March 18, 2010

If you're trying to get landing pages that really grab your visitors, there's one Google Analytics report you absolutely cannot live without. And guess what?

It's not Top Landing Pages.

Before I unveil the report that ROIers use to do quick landing page analysis, let's find out why we're not big fans of the built-in Top Landing Pages report:

It only shows entrances, bounces, and bounce rate
It doesn't tell us conversion data for our landing pages
It can't show the revenue generated by our landing pages

Thankfully, there is a way to get what we need for robust landing page analysis out of GA. Hit the jump to find out how.

The first method is the easiest. We just use an existing Google Analytics report, and segment by landing page. Just browse to Visitors > Map Overlay. Then use the dimension dropdown to select Landing Page:

Check it out:

Sure, Entrances and Visits aren't the same metric, but that's not really why I'm at this report. I'm here because I want to see how these landing pages stacked up when it came to getting visitors to sign up for my newsletter or buy my widgets. It wouldn't be the first time that I've seen a page with a higher bounce rate net me more cash than one with a slighter lower bounce rate.

So the Map Overlay report is fine and dandy, but you're probably wondering, "Why isn't he talking about Custom Reporting yet? Does he know there are Custom Reports now?"

Yes. He does. And you get a gold star, because this is a perfect case for why Custom Reports are awesome. If a built-in report isn't doing it for you, just build your own from scratch and start using the new one instead.

Here's a Custom Landing Pages Report:

Now you can compare everything you need. I've separated the Goal and Ecommerce data on separate tabs, but you can try and cram it all on one tab if you'd like. Add that bad boy to the Dashboard and you're good to go.

How do you like to check your landing page performance in Google Analytics? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Posted by Michael Harrison, Analytics and Optimization Specialist at 2:29 PM

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Filed under: Analytics
Tagged as: Analytics Basics, Google Analytics, Improving Conversion, Landing Page, Reports

Comments

Steve said:

What is the "True Time on Site" Value on the above image?

March 18, 2010 3:11 PM

Claudiu said:

Great post on custom segments.

The trick with Map Overlay is really cool. Had no idea about it. :) Than again, it's never too late to learn new things.

March 19, 2010 3:38 AM

Heidi Strom Moon said:

Great post, thanks! It's always interesting to find different ways to drill down into GA data. I'm putting this custom report into action right now.

March 25, 2010 3:37 PM

Burak Tansug said:

This is very creative, it just made my Monday morning. Thank you.
I wish it was also possible to associate an event category/action to the page-goal pair, i.e. Button A on Page1 brought 10 conversions, vs same button A on Page2 brought in 5 conversions, etc.

March 29, 2010 10:02 AM

Bob said:

Thanks, I found this useful. The addition of the smiley faces in the image also helped my tired brain to process the info more easily :)

April 15, 2010 12:47 PM

Michael Harrison, Analytics and Optimization Specialist said:

@Steve: That is a metric added to the reports by Jeremy Aube's Google Analytics Report Enhancer. First mentioned in our article on Time on Page and Time on Site, the True Time on Site metric is just a more accurate reading on how long your visitors are sticking around.

Thank you.

August 27, 2010 10:50 PM

Lance said:

I don't use Google Analytics for my site, but think other analytic services are more suitable. I'm always paranoid they're gonna use my analytics data for some other purpose.

August 30, 2010 12:45 PM