A Google Analytics Primer

You may or may not know that Google Analytics is a free website analyzer of data relating to website visitors to your site.  It is easy to setup, easy to read and understand, and easy to change things about your website once you get the feedback.  If you are not using it, then you really don't care about the success of your website.

Below is a listing of the more salient analytical data points you can discover using it:

% exit           _  percentage of users who exit from a web page as a share of pageviews
bounce rate  _  percentage of visits which the visitor enters/exits same page, without visiting any other page on the site
click             _  single instance of a visitor clicking one page on the site
click path    _  sequence of clicks that website visitors follow on a given site
click through rate _ known as CTR, percentage of people who view an item and then click it; calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions
depth of visit  _  (pageviews per session) average number of pageviews a visitor initiates before ending the session; calculated by dividing the total number of pageviews by the total number of sessions
first visit     _  first visitor by a person who has not previously visited the site before
hit               _  request for a file from a web server. Hit is not the same thing as a pageview
impression _  a single display of an advertisement on a web page
loyalty        _  a measurement of how often visitors come to a website, calculated by dividing the total number of sessions or visits by the total number of unique visitors
new visitor_  visitor who has not made previous visit to the website
pageview   _  display of a complete webpage, one visitor looking at a single page on a site generates a single pageview
pageview duration _  (time on page) the average of amount of time that visitors spend on each page of a website
repeat visitor _  a visitor who has previously made a visit to the site
session       _  a series of pageviews from the same visitor with no more than 30 minutes between pageviews — and with no visits to other sites between page views. Unlike a visit, the session ends when the visitor opens a page on another website
single page visit _ a visit from a visitor where only a single page is viewed
time on site _ (or length  of visit) average amount of time that is spent by visitors on a website each time they visit
visit _  a series of pageviews from the same visitor with no more than 30 minutes between each pageview, unlike a session, a visit continues (for 30 minutes) even after a visitor leaves your site

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OK, I know this is amazingly anal, but it's good stuff.

This information was edited and acquired from "Sams Teach Yourself Google Analytics," Michael Miller, Sams Publishing, 2011.