A step further: New reports for the Google Analytics integration

As of now, all OnPage.org users have the possibility of presenting the most important performance data, such as pageviews, bounce rate or dwell time in every report, and deriving the appropriate measures.

Linkage with Google Analytics

Before using the new reports, you should start a new crawl.

Note: In case you have not already linked your Google account with OnPage.org follow these steps:

• In the Project Settings field, select Services
• Link your Google account with the software
• In the Services field, click on Google Analytics to select a property for your project
• Now, start a new crawl

After completing the crawl, you can access the most important performance data from every URL included in your project from Google Analytics.

The new Google Analytics reports

The three new reports on Google Analytics provide you with important metrics such as pageviews, bounce rate and dwell time, as well as data on conversions, Google AdSense and Google AdWords.

Figure 1: The new Google Analytics reports in OnPage.org zoom

Tip: Activate an automatic crawl in the settings, so that the latest performance data of the past 30 days is always available to you in your reports.

1. Pageviews report

In this report, you can see your top pages organized by pageviews. With the OPR, you can also check whether your most popular pages are receiving enough internal PageRanks, or whether you would be better off linking them to increase the traffic in a lasting way.

2. Bounce rate report

The "bounce rate report" provides you with an overview of the pages that made users leave your page most often. Identify your so-called ”low performer pages” and optimize them to improve the experience of your users.

3. Average time in site

This report will show you how much time a user spends on the respective pages. By sorting the pages according to dwell time, you can determine which pages users only visit shortly and which pages users spend a lot of time on.

You can use these reports, for example, when you want to

• Identify pages without pageviews
• Optimize pages with a high bounce rate
• Address a list of pages with low retention times

Thanks to the linkage with Google Analytics, you will not only have access to the performance data in three reports. You will also be able to add all the data as a column to every report and thus create new and unique reports, which can support your daily work with OnPage.org and give you important information for your SEO.

Application example:

Augmenting a 404 report with traffic data from GA

404 pages are a common problem, because oftentimes a new link is quickly inserted manually via the CMS. Years later, the target URL is nowhere to be found, but the link continues to exist. This can lead to a large number of 404 pages, especially on large websites that have grown historically.

The Google Analytics integration in OnPage.org will help you to decide which 404 pages have the most potential and, additionally, where you should begin to use that potential.

First, in the Indexability(1) field, select the Status Codes(2) report and activate the 404 Filter(3).

Figure 2: Displaying all found 404

In the next step, the found 404 error will be expanded by the performance data from Google Analytics. To do this, click on the Setting(1) of the chart and then select customize(2).

Figure 3: Expanding the 404 report via the settings

In the next step, the column with the pageviews will now be inserted from Google Analytics. To do this, go to the Displayed columns(1) field and type the search term "Analytics" into the search slot(2). All of the relevant boxes will be displayed, and you can then select pageviews(3).

Figure 4: Displaying the pageviews as a new column

After that, click Save to save the previous steps and then you can close the window. Your 404 report now contains information on how often the 404 page was already accessed.

Figure 5: 404 report with the pageviews of the past 30 days for every URL

The information on the number of pageviews can not only help you to assess which 404 page needs to be removed first but also to determine how many users are directly affected by your actions.

Conclusion

Thanks to the new Google Analytics integration, all reports in OnPage.org can be expanded with performance data. Decisions for or against certain measures and decisions for prioritization are substantiated by the performance data, and this will help you to better plan your time and resources.

Keep on optimizing!