, or meet their desires, they are gone. On the web, gone forever in most cases.
The term dwell time is used to describe both the quantity and quality of a web visitors visit to your site. Quality means the user interacts with your site --- reading what you've written, for example. Quantity means your web visitor stays awhile to hang out on your site.
I find it fascinating to think about how both quality and quantity undoubtedly work together. I doubt, for example, that if a visitor stops by your site, leaves your site in their browser window, and then goes to lunch, that you will be credited by Google for such a weak interaction with your web visitor. There are ways to filter out statistical anomalies like this.
What about quality? If this same web visitor decides not to go to lunch and, instead, browses your website taking the time to read one page at a time, surely Google has a way to figure that out too.
Maybe not precisely, but generally. For example Google knows it when you decide to use the Google search engine again and again to search for topic specific information on the same website.
Here's someone who appears to know more about this than I do. He says that Google does not use Google Analytics to help them determine search result rankings:
The 2 User Metrics That Matter for SEO
I'm convinced. Google does not use Google Analytics to help determine search results. However, it's a wonderful insight into how they think, isn't it?
Since Google Analytics seems to put a high value on dwell time, Google Search probably also puts a high value on dwell time. While there might be a wall of separation between Google Search and Google Analytics, there can still be some crossover in their thinking and general philosphy.
In fact, I suspect, Google Analytics is probably designed to encourage good behavior, among other things. If you are doing well on Google Analytics, you are probably doing well on Google Search too.
That's what I mean by good behavior. Why not give people a tool that not only helps them analyze their website traffic, but also helps them to become better web citizens too? I suspect this is what Google has done.
There's an overriding principle here and that is that there is more than one way to climb over the fence. Getting people to be good web citizens is very very difficult to do. However, if you build them a tool that helps them see why being a good web citizen is in their best interest, you're probably going to get a better result.
My father used to say, You get more files with honey than
vinegar.
Google Analytics is honey and lecturing people
on their shortcomings and telling them they really should
be better net citizens is vinegar.
It's better to show people what they are doing wrong rather than tell them they are doing wrong. Google Analytics shows you what you are doing wrong.
Ed Abbott
