Tag Archives: #googleanalytics

Process Post #9: Thoughts on Analytics

Analytics are tools used across different social media platforms. I am most familiar with Instagram’s analytics, and it also helps track my screen time use on the app itself. I keep track of the reports on Instagram since I hold a public account. I like to see insights on how my posts are doing and the rundown of how many users interact with my account. I mainly post dance content on Instagram (some are published on my movement page) and analyze how my audience on Instagram grows which helps build a bigger dance community. Insights like these do help guide you in knowing the progress of your business/accounts, although as discussed an invasion of privacy is at risk.

For tools like these to collect data, they need to also collect personal information from your phone (number, location, etc.) and about the environment, the user is in, (Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us 2016). A conversation from the Pod Academy states that a phone comes with a series of sensors that run background information which transfers from the phone to cell towers, which can also be communicated to the internet where others and sites can gain information about you (Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us 2016).

Tieing into KeptCollexion, I have Google Analytics plugged into my site. It gives me tips on how to improve my site and reports the overall health of my site. Currently, my site’s status reports as “Good” and suggests that I improve my site’s performance and security factors. It’s good to know what steps to take to upgrade my website, but a risk I am taking is the exposure of personal data collected.

Reflecting today, I think it’s challenging to keep everything private once you own a mobile device or some computer since these devices run a constant background cache of data and personal information. It’s something that can’t be avoided unless you decide to go deviceless. Think of it now, TVs and smart homes do the same. It is just the way technology runs today, but it also reflects our responsibility to how we use these devices and what we choose to share and install.

Reference:

Pod Academy. (2016, May 3). Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us. Pod Academy. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/

Report Analytics. (2017). PNG Tree. photograph. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://pngtree.com/freepng/report-analytics-audit-business-data-marketing-paper-blue_4772977.html.

Behind the Scenes with Google Analytics

Given that this site is still new, I came into this guessing that there wouldn’t be that many people reading by blog, and that most of the views would be from people in my class. So, I was pleasantly surprised with what I found with Google Analytics.

In the last week, I have had 6 users visit my blog over 9 sessions, which is less than previous weeks. While at first that looks discouraging, I am also keeping in mind that there was no peer review in the last week, so my numbers would have gone down from the week when more people would have had to visit my site. In addition, I assume that fewer of my classmates have time to browse sites as the semester gets really busy. However, I am super happy with my bounce rate! When I checked this last week, my bounce rate was 52.7% and I wanted to lower that. I can’t believe that my bounce rate went down to 11.11%! This shows that the people who are seeing my site are viewing many parts of it, so I will call this a definite win!

I am not surprised by the ages of the people visiting; I expected most of my audience to be young (especially since may are my classmates), though I am happy to see that I’ve managed to attract people from all age categories!

I was surprised to see that I’ve had viewers from outside Canada. I’m guessing that it is mostly bots (it seems unrealistic that 9 people in China care about my blog), but I am hopeful that some of the viewers from the United States are legitimate people!

Finally, I am happy to see that I am attracting more new visitors while also having some people who keep coming back for more!

There is so much more that I could get into, but those are some of the important things that I noticed!

(Featured Image by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash)

Process Post Week #10 – Google Analytics

This past week I spent an extensive amount of time on Google Analytics and was surprised by the amount and variety of data being tracked from my blog.

While viewing real-time reports I did not see any data as nobody was viewing my blog at that time. To see these reports in action I decided to share my blog’s link with family and friends. Within a matter of seconds, I saw a spike in the number of active users and so I began to view the real-time reports. The location and traffic sources reports were not very helpful as I already knew the location of viewers and how they had accessed my blog. However, the content report was interesting as it enabled me to see what was being read and how many people were viewing my content.

This week I set up a goal to see how many readers view a series which I recently started. I have assumed the role of a general manager and I am attempting to lead my team to the Stanley Cup. I was ecstatic when I saw success in the real-time conversions report which showed that people were reading this series. I have found that setting up goals is a useful way to track certain aspects of my blog. I believe that this is something that I will continue doing to further enhance my blog. For instance, as mentioned in last week’s process post if I pursue sponsorships to monetize my blog, I will track those specific posts to see how readers engage with the content.

Moreover, most of my audience seems to be situated in the lower mainland, however, one reader is from Poland. I am hoping to expand readership by growing my brand on social media. Furthermore, I was surprised to see that I have more new visitors compared to returning visitors. I believe that this will be beneficial as I continue to grow my blog, but I hope that these new visitors will return in the future. Again, analytics will assist in this regard.

I was fascinated by the user explorer report as it provided a detailed analysis of a device’s path on my blog. The ability to track which pages are viewed the most is very helpful as it shows me what viewers are reading and which content I should be publishing more of or less. Also, due to the ability to track browsers, operating systems, devices, and their screen resolutions I will now be able to optimize my blog for these specific viewers.

The user flow report provided me with an overview of how users navigate my blog. Where they go first, what they do next and where they drop off. Understanding these elements will be beneficial to potentially re-organize my content. If viewers are flocking to a particular order when they view content, I believe that this could be a sign to re-order my blog to their convenience.

After diving into the analytics of my blog I look forward to spending more time viewing reports of interactions with my blog and hope to continue improving it by making it more interesting and engaging for readers.