==== Originally published on the IT Arsenal Newsletter ====
Confession, I’ve been installing Google Analytics on my websites for years, ever since I can remember…and I’ve never gotten anything out of it.
Sure, it’s nice to scan some numbers from time to time, but it’s been utterly useless for anything actionable.
I’ve even read articles, done research, and known that there is a library’s worth of things I can do with the data to analyze conversion and compare information, and see what organic “keywords” my website is hitting for, but sheesh, it’s always been too much work.
Sound familiar?
Then I found QuillEngage and I finally got absorbable information with minimal effort, that caused me to make changes on my website based on Google Analytics information the very first week I started using it.
It’s a web app service that you give access to your Google Analytics data, which they turn into a weekly and monthly report that looks like a real human wrote it.
Sounds doubtful I know, but here’s the first few paragraphs of IT Arsenal’s from April, see for yourself!
Ouch, gotta work on those numbers
Sessions Drop, But Way Above 12-Month Monthly Average
Sessions slid to 2,973 sessions (a 26% drop) last month after reaching the highest number of sessions in 12 months a month before. A decrease in sessions from organic search drove the drop in traffic, falling 29% to 2,173 sessions.
- Your site had fewer total pageviews, down 23% to 3,598. Your pages per session were up 5% to 1.2 and equal to your 12-month monthly average. This suggests users navigated to more pages during their stay last month.
- Users navigated to more pages during their session last month. Your site had fewer total pageviews, down 23% to 3,598. Pages per session were up 5% to 1.2 and equal to your 12-month monthly average.
- On average, users spent 7.3 minutes on your E-mail Marketing – Opt-in Optimizer – IT Arsenal page last month, making it the most improved for time spent on any given page for your site. Users’ average duration on your How to Make Spellcheck and Junk Mail “Just Work” in Apple Mail – Helping Dave – IT Arsenal page, however, was 28.2 minutes shorter than the month of March at slightly more than 2 minutes – the biggest decrease of any page.
Reading the report, you can immediately get insight that I should promote my Opt-in Optimizing service a little more, people are reading it, or perhaps add an incentive on that page to tip conversions, or maybe adding a e-mail list call to action at the top of my post about Apple Mail spell check would net more sign ups this month.
Instantly actionable…and there’s a free plan. If you’ve struggled to make any sense out of SEO and your Google Analytics, this tool will help.
As always, thanks for letting me support you, let me know if you find anything interesting in your report and share this e-mail with others!
We’ve come to the end of another useful newsletter, I hope, let me know about it if it wasn’t!
-r
Robert Granholm
