Behavior Reports Part 1
Google Analytics categorizes all reports into four distinct sections: Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversion. We have previously talked about audience reports, acquisition reports, and goal-setting under conversions. Today, we will explore the behavior reports to see what kind of useful information we can deduct from these reports about a website.
Google Analytics uses a javascript code to track viewers' actions when browsing through a website. From what pages they look at, what media they play, and how much time is spent per page, Google Analytics can give you an idea of how users "behave" on your site.
Behavior reports include an "Overview," "Behavior Flow," "Site Content," "Site Speed," "Events," "Publisher," and "Experiments."
In this blog post, we will go over the Overview and Behavior Flow reports.
As with all other Google Analytics reports, the Overview page will give you a glimpse into each report. You can find the total number of pageviews, unique pageviews, average time on page, bounce rate, and percentage of exits from a specified date range. Site Content, Site Search, and Event Reports are also accessible through the Overview page.
The Behavior Flow report is a map that charts the behavior of users on your page. It captures the flow from page to page, making note of drop-offs and number of interactions.
You can organize the Behavior Flow map by dimensions. In my case, I want to know where people are coming from when they arrive at my page. Therefore, I will use "Source/Medium" as my measurement.
The behavior flow tells me that most of my traffic comes from blogger.com with 23 sessions originating from there. I can also see that 19 sessions were direct, 23 Facebook referrals, 5 t.co/ referrals, and 5 "others." There are two different facebook referrals with 18 and 5 pageviews, respectively. If I want to analyze why my second Facebook share was less successful, I can choose for Google Analytics to highlight the paths followed by users who entered my blog through this second Facebook post. You have the option of highlighting the path or selecting to view only the segment you want to monitor.
Behavior Flow allows me to see the maximum number of interactions viewers have had with my page. For my page, two sessions have made it up to 12 interactions before dropping-off.
