If data is the next ‘Intel Inside’ then Google Analytics is the operating manual for websites operators trying to understand how to improve the usefulness and success of their site.  Google Analytics tracks and stores data, collected via JavaScript on the host site, of every visitor. This data includes information on how the user got to the site, and how long they stayed, what browser they used, and where geographically they are located.

From the huge range of features in Google Analytics I will discuss the following two examples to demonstrate how Google Analytics leverages the data it collects to return useful information to the user:

1. Industry BenchmarkingArguably one of the biggest advantages of using Google Analytics over other web analytics tools is the opportunity to gain access to the aggregate data of other websites for comparison.  To gain access to this feature users must opt-in to “share the account data in an anonymous, aggregated format”^[1]. Once enabled, Google Analytics assesses the profiles in your account, categorises them by vertical market and number of visits and aggregates the data for inclusion in the benchmarking project^[2].  Once the inclusion process is complete the user can compare their profiles against data for their own category or choose from a list of others; each category consists of at least 100 websites^[3].  Although the ability to review the data collected about how users are interacting with the site is very useful for reviewing things like the effectiveness of improvements or advertising campaigns, benchmarking also enables you to investigate how your site is doing in comparison to its peers. This will help guide decisions on where energy should be spent to make improvements and where certain negative figures are to be expected.

   Website’s new visits benchmarked against similar industry

   

   Website’s new bounce rate benchmarked against similar industry

   

   Both these diagrams show that the website they are taken from is performing at around the same level as other sites in that industry of a similar size. Without the benefit of being able to compare the results against an aggregate this would be impossible to tell, and instead the web master would be left to guess at how well their site is actually doing.

2. Keywords Overview
   There are two types of traffic that come to a site through search engines; organic(unpaid) and paid. By reviewing the keywords users are entering into search engines, web masters are able to get an overview of the organic traffic that is coming through their site.  Not only are the number of visits received displayed, but also a wealth of other relevant information to help determine not only how much traffic is being generated by the search term but also the likeliness that the visit was of some benefit.  For example, if a keyword has a high ‘average time on site’ associated with it, the visit was probably of more value to the user than a visit resulting from a keyword with a low average time on site.  Keywords with a high average time on site are ultimately more beneficial to a website in comparison to keywords that get a large amount of very short visits, as the long visit hits indicate that the user found what they were looking for from the search and were intrigued enough to further investigate the site.

The data collected for Google Analytics is stored on Google’s own servers. This has the advantage that it is then easily accessible to be used in benchmarking and benefits from the speed and sophistication of their servers that smaller localised implementations may not be able to replicate.  Google also offers this service at no cost with regular updates and ongoing feature improvements.

Another analytics application that offers many of the features of Google Analytics and is free to use is Piwik. Its main difference with Google Analytics is that the data collected about your site is stored on, and accessed through, your own website.

Although Google Analytics clearly states that they do not use any of the data collected for their own purposes unless you expressly allow the information to be shared,^[4][5] there are some issues with not having direct control and access to your own data.  For example if you wished to change to another analytics software, you would have to start from scratch which would result in losing all your history.

Although Google Analytics lets you do a multitude of comparisons on a website’s data it does not allow you to directly compare against other sites.  If a Google Analytics user managed more than one site from the same account there could be advantages to being able to analyze the data from one site against another.  This would be most beneficial where a user has similar sites and one site is not performing as well; being able to display and compare the data together could reveal an insight into where improvement must be made.