Google analytics Real-Time has opened up a host of new SEO tricks and Internet marketing techniques to help businesses and marketers create more flexible and responsive SEO, content, ads, and marketing campaigns.
This article explores the analytical features of Real-Time and then provides a list of exciting new marketing and SEO tips & tricks to help you get the most out of your web content, ad campaigns and social media marketing.
Features of Google analytics’ Real-Time
To access Real-Time in Google analytics, click Home from the main menu and then select Real-Time >> Overview from the navigation menu on the left hand side of the page.
Real-Time Overview
The overview page provides the following data:
- Number of current, active visitors
- Pageview history for the last 30 minutes
- Per second history of the current minute’s pageviews
- Top referrals
- Top active pages
- Top keywords
- Top locations
Each of the remaining pages in Real-Time (Locations, traffic sources, Content) provide a focused view of their respective data niches, and allow you to add filters to your real time data.
For example, go to the Locations page and click on a country from the map. Now head back to the Overviewpage and look at the data filtered by the country you specified. Neat, huh?
You can easily remove any filters by clicking on the blue filter link at the top of the page.
Internet marketing techniques and SEO tip using Real-Time
Real time analytical data about blog or website traffic is incredibly valuable for any Internet marketer, advertiser, SEM, SEO, blogger or online business.
By closely watching traffic patterns, content hits, visitor data, and referrals it is possible to build up a picture of how marketing, advertising or content spreads through the Internet, how long it takes to have an impact, how much of an impact it has, whether or not it is having the right impact, and so on.
- Twitter marketing: Measure the immediate impact of a tweet. Repeat this process at different times to build up a picture of the type of tweets that drive more traffic, and when it’s best to share.
- Real-time responsive advertising: If you an see that traffic is particularly high in one location, in one demographic, at the current moment, why not change your advertising to match them? In the mornings most of my traffic is from India, but by afternoon, most of my visitors are from the U.S. Completely different demographics.
- Real-time responsive social media engagement: tonnes of traffic coming from a LinkedIn group? Why not head over there and join the conversation. Help stimulate real time debate and drive more traffic and visibility for your site, blog or brand.
- General social media sharing: Digg an article and watch for spikes in traffic. Share a blog post on Facebook and analyze the resulting traffic. Share articles and news on Reddit, StumbleUpon, or LinkedIn to find out which times have higher engagement levels, etc.
- Google ads analysis: Just released a new Google ad? Keep an eye on real time data coming through to see how visitors are responding (i.e. are they bouncing, browsing aimlessly, or converting?)
- PPC campaign analysis: Launch a new ad campaign by making sure everything is working properly. Check your real-time analytics to ensure PPC ads are driving traffic to the right place. Quickly respond to problems or high bounce rates.
- New content: Published a new article? Keep an eye on Real-Time to see how long it takes for the article to get picked up, shared and start driving traffic. Find out which visitors are “early adopters” and regularly share new content from your site. Understand your content’s early stage sharing patterns so that you can improve on it.
- Error correcting: Whatever SEO or Internet marketing activity you have recently performed, it is vital that any problems are detected and corrected as early as possible. Monitor Real-Time to check for spike in 404 codes, etc.
- Server load monitoring: If you can see a huge traffic spike, or very high server loads, you can take steps to prevent your server from crashing. Perhaps throttle back on computationally expensive modules, or put implement other safeguards to prevent downtime.
- Improved online responsiveness: Has someone mentioned you in a blog or news article. Take note of traffic spikes immediately and go contribute and “shape” the course of the debate to enhance your brand and increase traffic and conversions.
Do you use Real-Time analytics data? What have you found it most useful for – apart from staring at the hypnotic progress of visits and pageviews with time? Share your SEO tips and Internet marketing techniques with us in the comments, or join the discussion on Twitter or LinkedIn.
