Posts Tagged allyte
How to Understand Google Analytics Reports – Part 2 of 3
Posted by brandon in Company & Product Profiles, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, google docs, how to, Instruction, Internet, joomla, productivity, Security, Simplicity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web, Web Applications, Website Development, wordpress on June 7, 2011
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:
- Direct traffic – the visitor has typed your website address into the address bar of their browser.
- Referring sites – the visitor clicked on a link from a third-party website to access yours.
- 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.
Prominent Knoxville Church Launches New Website
Posted by brandon in church, Company & Product Profiles, Email, Internet, joomla, Uncategorized, Web, Website Development on May 31, 2011
When Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee was ready to upgrade their website, they wanted something that was visually attractive and easy to manage from anywhere. Allyte recommended a Joomla 1.5 CMS and left the design choice in their hands. In the end, the team chose a RocketTheme design because of its visual impact and feature set. Take a look at the final product below.
SequoyahChurch.org
Questions to Ask Before Leaving Your Computer for Repair or Service
Posted by admin in Company & Product Profiles, Computer Repair, Computer Service, Email, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, home, how to, productivity, Security, Simplicity, Technology & Gadgets, tips, Tricks & Hacks on August 4, 2010
Leaving your computer and its data with a service or repair center can be a little nerve-racking. Your data – email, pictures, music, documents, spreadsheets, presentations – are all contained on this computer and you don’t want it to be vulnerable.
Some service centers will wipe a hard drive clean without thinking twice. When your computer returns to you, it has returned completely to factory settings. A side note – there are some good services available for home and office data backup. They do cost on the front end, but save a ton of time, trouble, and possibly money in the event you need your data restored.
In other cases, the customer may arrive to pickup the computer, only to find exorbitant fees are due for the service. It would have been better to replace the laptop than pay the fees for repair.
To prevent situations like this, there are some key questions you should ask before leaving your computer for repair.
- Will you backup my data before doing work that could compromise it?
- What is the fee for doing a backup for me?
- Will I receive a copy of my data if you wipe the hard drive clean?
- What are the estimated charges for this repair? Can I get that in writing?
- If the charges are significantly more than you estimate, will you let me know before doing the work?
This set of questions is a good place to start when getting service on a laptop or desktop computer. Depending on your service request, you may want to ask more questions.
For good data backup solutions, look at Dropbox, Cobian Backup, ElephantDrive, JungleDisk, Carbonite, and Mozy.
For good computer repair and service, look no further than Allyte Technology Solutions.