This is a bit old - you may or may not notice the date on this post but it's over a year old. That doesn't mean it's not useful but we all know how fast things chance on the web so there's a chance that techniques and technologies described here could be a little dated.

5 key metrics you should know from Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Well a nice little jolly down to London for the eCommerce Expo at Earls Court today. Generally I was surprised that I didn’t learn much new, except maybe that UK Fast have a recruitment policy that involves women who look good in hot pants http://twitpic.com/m8t5w (the girls in the picture are actually UK Fast employees and not hired in like I thought).

Not learning much can I guess be a good thing as it generally means we’re doing everything right in work. Still I attended a Google University session on analytics and I would certainly recommend Google University sessions if you get the chance to attend one. Amongst the things I took away were what the speaker said were his 5 key metrics that you should know for any eCommerce site and they’re equally applicable to normal sites.

  • Bounce Rate
  • % of visitors who view the product or service page
  • % of visitors who exit after using the site search
  • % of visitors who reach the checkout
  • Conversion rate

Personally I’ve spent a bit of time looking at bounce rates and conversions rates but the one I haven’t really looked at is the number of visitors leaving after a site search.

It makes a lot of sense to be paying attention to this data, seeing what customers are looking for on your site, are they not finding it and leaving? Should you be stocking this product? Should be giving people information on that product? Is it in your store and people just aren’t finding it in your search?

There are plenty of questions you should be answering just from those 5 key analytics and all in all you can delve deeper and deeper into analyatics but I guess if you focus your time on the key 5 above you have a good place to start and get things right and then kick on to analytics nirvana!