Aug 26, 2016

How to Confirm Google Analytics is Installed Correctly

How to confirm GA is correctly installed on your blogGoogle Analytics is the gold standard of traffic monitoring software.  When site owners talk about their monthly page views or uniques, they are almost always referring to their numbers form Google Analytics.  This tracking software is the most accurate and therefore should be installed on your blog if you ever need access to your traffic statistics (don’t EVER use numbers from Blogger!)

However.. this accuracy is only true if you have Google Analytics installed CORRECTLY on your site.   This means the tracking script should be installed only one time, and in the correct location on the page.  If you have duplicate versions of the tracking code or have it installed too early in your head section, you can get falsely inflated analytics.

To demonstrate just how dramatic this inflation can be, I did an experiment on my own site.  I installed a second tracking code into my html and then watched my traffic over the next 4 days.  This is what happened:
Pageviews
My page views doubled and my bounce rate dropped to about 10%.  
As much as I wish those numbers were true.. They are completely an artifact of the duplicated code. 

Aug 13, 2016

How to Use Google Analytics to Determine Why Blog Traffic is Changing

Why Blog Traffic is Changing in Google Analytics

Often bloggers are faced with sudden and/or long term increases or decreases in blog traffic. Determining the cause of these changes isn’t alway the easiest thing to do.   Luckily, the data stored in your Google Analytics account can yield a lot of information about exactly why you page views are changing.