Dashboards are practical if you want to display a lot of information in an easily understandable way. Further, good dashboards save time.
Avinash Kaushik has put together seven dashboards. We want to take a look at two dashboards we believe to be invaluable.
Dashboard 1: Search Contribution
Search engines are important traffic sources, since many users are using them to access websites and this kind of traffic is free. That is why this traffic sources should be well monitored. It is crucial that this dashboard contains end-to-end information, so you are able to see how the users are getting to your website, what they are doing while there and how much value their visits are generating. Users, Pages/Session and Per Session Goal Value are three possible metrics.
In Google Analytics this can be seen at Acquisition/Channels:
You could extract this data through the Google API and edit the formatting (e.g. color the metrics depending on the values).
Dashboard 2: Content Contribution
This Dashboard informs on the Page Value, the value that pages have. It tells you which content drives users to your website and which page is generating the biggest value. For this, recommended metrics are: Unique Pageviews, Entrances and Page Value.
In Google Analytics this can be found at Behavior/Site Content:
Regarding the value it should be distinguished between e-commerce websites and non-e-commerce websites. Taking the values of sold goods as a reference for an e-commerce website is a good practice. When you are not selling something you could assign to a value, you should assign a symbolic value, e.g. 1CHF, since a page view of the contact form could lead to a contract.
If you are using these dashboards regularly you will better understand your visitors and your content. Based on that you will be able to effectively enhance your website.
