Read part 1 of “How to Understand Google Analytics Reports” here.

Read part 2 of “How to Understand Google Analytics Reports” here.

The last part of this 3-part series on understanding Google Analytics covers the last five pages of the sample report [download it here]. Let’s start with the map overlay.

The map overlay section is a breakdown of the countries your website’s traffic is coming from. In the sample report, the majority of the traffic came from the United States. The numbers that follow show the amount of visitors from each country, the average time they spent on the website, what percentage of the visitors were new, and their bounce rate. You’ll also see the comparison to last month in the sample report.

This information is somewhat helpful in understanding where traffic comes from, but a customized report that drills down to a more local level would be more beneficial. The report can be configured to show this data, but it isn’t configured in the default Google Analytics report, as demonstrated in the example.

The next section down is titled “Content Overview”. This is one of my favorite sections of the report because it shows the most popular pages for the website. There is also a term here that we haven’t defined yet – “Unique Views”. Google defines unique views as “pageviews that are generated by the same user during the same session. A unique view represents the number of sessions during which that page was viewed one or more times.” [source]

For this site, the home page is the most frequently viewed page on the site, which I suspect will be the case for the majority of websites. The report shows the number of pageviews for each page down the list, and the percentage of total pageviews this number represents. It is also compared to the last month’s pageviews to contrast traffic to the previous month.

Lastly, the “New vs. Returning” section breaks down visitor types by numbers. As you can see in this sample report, new visitors outweight returning visitors by a margin of only 54. In the previous month, however, new visitors took the title. If goals are configured in your Google Analytics dashboard, these numbers will also appear here. Google has a great article about getting these setup for your Analytics account.

The sample report we used as an outline for this series of articles is the default report available from Google Analytics. Analytics users can configure customized reports that offer information that is helpful for their specific website. The online dashboard for Analytics allows for interactive reporting, drilling down through the site to display numbers that are helpful in determining how to optimize your website. As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series. The information found in these reports needs to be interpreted for the purposes and goals of your website.

Thanks for reading through the series – and happy number crunching!

Read part 1 of the “How to Understand Google Analytics Reports” series here.

Your Google Analytics report contains great information about visitors to your website that can assist in optimizing your site for the end-user. Let’s jump straight in. If you downloaded the Google Analytics Sample Report, we’re looking at page 3, titled “Visitors Overview”.

Again, the report includes a line graph to visualize the visitor breakdown by day and a contrasting color comparison to the previous month. It’s very similar to the line graph on page 1.

Below this graph is the breakdown of visitors to the site with a comparison to the previous month. Much of this information is duplicated from the previous 2 pages, but I want to make a point about absolute unique visitors.

We defined “visits” in part 1 of this series, but the next statistic down is “absolute unique visitors”. Here’s the meaning of the term, as defined by Google:

Unique Visitors represents the number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to your website over the course of a specified time period. A Unique Visitor is determined using cookies.

This represents, possibly more accurately, the number of devices that have accessed your device, rather than the actual number of people. It can be assumed that a single individual will access the same sites from a work computer as they would a home computer or mobile device. Each of these devices is registered as an “absolute unique visitor” according to Google’s definition.

Below this absolute unique visitors statistic is a summary of the usage of your site, most of which was outlined in Part 1 of this series.

Next down the line is the Technical Profile section. This is where you’ll find numbers about the internet browsers and connection speeds being used to access your site. This information is important because if most of your users are using Internet Explorer to access your website (and I suspect they are), you’ll need to test the website using Internet Explorer for compatibility and display issues. The connection speed can also have an impact on the end-user’s experience of your website. If most users are on a dial-up connection, a flash-intensive or graphics-heavy website is not going to offer a good user experience, and will likely cause your bounce rate to decrease.

The Traffic Sources Overview section of the report provides information about how people find your website. Google defines traffic sources in three ways:

1. Direct traffic – the visitor has typed your website address into the address bar of their browser.
2. Referring sites – the visitor clicked on a link from a third-party website to access yours.
3. Search engines – the visitor searched for a certain term or terms and found your website in the results.

The report even includes a nice little pie chart to visualize this data.

Below this visualization on the left side are the numbers for the most popular traffic sources for your site. Depending on how you want people to find your website, these numbers are helpful for optimizing the website’s performance on search engines or advertising platforms. If your only form of marketing is handing out business cards with the web address, then direct traffic may be your top source. On the other hand, if your website is real estate, you’ll probably want great results with search engines.

Speaking of search engines, the right side column of pages 5 and 6 are the search terms visitors have used to search and find your website. This information is helpful in determining if people are actually finding what they are searching for when they arrive at your website. For example, let’s say you own Pisa Pizza, an online retailer that sells pizza kits. The keywords you want to see in this list are “Pisa Pizza”, “pizza”, and “pizza kit”. If people aren’t finding your website through these search terms, it’s time to improve your website’s search engine optimization.

That’s it for part 2 of “How to Understand Google Analytics”. Part 3 will come later this week.

If you are using Google Apps for your business or organization, you’ll want to be aware that Google is enabling a new addressing structure called IPV6 [wiki] on their websites tomorrow, Wednesday, June 8. There is some potential for problems, but most people will be okay. Below is the message I received from Google. I’ve added bold to one particular sentence that allows you to test your system now.

Dear Google Apps administrator,

On June 8th, 2011 — World IPv6 Day (http://worldipv6day.org/) — major web companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, will enable IPv6 on many of their websites for 24 hours to test how IPv6 performs in the real world.  That day, we’ll be using IPv6 (http://worldipv6day.org/faq/index.html) for Google Apps, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites.

More than 99.9% of people shouldn’t have any problems during this industry-wide test, but your experience on June 8th will depend on your computer and network configuration.
- If you only have IPv4, you’ll simply use IPv4 as usual and not see any test-related problems.
- If your configuration is ready for IPv6, you’ll automatically use IPv6 and not see any test-related problems.
- In rare cases if you have IPv6 enabled but not configured properly, you may have connectivity issues with Google Apps and other test sites on June 8th.

If you’d like to start checking your organization’s IPv6 preparedness before June 8th, you can instruct your users to visitipv6test.google.com from the devices where they access Google Apps, like primary work machines, tablet devices and home computers. If you discover IPv6 connectivity problems, you can find troubleshooting tips and more information here:http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=8995&answer=1299266

If you are having a major issue related to this from now until the end of June 8th, 2011 and need to contact us about IPv6, please submit your inquiry here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGx2UnV1RTdEY25HSlJ4VGQ2QW9jM2c6MQ.  We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you,
The Google Apps Team

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Apps account.

This spring, I made the switch from the Apple iPhone to an Android phone (Motorola Atrix). It’s been a good great move for me. I’m a huge fan of Google’s products – I use GMail, Docs, Calendar, Search, Picasa, Chrome, Reader and lots of other Google products on a daily basis. I also use Google Apps for my own business and for many of my clients.

Before I made the switch, though, I carefully made a list of the iPhone apps I used the most. Then I cross-referenced to make sure an equivalent or an alternative was available for Android. The only app that came up short was Scrabble, but by that time many of my friends were talking about Words With Friends, so that was fine with me.

As you’ll see in the list below, I use my phone for much more than playing Scrabble – it’s an essential part of my business toolkit. Here are the apps I recommend:

• ACS Church Life (church membership database)
• Amazon.com
• Bible (LifeChurch.tv)
• Battery Indicator
• Cloud Print (Connects with Google Chrome’s Cloud Print Service)
• Dropbox (I can’t recommend this one strongly enough)
• Evernote
• Expensify
• Facebook
• Flash Player
• Foursquare
• GMail
• GoDaddy.com Mobile Domains
• Google Books
• Google Docs
• Google Maps (the navigation feature of this software is AMAZING)
• Google Reader
• Google Voice (only useful if you have a Google Voice account – get one here)
• Grocery IQ
• HootSuite (hands down the best Twitter client I’ve used mobile or desktop)
• Kindle
• Mint.com Personal Finance
• NPR Podcasts
• PayPal
• RunKeeper
• Skype
• SwiftKey Keyboard (I’m just starting to use this one, based on the recommendation of 13,000 reviewers)
• Vlingo Virtual Assistant (The more I use this app, the more I like it. The newest version for Android 2.2 and higher has an InCar mode that will read email and text messages to you, all the while listening for your voice commands. This app will see more and more screen time from me.)
• Webroot Mobile Security Basic
• Words With Friends

And there you have it, that’s a list of the apps I use regularly and will recommend to any Android user.

The original article appeared in the May/June 2011 issue of Cityview Magazine. The version here is complete with links and a little more information than was in the original.

There is no shortage of online meeting spaces these days. Everyone from Skype to Microsoft Google offers a way to have a face-to-face or screen to screen meeting online. I wrote about one of these online meeting space companies in an earlier post.

One of my favorite services, LogMeIn, has joined the fray with Join.me.

Join.me has a snazzy little website that is dead simple to use, as long as you’re on a Windows-based computer. The function is similar to that of LogMeIn123.com or ZohoAssist.com. The host computer downloads a file to setup the session, then the client enters a 9-digit code into the site to connect. The next time you have occasion for an online meeting, check out Join.me for a simple, free online meeting space.

You’ll need two things to stream Tennessee sports audio to your iPhone.

The first is an app that can use an audio source. FStream is a good one. Find it and install it on your iPhone.

The second is an audio stream source. Use this source:

http://st1.webradioworld.net/tunein.php/wecofm/playlist.asx

Now, four steps:

1. Copy the source from above.
2. Open FStream and go to Favorites.
3. Click “Edit”, then “Add new webradio”.
4. Give it any name you want, paste the source into the URL field. Encoding doesn’t matter. Hit save.

That’s it. Now, you can go to the Play tab of the FStream app and click on the stream. It should start right away. I have a solid stream even on a weak Edge connection on AT&T.

Today the new iOS4 is released for Apples iPhone and iPad. This is a free upgrade. I love free stuff. There are some great new features you should know about in this update.

Here are just a few:

• Multitasking
• Folders
• Improved Email
• iBooks

If you’re ready to update to iOS4, be sure to use iTunes to backup your iPhone/iPod/iPad first. Then check for updates. When the update is available, iTunes will let you know and walk you through the process. I was able to upgrade a little early, thanks to these instructions from Jason Powell.

An excellent walkthrough of the features of iOS4 is in the video below.

In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 1“, we established that Windows PCs are often targeted because of their large market share and that the brand of your computer makes no difference because viruses, spyware and malware occur at the software level.

In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 2“, we considered browsing and clicking habits that can be harmful for your computer and your privacy.

Let’s look at two different types of software that can help protect your computer.

Internet Security Suite

There are some tools available that can help secure your Windows PC as well. A question that is often asked of me is, “Which antivirus software is the best?“. My answer is always, “I can recommend a certain product, but you need to know that no security software is bulletproof. They will all let some things get through.”

It’s important to understand that antivirus software offers only a certain type of protection. So if you go to download one of the free anti-virus software packages (AVG, Avast!, and Avira are all popular), they will offer anti-virus only protection. In order to get a quality level of comprehensive protection from a single piece of software, you’ll need to pay for it.

PC Magazine has a good run-down of the best software for 2010 here. They rate Norton and McAfee above the rest of the suites in this particular review. On more than one occasion, however, I have had major software issues with both McAfee and Norton, so I typically recommend another software package.

In my experience, Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 offers the best value, features and pricing. I use this software with many of my clients and have had good results without inhibiting the computer’s performance. It’s around $80, which covers three computers for a full year. Contact me to get this software installed on your computer.

Consistent Environment Software

Wouldn’t it be great if your computer was exactly the same every time you turned it on? One software package makes that happen.

Windows Steady State, developed by Microsoft allows a computer’s administrator to configure other users for a consistent environment on every login. It’s free and compatible with Windows XP and Vista (sorry, Windows 7 users!).

Basically, here’s how it works: a user can login, browse the internet, download files and even adjust settings just like usual. Then when they log out, all the settings revert back to the way they were before the person logged in. This software is very useful on a computer that a family with children may use, or in my case, a computer lab with multiple users.

Other helpful features of this software are timed logouts, software restrictions, and user permissions. If these sounds fancy, I assure you that Windows Steady State makes it very easy to understand and adjust these settings.

With a little common sense and the right software, your Windows PC should operate smoothly without much effort on the part of the user. It may not be bulletproof, but the overall experience will be better than if no protection or safeguards were put in place.

There is one option still to consider when using a PC. We’ll take a look at that in Part 4.

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In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 1“, we established that Windows PCs are often targeted because of their large market share and that the brand of your computer makes no difference because viruses, spyware and malware occur at the software level.

To protect your Windows computer, the first and best rule of protection is to use your head and be pro-active in your browsing and clicking habits. This typically means two things:

1. Only visit websites that you know can be trusted
2. Use caution when clicking on links in e-mail that are unsolicited

Let’s look a little closer at #1:
How do you know which websites can be trusted? There is a difficult tension here – if you visit only the sites you already know, there are many useful and informational websites out there that you will miss in an effort to be cautiuos. But, if you go out willy-nilly and click on every site that comes up in the search results, your computer will get infected with malicious software sooner or later.

So the answer lies somewhere in between. More experienced users can take a little more liberty in clicking on unknown sites, but naive or less experienced users will need to be more careful when visiting unknown websites.

The truth is that malicious websites will do their best to look like a legitimate, reputable website. But these same sites will do damage to your computer that can be difficult to recover from.

Let’s look a little closer at #2:
E-mail is also a popular way to direct people to websites that are harmful not only to your computer, but to your privacy. If you get an e-mail from a financial institution, never click on the link in the e-mail. Instead, go to your browser to access the institution’s site directly.

It is very possible that the legitimate-looking e-mail you just received will direct you to  a “phishing” site that will extract your login information and allow someone else to access your accounts and information.

In Part 3, we’ll consider two types of software that can help protect your computer from viruses and spyware.

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