Comments on: How to get the most out of Google Analytics https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-analytics/ A look at how trends in communication technology impact individuals and organizations. Mon, 20 Feb 2023 20:20:25 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: Rowan https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-analytics/#comment-615468 Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:51:04 +0000 https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/?p=23184#comment-615468 In reply to Clark Nelson.

Thanks for the contribution Clark, spot on. I reckon there is another blog post in how to use webmaster tools because as you rightly point out a lot of us probably set it up initially and then forget about it 🙂

]]> By: Clark Nelson https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-analytics/#comment-615239 Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:58:48 +0000 https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/?p=23184#comment-615239 Thanks for the mobilephone emulator test. In addition to analytics, I have spent time with google webmaster tools. I think a lot of site owners ignore crawl errors and these should be addressed to improve visitor satisfaction. Crawl errors stem from internal or external broken links. Visitors get Page Not Found, which results in high bounce rates and unhappy visitors.

When sitemaps are generated and uploaded, new pages are added to the index. Older removed pages still exist to show up and snare a visitor upon searching the index. There may be hundreds of pages indexed especially when you used a canned deployment like OScommerce or wordpress. So you redo the sitemap thinking you overwrite the index. Unfortunately, the answer is NO even though files and directories were already removed.

Someone may also have linked to your page once upon a time. Your page is no longer there but the link is on his site is. I have discovered untold garbled entries that probably were machine generated. Some writers say old unused entries will disappear on their own. You can grow old waiting. Here's how to discard inactive pages.

Use the crawl errors list in combination with the URL removal tool under optimization. Go to the Google's not found list. Visit the Page Not Found and copy the URL as is. Check the box for that page to remove it from the errors list. Change over to Remove URLs page. Then paste it into the removal box. I use notepad to record lists of ten or more bad URLs and put them in the removal queue. Since each page has to be handled individually (I tried directory removal without success) the whole process can be painstakingly slow. Timeemits.com is a small site and several hundred bad URLs needed removal.

Google claims they don't hold crawl errors against your rankings. Ultimately, precious visitors will find your pages lots easier.

]]> By: Rowan Winsemius https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-analytics/#comment-614109 Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:31:22 +0000 https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/?p=23184#comment-614109 Thanks for the feedback Paul 🙂
Qualitative data can be really powerful but we've also got to remember that its only one source of information. Getting quantitative feedback (eg asking people 'what do you think of our site') may tell a different story. The challenge for churches (and webmasters generally) is to work out the best way to get the answers to the questions they have about their website effectiveness! Perhaps I'll write another post on how to gather quantitative feedback 🙂

]]> By: PaulSteinbrueck https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-analytics/#comment-614033 Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:37:30 +0000 https://www.ourchurch.com/blog/?p=23184#comment-614033 Hey Rowan, thanks for writing today's post! Great advice! I think many of us think we're just to busy to look at analytics regularly, but as you pointed out analytics provide critical information that may help uncover problems preventing people from getting the information they're looking for. On the flip side, can analytics can also provide numerical evidence that you're site is well designed and fulfilling its purpose.

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