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Site performance refers to the speed at which your site loads and displays on a user’s web browser or mobile device. This includes all content, such as text, images and videos. While it’s obvious that factors such as your industry and the product or service you offer will affect conversions, can the speed at which a page loads make or break your business? ‍ According to the latest statistics, the answer to that question is a resounding yes! ‍ Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich ‍ Below are 24 statistics that prove just how important faster page loading times are: #1 The first 5 seconds of page load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. Rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each second of load time between seconds 0-5. Website conversion rates drop by a further 2.11% with each additional second of load time between seconds 5-9. (portent.com) #2 According to a recent study by Deloitte, with just a 0.1s improvement in site speed, retail consumers spent almost 10% more, while lead generation and luxury consumers engaged more, with page views increasing by 7% and 8% respectively. (Deloitte) #3  Nearly half of all visitors will leave a mobile website if the pages don’t load within 3 seconds. (Think with Google) According to Statistica, mobile devices account for 48% of web traffic in the U.S., and 54% of web traffic worldwide. If your mobile page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, that’s a significant amount of potential customers that you’ve lost before they’ve even seen your product. #4 Transactional pages need to have the fastest loading times. Checkout, login, and product category pages are most important as traffic to these pages is most likely to convert into paying customers. To Improve transaction conversions, aim for a 0-2 Second Load Time. (Portent.com) ‍ #5 The longer the load time, the higher the bounce rates. The probability of bounce increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, and by 90% when the page load time goes from one to five seconds. (Google/SOASTA Research, 2017) ‍ ‍Photo by Anna Tarazevich ‍ #6 Nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer. (Unbounce) ‍ #7  Amazon would lose $1.6 billion a year if their site slowed down by just 1 second. (websitebuilderexpert.com) ‍ ‍ #8 The optimal time for a full mobile page load is less than 3.1 seconds. Anything less than 3.1 seconds would put you in the best 20% of sites we benchmark for time before full mobile page load, and less than 2.5 seconds would put you in the best 10%. Time before a full mobile page-load of more than 6.6 seconds would put you in the worst 20% of sites, and more than 8.3 seconds would put you in the worst-performing sites. (LittleData) ‍ #9 The optimal time for a full desktop page load is 2.8 seconds. Anything less than 2.8 seconds would put you in the best 20% of sites we benchmark for time before full desktop page load, and less than 2.2 seconds would put you in the best 10%. Time before full desktop page load of more than 6.1 seconds would put you in the worst 20% of sites, and more than 7.7 seconds would put you in the worst-performing sites. (LittleData) ‍ #10 88.5% say slow loading pages are the main reason why they would leave a website. (Review42.com) ‍ #11 39% of people will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load. (Hubspot) ‍ #12 Even if you’re not in the e-commerce business, mobile speed can still impact your sales. For example, after BMW revamped their mobile site to provide a reliable and smooth web experience even under poor network conditions, the percentage of visitor’s clicking through to the BMW sales site increased from 8% to 30%, 4 times higher than before. (thinkwithGoogle) ‍ Photo by cottonbro‍ #13 The majority of web users would be willing to give up animations and video if it meant site pages would load faster. When used correctly, video marketing can be a powerful part of our SEO strategy. But it could also negatively impact conversion rates if not optimized to load quickly and efficiently. (Unbounce) ‍ #14  A 1 second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%. (Abtasty.com) ‍ #15 In 2021, Vodafone improved its LCP by 30%, which led to an overall 8% increase in sales. The LCPis the amount of time it takes for a page’s main content to load.  (hobo-web.co.uk) ‍ #16 Website owners have only 5 seconds to catch a visitor’s attention. Most users would rather spend several extra minutes browsing fast-responding but irrelevant websites, than waiting for relevant pages to load. (kinsta.com) ‍ #17 Retail sites had a 9.2% increase in average order value when load time was decreased by just one-tenth of a second.  (Deloitte) ‍ #18 Over  45% of people admit they are less likely to make a purchase if an e-commerce site loads slower than expected. (Unbounce) ‍ #19 52 percent of online shoppers stated that fast loading pages are important to their site loyalty. (hobo-web.co.uk) Photo by Sora Shimazaki ‍ ‍ #20 When pages load in less than 1 second, the average conversion rate is almost 32%. At a 1-second load time, the conversion rate already drops to 20%. At 2 seconds, the conversion rate begins to level off at 12-13% and reaches its lowest at a 5-second load time. (portent.com) ‍ #21 Mobile sites that load in five seconds or fewer earn twice as much as sites that take 19 seconds to load. (blog.google) ‍ #22 79% of shoppers who have trouble with site performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again.(neilpatel.com) ‍ #23 It takes 50 milliseconds for a user to form an impression of your website. Page load time will be the first impression you make. (researchgate) ‍ #24 85% of users expect a

Struggling to make sense of how Google Analytics impacts your SEO? You’re not alone. Many marketers feel overwhelmed by the endless data and unclear metrics, making it difficult to translate analytics into actionable SEO strategies. But what if I told you there’s a way to simplify this process and get clear, actionable insights? In this post, I’ll show you how to turn Google Analytics into your SEO secret weapon—and how Abralytics can make it even easier. To get the most out of Google Analytics for SEO, it’s crucial to understand the connection between your website’s data and your search engine rankings. Analytics isn’t just about tracking visitors; it’s about uncovering patterns that can boost your SEO strategy. However, without the right approach, you might miss valuable insights or get lost in a sea of data. Here’s what we’ll cover in this post to help you unlock the full potential of Google Analytics for your SEO efforts: Understanding Key Metrics: Learn which metrics directly impact SEO and how to interpret them Setting Up Custom Dashboards: Get the data you need at a glance with easy-to-use dashboards. Tracking SEO-Specific Events: Discover how to set up events that highlight SEO performance. Why Abralytics Is a Game-Changer: See how Abralytics can simplify your analytics setup, giving you the tools you need without the clutter of GA4. By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to use Google Analytics to supercharge your SEO efforts, making your data work for you instead of the other way around. Next up, we’ll dive into the specific metrics you need to focus on and how to use them effectively. Understanding Key SEO Metrics ‍ When Looking at GA4, Focus on Organic Traffic‍   Focus on Organic Traffic. This is the lifeblood of your SEO efforts. In Google Analytics, you can filter your traffic sources to see only organic visits. This helps you understand how well your site is attracting visitors through search engines. If your organic traffic is growing, your SEO strategy is likely on the right track. Monitor Bounce Rate for SEO Pages. A high bounce rate on key landing pages could indicate that visitors aren’t finding what they expected. Check the bounce rates of your top-performing SEO pages in GA and identify areas where content might need improvement to better engage visitors. Track Keyword Rankings with Analytics Goals. Set up goals in Google Analytics that tie to specific keyword performance. For example, you could track the number of conversions that come from visitors who found your site through particular keywords. This will help you see which keywords are driving valuable traffic. The metrics you focus on can either guide your SEO efforts or lead you astray. By concentrating on organic traffic, bounce rates, and keyword-related goals, you’ll be better equipped to refine your SEO strategy and achieve better search rankings. ‍ Setting Up Custom SEO Dashboards In Looker Studio This Google Search Console Report Was Created In Looker Studio ‍ Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) is a powerful tool for creating highly customizable and interactive dashboards. Here’s a guide to setting up SEO dashboards specifically: Google Analytics: Connect your GA4 property using the GA4 connector to get data on website traffic, user behavior, and SEO metrics. Google Search Console: Link your GSC account to access keyword performance, impressions, and click-through rates Start by creating a new dashboard in Looker Studio. Give it a descriptive name. Add Data Sources to Reports: Create new reports within your dashboard and add the connected data sources. Select the relevant SEO metrics and dimensions you want to analyze. Some common examples include: Organic traffic, keyword rankings, impressions, clicks, bounce rate, average session duration, device, browser, location, landing pages, traffic source. Create Charts and Tables: Use Looker Studio’s various chart types (line charts, bar charts, pie charts, tables) to visualize your data effectively. Customize the appearance and formatting of your charts to match your branding and preferences. Implement looker studio filters to segment your data and analyze specific subsets. For example, you could filter by a particular time period, device, or location. Add controls like date pickers, drop-down menus, or sliders to allow users to interact with the dashboard and explore different data points. Branding: Apply your company’s branding to the dashboard, including colors, fonts, and logos. Annotations: Add annotations, text boxes, or images to provide context or highlight key findings. Share your looker studio dashboard with team members or stakeholders for collaboration and insights. Set up scheduled email reports to automatically send updates to relevant recipients. Setting Up Event Tracking in GA4 for SEO This Google Search Console Report Was Created In Looker Studio Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers a robust event tracking system that allows you to measure user interactions on your website beyond pageviews. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set it up: Understand GA4 Event Tracking Basics: Event: A user interaction on your website, such as a button click, form submission, or video play. Event Parameters: Additional data points associated with an event, like the button’s label, the form’s field values, or the video’s duration. Enable Enhanced Measurement: Go to your GA4 property settings. Under “Data Data Streams,” enable “Enhanced measurement.” This will automatically track common events like page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, and site search Create Custom Events: For more granular tracking, you can create custom events. In the GA4 interface, navigate to “Configure” > “Events.” Click “Create Event.” Give your event a name and optional parameters. ‍ Using Abralytics as a GA4 Alternative If you’re finding GA4 too complex or overwhelming, Abralytics offers a simpler, more user-friendly alternative. Streamlined Interface: Abralytics is designed with simplicity in mind, offering a clean and intuitive interface. This makes it easier to navigate and find the data you need without the clutter of unnecessary features. Privacy-Focused Analytics: Unlike Google Analytics, Abralytics emphasizes user privacy. You own 100% of your data, and there’s no need for cookie banners, which ensures compliance with GDPR and other

You’ve done it! Hours and hours of work have finally come to an end and your brand new website or mobile app is now live. Much like a first-time parent, you want to show off your new ‘baby.’ But will this pride and joy of yours truly be successful? And how will visitors engage with your site? Are the clicking points too tricky for them to find? Do they scroll down to the desired point on a page? Are users navigating between pages in the way you intended them? These interactions are known as events in Google Analytics. Granted, there are many different kinds of events, but in this article, we’re talking about button clicks when we refer to events. Web developers and business owners need to know the answers to the questions mentioned above. You see, understanding the success rate of these events helps you build a strong, reliable website that users find easy to navigate and achieves the desired result. Before we discuss tracking button clicks, let’s first figure a few things out: Is there any other software that I need to familiarize myself with before I can track button clicks? What are some examples of button clicks that can be followed? Which of these events or buttons are the most important ones I should follow? How do I start tracking them? So then, let’s begin with familiarizing ourselves with the software. Google Tag Manager Source: Pexels.com‍ Google tag manager is a Tag Management System (TMS) developed by Google and originally released in 2012. At the time of writing, the most up-to-date paid version of this software is Tag Manager 360, while the free version, Google Tag Manager, would be more suitable for small businesses. This software allows users to configure and immediately use tags on a given website. The free Google Tag Manager account boasts multi-user support, rule-based triggers, and support for Google and Non-Google Tags. However, it has a limit of three workspaces available for simultaneous tagging projects. Take the time to read about tag manager and study its features before setting up your event tracking parameters. (1) Pro tip: Tag manager works best when used in conjunction with Google Chrome, so make sure you adjust your browser settings if needed. What are some button clicks that I could track with Google tag manager? Source: Pexels.com‍ Depending on the nature of your business and the design of your website or app, there will be various button clicks available for tracking. If you have an e-commerce web page, you will focus your button tracking on call-to-action events. You want to track how many users follow through with a purchase or how far they browse on your site before they lose interest. Name your buttons appropriately – Add to cart / Get it now / Subscribe / Book Now / Submit button. By using the tag configuration setting in your Tag Manager, you’d be able to name each button click and understand your website visitors better. Not all websites would be tracking the same user clicks. That is because pages and apps are designed with different reasons in mind. A blog post geared heavily toward advertising would be tracking outbound link clicks or perhaps file downloads. You’d also want to track video engagement so you could set up an event tag that would let you know which video’s have success on your page and adjust accordingly. Source: Pexels.com ‍ How do I set up the tracking? Once you’re familiar with the Google Tag Manager, you can use it to track your button clicks. It’s a bit of a process to set it up, but the same steps are used for any new tag or click event you’ll set up in the future, so it’s not too painful. Here’s a step-by-step guide. Enable click variables in Google Tag Manager Once you’ve logged in to your Google Tag Manager workspace, navigate to variables and click on configure. Tag manager has a selection of built-in variables to choose from and they will appear on the pop-up page. For example, you can choose from any or all of the following: Click element Click Classes Click ID Click Target Click Url Click Test Pay attention to your selection here, as Tag Manager uses this to identify the click parameters for each button you intend to track. Configure Click elements as Triggers You now need to configure these click elements to create a trigger. Do that by navigating to triggers in your tag manager workspace. Click on add new trigger, select all elements and click on all clicks. It’s helpful to select all clicks at this stage, even though you won’t necessarily want to track all button clicks during your data sampling in Google Analytics. This is because you need to first identify the unique parameters of the individual button you intend to track. You can come back to this step later on and adjust as needed. Set a variable for the button click to be tracked Google tag manager workspace will now give you the option to preview the changes you’ve just made. Preview mode is a convenient feature in Tag Manager as it allows you to browse a site and preview all the changes you’ve made before you hit save and the changes are published. You can then use this debugging feature to inspect the order in which your tags fired. So, click on preview and then enter your domain URL values to begin the debugger. Your set button will then appear in the domain tab. Click on it. Once you click on it, you will see the debugger running. The debugger will then monitor all actions performed by the trigger fires. The intention of this exercise is to find and set parameters for each button click. Source: Pexels.com ‍ Adjust the trigger accordingly in Tag Manager Think of these triggers as listening to your website. It detects specific actions like submissions, button clicks, and page views. The trigger will then

  What is Website Traffic? Website traffic refers to the users that visit a Website. Each time a user arrives on one of your landing pages, it is counted as a visitor to your site.  ‍ These visits are often spoken of as sessions in Google Analytics. Why it’s important to Track Website Traffic Your website traffic is a good indicator of the overall success of your site. The higher the traffic, the more potential you have for conversions.  ‍ On the other hand, if your website’s traffic is low, you might want to focus more on your SEO efforts to try up the visitors to your website. ‍ Keeping a close eye on the different metrics of website traffic will tell you what people are looking for on your pages and allow you to tailor your content to suit their needs. ‍ Not paying attention to your website traffic could be likened to a shop owner not caring about the empty seats and deserted tables in his coffee shop.  ‍ If he doesn’t pick up on what prevents people from entering his shop, he could suffer great financial loss. ‍ No patrons = No Sales Key metrics to Track Website Traffic When you think about measuring website traffic, there are a few essential metrics in website analytics you want to examine closely. These metrics will also tell you much about user behavior or how people interact with your pages. Total visits Sessions or visits are metrics used to estimate the total number of times someone visits your website and navigates around it.  ‍ These are critical metrics, especially in digital marketing. That’s because they are used along with the conversion rate to measure an online store’s performance. ‍ If you use a Google Analytics Account to analyze your website traffic, this metric will be tracked by default and displayed on the dashboard, as seen in the screenshot below. ‍   GA Dashboard‍ ‍ Although the metric appears as default, it can also be adjusted when navigating to Audience > Overview. That will allow users to compare Sessions with other metrics, such as the bounce rate. ‍ Google Analytics logs a session from the moment a user interacts with a website and stops counting the session after 30 minutes of inactivity with the website. Pages per visit This is a good metric to gauge how engaging your website is to visitors. ‍ When a visitor arrives on a landing page, it could be seen as only the first step of the desired response.  ‍ Abralytics have a nice way of displaying page views using a line chart, as seen below. ‍   Abralytics Demo‍ ‍ Users can see the Total Page Views in a separate tab, or view a breakdown of page views by the pre-determined time, whether by day, week, or month. ‍ Why is it important to know how many pages are viewed each visit? ‍ Well, you want conversions, don’t you? ‍ You want people to scroll through various pages of your product line, not just visit one page and then move on to a different website. ‍ Therefore, if you see that the pages per visit metric is too low, you could adjust the way they navigate through your site. Perhaps building internal links would help with the conversion rates.  ‍ The more pages visited per session, the higher the probability of generating revenue. Average visit duration DataBox says a good average session duration is anything above three minutes. (2) ‍ This metric will tell how long, on average, your visitors are staying on your website. You can’t improve average visit duration with catchy titles or marketing campaigns. ‍ To improve your visit duration metric, you’ll need to ensure that your content grabs enough attention the keep users interested if you want them to stay on a web page for longer. ‍ There’s also something to say about the format of your content. Short paragraphs make it easier for site visitors to stay engaged, while interesting photos break up the monotony of longer pieces. ‍ You could also add videos to your pages that people find interesting and informative to watch. You can also toggle your Analytics report to display how much time visitors spend on each page. Bounce rate Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave the site after viewing only one page. ‍ This metric is only important if you have a site that requires visitors to move from one page to the next and not if your website consists of one scrollable page. ‍ Bounce rates could indicate that visitors aren’t finding the information they are looking for or find the site frustrating to use. ‍ So, what is a reasonable bounce rate for my site? ‍ Semrush addressed this question in a recent blog post, citing: ‍ “A bounce rate of 56% to 70% is on the high side, although there could be a good reason for this, and 41% to 55% would be considered an average bounce rate. An optimal bounce rate would be in the 26% to 40% range.”  (4) ‍ If you want to improve the bounce rate on your site, you should ensure that the pages people visit meet their expectations. When a user visits a page and finds what they’re looking for, they’ll be more likely to navigate through your site rather than click away. ‍ By monitoring the bounce rate metric, we can get a good idea of the user behavior, identifying what people are interested in or not. Traffic sources This metric measures which sources are driving traffic to your website.  ‍ Different channels fall under this metric, namely: Direct traffic: These are visitors to your site that arrive by typing your website directly into their browser Referral traffic: Visitors that visit your website from another website Organic Search traffic: Visitors that click on your website by searching a keyword in a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) Paid search traffic:

Understanding the average time a user spends on your website helps you see which pages convert better and which content they engage with the most. But how do you measure how long someone stays on a website? If this subject has piqued your interest, then read on. This article covers everything you should know, including: How to track the average time metrics What is the average session duration and how to improve it What is the average time on page and how to improve it What is the average time you should aim for? How Long Does A User Stay On Your Website? You can measure how long a user stays on your website by tracking these two metrics – session duration and time on page. 1. Session Duration  ‍Source: ppcexpo.com Session duration, also time on site, is the total time someone spends on your website in a single session. But, what is a session in Google Analytics? A session is a group of user interactions noted during a specific time frame. After 30 minutes of inactivity, when the user exits, or at midnight a Google Analytics session expires. And it starts when a user accesses a page on your website. What Is Average Session Duration?  Average session duration is the average time spent on your website by all users. Remember that if a user visits your website multiple times over several days or continues their activity on a web page later, they may have multiple sessions. In Google Analytics, go to Audience > Overview to see the average session duration of your website.   ‍Source: hubspot.com How does Google Analytics Calculate Session Duration & Average Session Duration? For Session Duration Google Analytics calculates session duration by noting the timestamps of when a visitor arrives on your landing page (via a search engine or any other channel) and when they leave your website. For example: The session duration of a user that spends 5 minutes on your site before exiting is recorded as 5 minutes. Suppose the same visitor spends extra 7 minutes on another page of your site. The session duration is 12 minutes. ‍ For Average Session Duration It is calculated by dividing the sum of all session durations by the total number of sessions in the same period. For example, four website visitors have session durations as follows: Visitor 1 spent 100 seconds on your website. Visitor 2 spent 80 seconds on your website. Visitor 3 spent 160 seconds on your website. Visitor 4 spent 60 seconds on your website. Google Analytics would add these session durations (100+80+160+60=400) and divide the total (400) by the number of sessions (4) to determine your average session duration. The total is 100 seconds, or 1 minute and 40 seconds. In addition, Analytics may display this as 00:01:40. Are Session Duration And Dwell Time The Same? No, these metrics are certainly not the same! Here is why: Dwell time measures how long a person stays on a single page after clicking on a search result. Google Analytics calculates the dwell time using timestamps that track a user’s actions from the moment they click a link from a search engine until they return to their search results. On the other hand, session duration is the total time your website visitors spend in one session. Note that sessions do not include time spent on exit or bounce pages. So even if a visitor spends a few minutes reviewing a page before leaving, their visit won’t be counted as part of their total time. Does Session Duration Affect Your Website’s Search Engine Ranking? Yes, session duration, or time on site, affects your site’s ranking on a search engine! A good average session duration tells Google that your site’s information is engaging and valuable to users. It suggests that the content you’re putting out deserves the first-page position in search because it gives users what they want. How To Use Session Duration In Google Analytics Source: Pexels ‍ When checking your on-site time metrics, remember that they cannot answer all your questions on user behavior and how they interact with your content. Simply telling you that most people spend three minutes on your website, for example, does not give crucial insights. The metric does not indicate the specifics! For instance – users didn’t like the content, the page took too long to load, they were annoyed by the adverts, or the next steps weren’t clear. You can do the following to make the most of the session duration metric.  First, segment the users into cohorts depending on their session durations. With this, you can see how well you are guiding visitors on how to move down the conversion funnel. If you see that many users follow the conversion funnel faster than you expected, it can mean they bypass some crucial processes or have found a shortcut. Alternately, if you find that more people are spending more time on a particular page of your website than planned, there could be something confusing that is making it take longer for customers to navigate. ‍ “Google Analytics was too complicated. I save 2 hours every week with Abralytics.” Ryan McK – Founder of Subversive Design Agency Start your 30-day free trial No credit card required Cancel anytime How To Improve Your Website’s Session Duration Here are some strategies that can help to improve the session duration of your website: Publish High-Quality Content Make sure to capture and hold your readers’ attention no matter what content you use on your website. And choose a voice that accurately describes your business and information that will interest your audience. For example, you can include pages that tell users where your products are made and how to use the products on your website. Include Relevant Keywords Even if your website has excellent content, it won’t matter if the target audience cannot find it. Using the right keywords impacts your position in search and, therefore, your visibility. So, it’s essential to use

Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking your website performance. It helps you gauge user interaction with your page or app. The data it provides can be a game-changer for your business. Needless to say, you want this information to be completely transparent and accurate. When you look at your data reports, you want to ensure that what you’re seeing is a true reflection of what is happening on your site. You need to consider blocking specific IP addresses from your google analytics data to achieve this. What is an IP address? Source:  Pexels.com ‍ IP addresses are to the world wide web what postal addresses are to the mailman. When sending a letter to a friend or family member, you include important information on the envelope. Street address, town, city, and zip code. Without this, your post is sure to land up in the bin. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a series of numbers that allows you to communicate with the rest of the web. Without it, the websites you visit wouldn’t know where to send their data that enable you to view their site. An IP address is displayed as a series of numbers separated by a full stop. There are four number groupings in a series. Each number grouping in the series can be made up of a number ranging from 0 to 255. An example of what an IP address would look like is 196.138.1.28. Source: Pexels.com ‍ These numbers aren’t randomly selected. They are assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). So, when you travel from one place to another, it would be safe to assume that your IP address would also change, as you might be connecting to the world wide web from a cafe wifi router or hotel wifi. Can I stop my Google analytics account from tracking my IP address? The short answer is yes. If you’re using a Universal google analytics account, this will be phrased as IP Anonymization or IP masking. However, with Google analytics 4, this won’t even be necessary as your Google analytics account won’t even be tracking IP addresses. While it doesn’t happen immediately, Google analytics anonymizes your IP addresses as soon as possible. So, how do they do it? Google Analytics will take the last number grouped in an IP address and set them to zero shortly after receiving the data. This would, in effect, mean that the full IP address never gets written into your analytics account. Here’s a visual illustration of what your Google Analytics Account would do to the IP address we used earlier as an example -> 196.138.1.28. = 196.138.1.00. This process of IP anonymization takes place in two sectors of Google analytics, the Java Script tag and the Collection Network. Why would I want to exclude IP addresses? Earlier, we spoke of how important it is for you to receive transparent and accurate reports from your Analytics account. Now, imagine receiving your report and noticing outstanding metrics such as a high amount of page views, hundreds of ad clicks, and fantastic video interactions. You’d be over the moon, and rightly so. But what if you later found out that half of the data came from your staff or web developer, simply testing the site usability or scrolling through pages, tweaking their hard work. Website traffic by your employees is referred to as Internal traffic. Source: Pexels.com ‍ That would be pretty annoying. By masking specific IP addresses, you would be excluding internal traffic from your report. And as there are likely multiple team members working in a company or a site, you should probably apply this to multiple IP addresses. You would effectively filter out any Google analytics data that would cause an inaccurate report. Show me how to do it Depending on the nature of your business, you might want to exclude internal traffic from one or multiple IP addresses. Here’s a look at how to do it: Sign in to Google Analytics. Click on the Admin tab, and navigate to the view in which you want the filter to appear. Navigate to the View column and click on Filters Select Add filter type Click Create a new filter Enter a name for the filter. Select the Predefined filter type Select Exclude from the filter type menu. Select Traffic from the IP addresses in the Source or Destination menu. From the Select Expression menu, select ‘that are equal to’ Enter the IP address that you wish to filter Click Save If you want to exclude multiple IP addresses, you can simply repeat these steps and set up multiple filters. Tip: If you’re not sure what your IP address is, simply type the phrase ‘What is my IP address?’ into Google Search on the device you wish to exclude and it will be displayed in the results bar. Other reasons to set up an IP Filter Source: Pexels.com ‍ “Surveillance is the business model of the Internet” – Bruce Schneier, renowned security technologist. (1) We live in a world where security or a lack thereof is constantly a topic of discussion. People track who you are, where you are, and what you’re doing. The main difference between using a personal IP address from Google and a Public IP address is visibility. The latter leaves you way more exposed to the prying eyes of others as your information is far-reaching. For that reason, you may wish to use a VPN that will display the VPN server location rather than your actual geographical location. If security is a big thing for you or your company, why not check out Abralytics. Abralytics prides itself on putting users’ privacy first. They don’t sell personal information and have gotten rid of cookie banners, which means that they are completely compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and PECR straight out of the box. ‍ Further Reading: What is a metric? What kinds of hits does Google Analytics track? ‍ Sources: https://www.schneier.com ‍

Is it time to declutter your Google Analytics dashboard? Perhaps you’re still seeing data from your college buddy’s blog about homemade sports shakes or the website you created thinking you’ll make millions from a grooming service for Chihuahuas. You may even be a marketing guru handling reports for multiple companies and it’s time to delete property from old clients. ‍ In this article, we will tell you step-by-step how to delete a property in Google Analytics. Fear not! I’m pleased to report the process is quite simple. But first things first… What is a property in Google Analytics? ‍ Graphic created in Canva ‍ A Google Analytics property is a website, blog or mobile application that has a unique Tracking ID in Google Analytics. Google uses this code to track user activity on that particular property to compile useful reports. ‍ How many properties can I add to a Google Analytics account? Each Google Analytics account can have up to 100 properties and each property can have up to 25 views ‍ How to delete a Google Analytics property: Step 1: You must be assigned the role as an Editor to move property to the Trash Can. To check your permissions: Click Admin In the Account column, click Account Access Settings Step 2: Select the property you want to delete from the drop down menu (see screenshot below) Step 3: Click Admin (located at the bottom left hand side of the screen and represented by a cog symbol) Step 3: The second column on the page is the Property Column. Click on Property Settings Step 4: Click Move to Trash Can Step 5: A confirmation screen will appear. Click to confirm and you’ll receive an email from Google informing you that the property was successfully moved into the Trash Can. I made a mistake! Can I restore property once deleted? You can breathe a sigh of relief! Property moved to the Trash Can will stay there for 35 days. After 35 days, however, it will be impossible to undo or retrieve any data attached to the property. While in the Trash Can, no data processing will take place until about 1 hour after the property has been restored. ‍ How to restore a Google Analytics property: ‍ Sign in to Google Analytics Click Admin. In the ACCOUNT column, click Trash Can. Locate the property you wish to restore Click Restore. Photo by Lay Low ‍ How to delete a property from Google Analytics 4: Sign into your Google Analytics account Click Admin In the Property column, select the property you want to delete. In the Property column, click Property Settings. Click Move to Trash Can (next to “Move property”, at upper right of Account Settings screen). How to restore a property on Google Analytics 4: Sign in to your Google Analytics account Click Admin. In the Account column, click Trash Can. Locate the item you want to restore by looking through the table Select the item, and click Restore. ‍ Wait! I heard that you cannot restore property deleted in GA4? Photo by Andrea Piacquadio ‍ Google Analytics 4 (GA4) differs from the standard Universal Google Analytics because it allows you to create so-called Data Streams. When you delete a data stream in GA4, that data is deleted permanently. However, when you move a property to the Trash Can, all the data streams go with it and can be restored if you wish to do so. So what is a data stream? Google defines it as: “A data stream is a flow of data from a customer touchpoint (e.g., app, website) to Analytics. When you create a data stream, Analytics generates a snippet of code that you add to your app or site to collect that data. Data is collected from the time you add the code, and that data forms the basis of your reports.” Final Thoughts Deleting a property in Google Analytics is a simple process. But not everything is quite as straightforward. If you need an easy to use analytics tool which gives you the most relevant data without the jargon, why not give Abralytics a try?

Anyone with a Google Analytics account wants to use it to its full potential. To do this, website owners will often set goals for their website that track specific user interactions. Think of these analytical goals as a triathlete’s goals when preparing for a big race. A triathlete might focus his energy on one specific discipline at a time. Likely, he’ll begin with what needs to be improved the most. ‍ Source: Pexels.com As he gets better at each discipline, he will reduce or stop his training in that field entirely and move on to the next. These training methods may even overlap. Similarly, goals in Google Analytics help users or web developers focus on what is most needed to maximize their chances of success. As businesses develop and website traffic changes, developers need to set new goals to keep websites optimized and content current. Let’s delve a little deeper into Google analytics goals by discussing what they are, how you can create new goals, what you should be doing with your old goals, and more specifically, how to delete goals in Google Analytics. First of all… What are Google Analytics goals? ‍ Similar to our athlete setting basic goals for himself when getting ready for a big race, there are four primary Google Analytics goals that website developers should consider setting, namely: Destination Goals Duration Goals Pages per session / Visit Goals Event Goals Source: Pexels.com Here’s a breakdown of those four core goals in Google Analytics Destination goals Google defines Destination Goals as ‘Conversions based on users viewing a specific page or screen.’ Basically, it tracks when a user lands on a specific page on your website. The purpose is best suited to the landing page, including the confirmation page, the gratitude page, or the sign-up pages for an email list and other forms. It is a common way of measuring conversion rates in your business. Duration Goals Visit duration goals measure the length of time visitors spend on an application or site. You can use the goal to track the number of visitors who stay on a specific page for a given period. For instance, you can see how many users stay on the site for more than a few minutes, engage in various activities, and read your content. Visit Goals/ Pages Per Session Visit goals or Pages per Visit is a simple goal to set up in Google Analytics. It’s super helpful to track the number of pages each person visits before leaving. Like the Duration goals, this is great for tracking user engagement and knowing which sections of your website may need improvement. Event Goals Event goals allow users to track visitors’ different actions on their site. Google Analytics events are useful if you want to know how many people filled out a form, downloaded a file, or played a video, for example. ‍ In addition to these goal types, your google analytics account also can track smart goals. Think of them like the pro tips a coach would give an athlete. ‍ Source: Pexels.com These goals need to be switched on manually, but this is a simple process. Smart Goals Smart Goals are specifically designed to help Google Ads advertisers who may not have enough conversions to use the Google Ads optimization tools, such as automated bidding. ‍ By enabling smart goals, your Analytics account automatically evaluates your website or app visits and assigns each a score. ‍ The “best” visits are then automatically translated into Smart Goals. Look at this awesome blog for a more in-depth look at these core Goals in Google Analytics. The basics of setting goals Creating goals for your business website or app is an easy 4 step process. Sign in to your Google Analytics account Click on Admin and navigate to the View column Once in the View settings column, click on goals Click + New Goal to add a new goal, or click on an existing goal and edit it accordingly. Here you can set an event goal, duration goal, or similar custom goals. Best practices for assigning Google Analytics goals ‍ Source: Pexels.com ‍ When choosing which goals to set up in Google Analytics, ask yourself: How do I get more sales and increase my business conversion? Then list the most important actions for your company, whether for revenue or leads. ‍ These actions can be email submissions, demo requests, subscription newsletters, and other activities showing interest and engagement for lead businesses. E-commerce websites should set up E-commerce Tracking System. ‍ Simply put, identify what’s most important to your business and set your own goals to add value to your site. Can I delete a Google Analytics goal? No, it’s impossible to delete a goal from your Google Analytics property. Source: Pexels.com Sounds odd, right? You might fear that goals that are no longer needed will clog up your analytics system. However, old goal-based data won’t impact your account tracking in the future. Old goals have no retroactive effect and therefore do not affect current statistics. It is processed only once to achieve the goals and that historical data does not apply to current goal tracking. What can I do instead of deleting goals? It is possible to change a goal to be inactive. Doing so will stop your Google Analytics Account tracking data on that specific goal. This, too, is a straightforward process: Sign in to your Account Navigate to your goals Locate the goal you wish to edit or change Turn the recording toggle on or off. Now that you’ve paused tracking data from a particular goal, why not create a new view? Think about your goal types and your future success. Use this opportunity to work on goal configuration and find a new use for existing goals. Source: Pexels.com While you’re rethinking your goals, why not act on this new enlightened way of thinking and try a different way of web analysis completely. Abralytics Every now and then, an athlete will change

There are many advantages to using an Analytics platform, such as Google Analytics, Abralytics, FoxMetrics, HubSpot, or something similar. These platforms allow any website owner to see how users are interacting with his website and apply the suggested changes to optimize productivity. But what do you do once your blog is inactive or a website is no longer in use? You see, your unused website data will stay in your analytics account and simply clog things up. Deleting an unused Google Analytics Account keeps things nice and tidy and speeds up your analytics on websites or pages that are still valid. You might be a new user of Google Analytics and the very thought of doing anything to your account settings might be freaking you out. If so, don’t stress… We’ve got it covered. This article will give you a step-by-step guide to help you delete a Google Analytics Account. Log in to your Google Analytics account Sign to your Google Analytics account. Open your browser and navigate to www.google.com/analytics/ Keep in mind that you’ll be taken directly to your analytics interface if you’re already signed in to Google. Alternatively, you’ll be prompted to enter your login details on the main menu, likely your Gmail account and password. Screenshot taken from Google Analytics landing page Once here you’ll need to… Locate the Admin tab Move the cursor to the far left of the home page and a pop-out will appear. In the bottom left-hand corner, you’ll see the Admin tab along with a settings cog icon. Select it. You’ll now find yourself on the Admin panel. From here you’re able to adjust any account settings or property settings. Stick to the left hand of the page where your different accounts are located. Screenshot taken from Google Analytics demo account Next, you need to… Select your Google Analytics Account You might be using Google Analytics to analyze the traffic of more than one company website. If so, you’ll have multiple accounts displayed in the dropdown menu. Make sure to select the proper account name here. Selecting and deleting the wrong account can be quite a pain. You’ll lose valuable data if you accidentally get rid of the wrong account, so pay attention! Screenshot taken from Google Analytics demo account Once you’ve selected the account you no longer wish to use, click ‘Account Settings‘ on the admin page… Delete the Account On the far right of the page, you’ll notice a tab labeled ‘Move to Rubbish Bin‘. Click on it and… that’s it, consider the unwanted clutter permanently deleted. Screenshot taken from Google Analytics demo account ‍ Haven’t found the right analytics platform yet? You might have deleted your Google Analytics account because the business website in question is no longer in use. Or perhaps you simply wanted to declutter your account and speed things up. Whatever the reason, if you’ve just followed these steps you now find yourself without an analytics platform to track precious data. Why not consider an alternative to Google Analytics? There are a number of platforms out there that offer all the necessary tracking code and reports to make your website successful. Abralytics is one such platform. Super lightweight code means faster loading times and a user-friendly interface will make you wonder why you spent so much time figuring out how a more complicated platform worked. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto – Pexel Still confused? Here are a few frequently asked questions about this topic… How do I permanently delete Google Analytics property? Firstly, Sign in to your Google Analytics account the same way we just described. Thereafter, select Admin and navigate to the property that you wish to delete. In the Property column, on the right hand of the page, click ‘Property Settings’. Now click ‘Move to Trash Can’. You should now see a confirmation screen. Click ‘Move property to Trash Can’. For a step-by-step tutorial, check out the full article here. How do I delete a Google Analytics demo account? Again, the same basic steps apply. Sign in to Google Analytics, and click ‘Admin’. Navigate to the Account menu and select ‘Demo Account’. In the Account column, click ‘User Management’. Now click ‘Remove Myself’. ‍

The business world is becoming more digitalized by the day. ‍ Companies, great and small, share a common desire to streamline their internal operations and thus maximize productivity. ‍ It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that people are leaning towards automated reporting tools to achieve these goals. Why Automate Website Reports? No matter which stage of growth a business finds itself in, it needs clear goals to keep it moving forward. These goals are tracked using key metrics, referred to as key performance indicators. ‍ And these KPIs allow a business to evaluate its performance and make needed adjustments along the way. ‍ KPIs are shared in business reports that are shared daily, weekly, monthly, and perhaps even yearly. But this presents a problem. ‍ Companies use different platforms for advertising campaigns, marketing outreach campaigns, marketing reports and website hosting. ‍ How can you retrieve accurate data from all these different sources efficiently and accurately? That’s where an automated reporting system comes in. ‍ Report automation collects essential data from multiple platforms, or in some cases, websites, and generates an overview report for consideration. ‍ There’s another reason why businesses are leaning ever more towards digitalizing things. ‍ Professionalism.  ‍ Imagine, for a moment, a marketing agency meeting with a potential client. ‍ ‍Pexels ‍ With a lot hinging on the success of the meeting, those on the pitching side of the negotiation table want to give the best first impression. ‍ If that agency pulls out a single report with metrics and data in a neatly organized report, they’ll stand a higher chance of securing the job. ‍ Let’s now highlight a few other key benefits. The Benefits of Report Automation Saves Time and Money According to a survey of 1000 people working for small and medium-sized companies, 29% said they spend between 4 and 5 hours daily performing core job functions. ‍ As if that’s not alarming enough, the same study found that 76% of people spend between 1 and 3 hours a day manually entering data into operating systems. In addition, 73% of workers spend 1-3 hours just trying to find information or a particular document. (1) ‍ Automatic reporting frees up valuable time that workers lose by doing manual entry. ‍ The entire workforce can then focus their time and energy on more human-centric tasks such as following up with customers or suppliers. Creates Transparency and Accessibility A central software system allows various departments to access the same data. ‍ This transparency enables collaboration as different teams can use one report to work from, even from various geographical locations. ‍ Allowing team members access to the same reports also builds trust. Employees hate thinking that they’re being left out of the loop. ‍ So make sure you grant all the right people access to your automated reports and you’ll notice their confidence in the company grow. ‍ Pexels‍ Increases Productivity Automated reporting gives businesses an accurate, up-to-date picture of what’s happening on the ground at any given time. ‍ This is especially important if you have departments functioning from different geographical locations. ‍ Real-time data = Real-Time decision making ‍ You can act swiftly and decisively when you don’t have to wait for reports to be collected from different departments. And as a result, business production or workflow can continue to operate at a steady pace. Reduces Human Error No matter how hard we try, we all make mistakes. And this is even more true when we face anxiety at work. ‍ According to a study by AADA, 50% of workers admitted that work-related stress affects the quality of their work. (2) ‍ And we all know how much stress chasing deadlines causes. The last thing you want is for the quality of your reports to be impacted because of a stressed employee trying to enter data from various sources manually. ‍ Pexels‍ ‍ This is especially important during crucial decision-making meetings where companies depend on data accuracy. ‍ A misplaced comma or unassigned data entry could potentially have huge consequences for your business, so reduce the chance of human error by canceling manual calculations. ‍ So, some serious pros exist to using report automation tools in everyday business. But how do you actually do it? ‍ Let’s have a look. Automated Reporting Tools Here’s an overview of how to do it using two web analytics tools, Abralytics and Google Analytics. Abralytics Abralytics is a web analytics tool that has gained popularity, partly due to its ability to marry in-depth reporting with easy-to-use functionality. ‍ Unlike other well-known platforms that seem to overwhelm more than make life easier for many users, Abralytics takes a less is more approach to their business, including report automation. ‍ With just a few clicks, you can give your team access to the most valuable data in your business. ‍ As mentioned earlier, the first step is to identify your business KPIs.  ‍ You can set these KPIs as key widgets in your Abralytics reports and, in doing so, view only the data you need rather than too much data at once. ‍ The platform also helps you save time as the learning curve is super low, and the setup is pain-free. ‍ Abralytics also allows you to view data from an infinite number of websites using one platform. It automatically generates weekly and monthly reports for all sites and sends these by e-mail. ‍ That’s the kind of initiative that draws so many to Abralytics. ‍ Easy, hassle-free automated reporting software. Pexels‍ ‍ Google Analytics ‍ GA has been the go-to web analytics tool for many years, so it’s reasonable to assume that you’ll want to automate your reports stemming from their products. ‍ That’s precisely why Google Data Studio was released in 2016 as a free automated reporting tool for individual users and small teams. ‍ Google Data Studio lets you view reports from various data sources in one compelling dashboard. It uses charts, bars, and other