Get Your Metrics On

Earlier this week, Joe Patti published an interesting article at Butts In the Seats about getting more out of your website metrics by following the blog Google for Nonprofits and it made me recall a superb nuts and bolts style post a month ago by Ned Dwyer on how to get serious about using Google Analytics (GA) regardless if your skill set is novice or intermediate.

I intended to post something about Dwyer’s article but promptly forgot about it so I’m glad Patti’s post reconnected the neurons. Dwyer’s post focuses on using what might seem like one of the more daunting aspects for those who aren’t already Analytics pros: custom reports.

Custom reports let you keep a close eye on what matters most to you and your marketing and online engagement efforts that GA doesn’t already present in one of the ready-made dashboard components.

He uses practical examples, such as creating reports to track email subscription conversion, and has loads of well documented screencaps to illustrate each step in the process. If that’s still too much effort, there are even a few prepackaged custom reports you can apply to your analytics account Dwyer put together from his examples.

Of particular interest is the section that covers how to monitor which content performs best on social media. And like all good tools, GA is always evolving so staying on top of the latest skills is a must for anyone serious about maximizing their organization’s online presence.