1. Updated Dashboards
With the new dashboard format, you can create up to 20 personalized dashboard views. This will allow you to personalize your account to display information that is most relevant to your business.
This will allow everyone to view all of the statistics they need without having to navigate through links making this tool more efficient and easier to use.
2. Clouds
The new Clouds feature will allow you to view popular keywords in an easier to understand way. You can submit different criteria to filter through depending on what they are focusing on (bounce rates, visits, pages for visit, etc). This will help you spot trends of keywords that gave the best results so that these areas can be focused on when marketing.
3. Real Time Data.
In the past, some statistics on Analytics has been delayed for as long as a day. Analytics will now allow you to see statistics in real time, helping to spot trends as they are happening.
This will allow everyone to stay on top of trends and change content and focus to what is getting the most results. You will also be able to see how many people are on your site at any given moment and see what pages are getting the most attention right now.
4. Site Speed
You will now be able to see how quickly each page loads on your site. This will be useful because visitors to not like to stay on pages that take a long time to load and will most likely close the browser and move on if they can’t get information to come up.
Some things that might effect your load time are widgets, multiple videos on one page, and internet speed. This tool is beneficial because it will alert you to any pages you may need to reassess and modify due to content that is affecting the load time of your site.
5. Menu Search
Google Analytics has added a search feature that will allow you to type in the section you would like to view and go straight to it without having to scroll through all of the other sections of your account. There is a separate search feature for reports and accounts so you can access both quickly.
6. Webmaster Tools Integration
Google has integrated Webmaster Tools and analytics into one tool for better efficiency. You will now be able to view what section of Google (images, web, mobile) people are accessing your site through.
Analytics users will now get similar information to those using paid advertising (Adwords, etc) as you will now be able to see how many impressions you received and your average placement.
While the new information will not be 100% accurate, this will provide a good indication of where your site stands and what you may be able to do to improve it. It will also provide a little peak into how the latest Google updates may have affected your site.
7. Social Engagement
A new report in Google Analytics will allow you to see how people are interacting with your site on a Social Media level. You will now be able to view how many people have Google +1’d your site content or liked you on Facebook.
When visitors share your site information on social media platforms, it provides you with a new set of potential clients. It is a good idea to provide ways for them to share your site and content with their friends if they find it useful.
8. Visitor Flow and Goal Flow Visualization
This tool might be one of the best improvements to in the Analytics update. The flow charts will let you see what point visitors are abandoning your site and moving on.
Have a lead capture tool that is 8 pages long but people are leaving after the 6th page? Maybe it’s time to reanalyze your questions and shorten the form to get more results. The flow visualizations will allow you to see where clients are getting frustrated so that you can modify what needs to be fixed.
9. Event Tracking
This new feature is amazing if you have videos or PDF files on your site and you want to track how much attention these are getting from visitors. With this report, you will be able to enter the event you want to track and receive a report back. For example, you can track how many PDFs were downloaded, or how many people viewed a video for more than 10 seconds.
10. Multiple Funnel-Channels
In the past, Google Analytics would only track the last referral source for a user in their data. Now, it will allow you to see what referral sources led a particular user to your site within the last 30 days, including the original referral source.
Lets say a visitor first found your site on a paid ad, but came back to your site two more times using Facebook and a Google search for your company. You will now be able to track all of the interactions so that you can give credit to the original referral source, not just the latest one. This will help better analyze what is driving the most traffic and will come in handy when you are deciding where to spend most of your efforts and resources on marketing.
