Google Analytics: Time of Visits

One of the easiest statistics to find on Google Analytics is the number of visits to your site. This is the default graph shown on your GA Dashboard and is the first statistic under Site Usage also on the Dashboard. When you go to the Visitor Overview via the sidebar you can see how many unique individuals make up those visits. But do you know where to go to see when those visits occurred?


You can find this and lots of other information in the sidebar by going to "Visitors" > "Visitor Trending." Under Visitor Trending you can go into subcategories to see your unique visitors, how much time visitors spend on your site, and pageviews. It's under the "Visits" tab that you'll be able to see when people have stopped at your shop. 




The default graph for this displays visits according to day. You'll have to click on the small clock icon to display by time.

I also think it's best to expand the date range to get a more accurate result. You can see in the first graph below that there is a slight spike during the 7:00 hour. This is because (thankfully) I was featured on the front page at this hour during the last month. On the right the graph shows the time of visits to my Etsy shop over the course of three months and what is more "typical" for my shop.

 

Now what can you do with this information? The primary way I use this information is to determine when to list items. The highest traffic in my shop is from 10am to 4pm and again from 9pm to 11pm. I've chosen to ignore the 7am and 8am hours because I know of traffic from the front page at that time that likely skewed results. I'll list during these peak hours and avoid listing during early morning and dinnertime. For some, this might also be an affirmation to keep blogging during those times or promoting on Facebook. If one of my goals was to increase my international views, however, I might choose to list during those early morning hours to increase traffic. Having the information is the first step. After that you can learn to use it to work with your strengths, weaknesses, and your goals.

Google Analytics: Intro and Install

Google Analytics is a great tool to track so many different statistics related to your Etsy shop, blog, or other site. Here is a screenshot of my Google Analytics homepage. You can see I use mine to watch my own personal (neglected) blog, my Etsy shop, the EtsyWMI blog, and my online porfolio. GA will show you how many visitors are coming to your site, what they're clicking on, how they find your site, where they're from, and so much more. It's easy to get overwhelmed with GA, however, so we'll try to keep it simple here.

To install and use Google Analytics, you'll need a Google account. During the New Account Signup you'll enter your website URL (whether it be your Etsy shop or Blogger blog, pick just one to start with), contact info, and agree to the typical user agreement. At the end there will be tracking info, but I'll show you another place to find that information.

To find your tracking information from the GA homepage, you'll start by clicking on the "Edit" button in line with the site name. From here, click on the "Check Status" button as seen below. At this point you won't have the check mark and "Receiving Data" but that's how you know GA is working correctly once you've installed your codes.

On this page you'll be able to see your Google Analytics Tracking ID which you'll need for Etsy and the html code which you'll need for tracking your Blogger blog. These codes will be different depending on which web site profile you're in. In my case, this is the code for my Etsy Shop so I would only use the top code. When I want the code for my blog, I will go under that profile, or set up a new profile, from the GA home page and use the html code.

Now hop over to Etsy in a new tab. Under "Your Etsy" click on "Web Analytics" in the left sidebar. This is where you'll enter your tracking ID that looks something like this, UA-#######-#. It's easiest to just copy and paste the code over. Don't forget to save.

You're done with the Etsy part! Remember, it'll take 24 hours for Google Analytics to collect and show some data. This is the same for any new site you start to track. Inserting the html code into Blogger is slightly more difficult. In Blogger, navigate to the "Design" tab of your blog and from there click on the "Edit HTML" tab. Use the search feature by pressing Ctrl + F to find "/head" in your template's html code. It is before this piece of coding that you'll paste the code from your Google Analytics page.

Again, remember to save. In another 24 hours you'll be able to check your Google Analytics for traffic to your Etsy shop and Blogger site. If you have any more questions about setting up Google Analytics, try this link to Etsy Help on the subject.

This is just the beginning in a series of posts related to Google Analytics. I'll be showing you how to find answers to specific questions like "What time of day do people most visit my shop?" and "Where does my shop traffic come from?" Do you have any questions you'd like answered with the help of Google Analytics?