Web Analytics Tips: Compare to Site Average Feature

One useful aspect of Google Analytics that I often forget about is the “compare to site average” feature.  It’s all well and good to look at how individual metrics change over time, but it can be very helpful to know how one particular page, traffic source, or other variable is performing in comparison to the rest of your site.  This feature can be used when looking at almost any metric, as there will be a site average listed underneath most.  

One of the places it’s most helpful is in looking at different traffic sources.  Say you’re looking at referral traffic.  You have information for their time on site, bounce rate, goal conversions and e-commerce value.  You can also see this information for each individual referral source.  Under each of these metrics, you can see a “site average” number. There is also an option under “views” that will bring up a bar graph comparing each source to the site’s average.  Knowing which traffic sources are interested in your site and performing well can be valuable information in deciding where to spend your time and budget in attracting new customers.  This is great information if you want to know how your targeted email marketing or paid advertising campaign is performing.

Another very helpful place this feature can be used is determining which pages on your site visitors are most interested in. The number of visits each page gets doesn’t tell the full story of which pages visitors find most engaging.  That same bar graph can show you which pages had the highest times, lowest bounce rates and the highest $ Index . These are the two places I find this feature the most helpful, although you can discover what areas are the most helpful for your site depending on your goals.