(This is my sister's dog, Guinness, looking for a frisbee under the snow. Maybe some of you feel like this when you open up your Google Analytics reporting.)

In my previous blog post, I mentioned how to define what is important to your specific business needs in your Web Analytics tool. And the first step is to actually step outside the tool and answering some basic questions about your business, site, ideal visitor, and what you want your ideal online client to do. In this post, I will be guiding you how to now use the answer to these questions to locate relevant reporting in any web analytics tool, although in this post I’m focusing on Google Analytics.

Please keep in mind the information in this post is very condensed and is meant a quick reference guide. In the future I will be writing more specific content on each of these reports and this post is meant as a “get your butt into Google Analytics!” push instead of “Ahh! scared of Google Analytics and don’t want to even log in”.

If you answered these questions in my last post, you should find that there are certain areas of your site or specific interactions that interest you most. These area are where we want to focus our attention on initially and when you open up GA, keep that in mind. The broad areas of focus are the following: Content, Navigation, Incoming Channels, Visitors.

The below table defines a possible interests you might have in each of these broad areas and then an example of what information or "answer" Google Analytics  provides with reporting.

Focus Areas

What interests me?

What is GA telling me?

Content

I want to know what content users are having a blast with.

“Blog content is waayy popular on my site, more than my services or any other page. Maybe I should spend more time creating blog content than developing other areas of my site.”

Navigation

I want to know if my site is smooth riding or if there is a specific process that users are getting stuck in.

“It looks like users are getting stuck in the second step of my registration process. I’m going to do more investigation why and see how I can fix this!”

Incoming Channels

I want to know how users are getting to my site (where are they coming from?).

“Interesting! 75% of my users are coming from social media. Also, there is an affiliate site that is bringing in traffic I wasn’t aware of. I’m going to reach out to see if we can partner up for a collaboration.”

Visitors

I want to know more about my visitors when they visit my site.

“Woah..the large majority of my visitors use Google Chrome on Mac. I have an upcoming redesign so I’m going to make sure my new site is absolutely compatible with this browser type.”

See where I’m going with this? Now, I want you to focus on ONE AREA. I’m sure all these areas are interesting to you (since they are the basic components of any site) but for now, just start with one. Which of these would you choose to stay stranded with you on a deserted island for a weekend (along with a lot of coconut water and the latest Bjork album). Got it? Ok, let’s move on.

So now that you have your highest priority focus area, tada! We will add an extra column to our handy table.

Cool Topics

What interests me?

Google Analytics Reporting Match-Up

Content

I want to know what content users are having a blast with.

Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages

Navigation

I want to know if my site is smooth riding or if there is a specific area that are getting stuck and then leaving.

Behaviour > Behaviour Flow

Behaviour > In Page Analytics

Incoming Channels

I want to know how users are getting to my site (where are they coming from).

Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels

Visitors

I want to know more about my visitors when they visit my site.

Audience > Overview

The reports in the last column are ‘starting point’ reports, which means that the idea is to open up that report, and click around maybe a couple times before finding something helpful. In terms of metrics, starting with “Sessions” (which basically counts as a visit) is the way to go. For Navigation, you will want to also want to pay attention to Bounces and Exits.

Remember to initially go in with one question and stay focused on those reports. Ignore anything that is unrelated and doesn’t make sense initially.

Let me know what areas you focused on and what questions you are looking to answer through Google Analytics by sending me an email at cinthia@digmorphosis.com. You can also post your comments below! Don’t be scared of your analytics!