Google Analytics is a free tool that can be used to collect data about the behavior of website visitors. This data can be used to improve the design and content of a website, as well as to understand the interests and preferences of your audience. ..
How To Navigate to Google Analytics User Research
Log in to your Google Analytics account. Visit the website you’ve registered in Google Analytics. ..
In the left navigation pane, expand the Audience section. This menu contains all of the User Research sections that we’ll cover in this guide. When you select Overview from this section, you’ll see a basic overview of your user traffic.
Adding segments to your audience analysis can help you better understand how different groups of people are reacting to your content. ..
If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you’ll see a list of demographics on the left that you can select from. As you choose these, you’ll see a ranking on the right showing the demographic breakdown of your site visitors. ..
This report includes information about the demographics of users who use different operating systems and browsers. It also includes information about the operating systems, service providers, and screen resolutions of users.
Exploring User Demographics
If you want to explore specific user demographics in more detail, scroll down the Audience menu and expand Demographics. There you will find an Overview section that will give you a detailed look at how users within each demographic behave on your site. ..
This page provides a basic overview of demographics, including age and gender.
Under Demographics, you can select Age to see a breakdown of how many of your visitors are within certain age ranges. For example, if you are targeting people between the ages of 18 and 34, you can see that 34% of your visitors fall into this range. ..
To see how your website is performing among different age groups, you can use a graph called the “Age Distribution of Website Visitors.” This graph will show how the different age groups have been visiting your website over time. ..
You can see a breakdown of male and female visitors by selecting Gender under Demographics.
Understanding your audience’s demographics can help you create content that is more relevant and appealing to them. This will also help you identify areas where you may need to grow your audience, so that you can continue to bring in new visitors. ..
In Google Analytics, you can explore your visitors by demographics, such as age, gender, and location. You can also see information about what pages they visited and how long they spent on those pages.
Exploring Your Visitor Interests
Interest: The next section under Audience called Interest gives you access to an amazing array of details about your visitors.
Google has a lot of information about your visitors’ interests, which is available in your Google Analytics account under the Interests section.
Interests: Arts, Entertainment, Food, Health & Fitness, Travel
Affinity Category: Topics that users are more likely to be interested in learning about. In-Market Segment: Products and services that your visitors commonly research or purchase. Other Category: Somewhat more general views of what your visitors are interested in.
Google Analytics offers a way to dive further into interest categories by selecting Affinity Categories. This will show you how many users have visited your site who have these specific interests. ..
In-Market Segments: -Product Research: How many users have visited your site who have researched or purchased specific products or types of products? -Purchase Intentions: How many users have visited your site who have indicated they plan to purchase a specific product or type of product within the next 30 days?
To see how many users have visited your site who have a broader, more general set of interests, select Other Categories from the dropdown menu. ..
Interests are one of the most important factors in website design. Knowing what your visitors are interested in can help you create content that is relevant and engaging. There are two main ways to find out what interests your visitors: using affinity categories or in-market segments. ..
Your Visitors’ Geography
The internet is a global platform, and if you can appeal to an audience beyond just the United States, you stand to attract a much larger audience.
Geo: Selecting Geo under Audience allows you to see where your site stands today in terms of audience breakdown by country. Language under this menu allows you to see which languages are most popular on your site. ..
This will show you the languages spoken by your visitors from around the world. This is largely based on their country of origin, among other factors collected by Google.
To see the countries your visitors are from, select Location.
The Location page shows you how many people are visiting your website from around the world. The darker blue on the map represents more visitors, while the lighter blue indicates fewer visitors.
The table below lists the countries along with the number of visits they have made to your website over the past 12 months. The table also includes a breakdown of the visits by type of visit: online, print, or mobile.
To grow an audience from other countries, you can include topics that people in other countries care about. For example, you may mention how access to certain services or products may be limited. Or provide visitors with tips on things like how to use a VPN to deal with geographic limitations online.
Your Visitors’ Technology
If you want your visitors to have the best possible experience on your site, you need to tailor the site design to the technology that most of your visitors use.
Under the Audience menu, select Technology to see this. You’ll see two options under this menu. Select Browser & OS to see the web browser and operating systems most of your visitors use.
This section displays the Browser tab, and how many visits you’ve received from visitors using certain browsers.
Your visitors are using a variety of operating systems, which can be seen in the Operating System tab on this page.
You can see what browsers they are using, what plugins they have installed, and even see what fonts they are using. ..
The following table lists the screen resolution, colors (bit type), and flash version of the Java support on different devices. ..
Google Analytics offers a Mobile menu that shows the most common mobile devices your visitors use when they visit with their phone or tablet. ..
Knowing the browser, OS, or mobile device most of your visitors use can help you make sure your site works well for the majority of those visitors. You can use this information to do site testing with the most common technologies your visitors use.
Other Useful User Research Metrics
In Google Analytics for other metrics, you can find the following sections: Audience: This section shows how many people have visited your website or page in the past 24 hours. This data is updated hourly. Clicks: This section shows how often people have clicked on your website or page. This data is updated hourly.
If you select Users Flow, you’ll see a visual that shows how different user groups navigate your website. Select Country from the dropdown, and you’ll see how users from the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries click through the pages on your site. ..
You can also see this visual by selecting other demographic options like browser, language, and more. ..
Select Overview from the Audience menu and then select Add Segment at the top to include any additional demographics that you want to do comparisons on.
The College Age Visitor Percentage Chart
You can add additional segments to this view to compare additional demographic populations in your audience. ..
Doing Google Analytics User Research
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for user research. This kind of insight can help you tailor your content and website design to appeal to a much larger audience. It can also help you to ensure that your site looks and feels perfect to the majority of visitors that frequent your website most often. ..
