Confused by Google Analytics terminology, or need a refresher? Here are the top web analytics terms you need to know.
Affinity Categories: Users’ interests as identified by their website habits.
Benchmarking: Comparing your website’s performance to websites in a specified industry.
Bounce: A user’s visit that took place without them leaving their entry page.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of website sessions that conclude within a single pageview.
Channel: A high-level grouping of inbound traffic, sorted into categories like ‘social’ and ’email.’
Conversion: A booking or other activity completed by the user that fulfills a purpose you define for the website.
Entry Page: The page a user landed on when visiting your website.
Event: A user’s interaction with a specified element on a page.
Exit Point: The last page a user visits before leaving your website.
Goals: Whatever you want users to do on your website, as tracked by reports you organize.
New User: A user who visited your website for the first time, as tracked on a single device via browser cookies.
Pageview: A number representing a user’s visit to a specific page on your website.
Pages Per Session: The number of pages on your website a user visits during a single session.
Page Value: The amount a page has contributed toward conversions.
Referral: A visit to your website that was enabled by another, external site.
Search Query: The specific term a user entered when searching that led them to your website.
Segment: A selection of users defined by some element of their behavior, like demographics or device use.
Self-Referral: A visit to a page from another page on your website that isn’t using tracking code or doesn’t share sessions with the destination page.
Sessions: A user’s activity on your website during a single visit or set period.
Direct Traffic: Visits from users who navigated directly to your website’s URL.
Organic Traffic: Users who visit your site from another location, like a referrer or a search.
User: A visitor to your website using a single device. One user may have multiple sessions.
URL Tagging: A method of tracking specific traffic sources with predetermined tags added to links from referrers.
Visits: The number of visits to your site in the specified period, whether from unique or repeat visitors.
Written By | Nissa Campbell
