Google Analytics Real-Time Review

Google Analytics is one of the main online based tools which I have used for the past 3 years to track, analyze and evaluate my visitors to enable me to capitalize on their behaviour. Since last year however I found myself wanting more, and very recently Google added a free real-time feature to their Analytics allowing me as a website owner to track who is on my webite by the minute. As I type, for instance, there are 17 visitors from around the world viewing various different articles.

This then is my review for this online tool and what I think of it thus far. Read on to find out whether you as a website owner are going to find it useful.

The theory

It is all good for a website owner to be able to see how many website visitors they had yesterday, last week or by the month, however more intricate and detailed results are what all webmasters want ultimately in order to make the most of their traffic. Google added real-time to their online tool then to enable webmasters to see who is on their site at any given moment. Now it isn’t a new concept by any means with various paid for tools having real-time way before this ever surfaced, but it is a nice addition to GA which I’m confident hundreds of thousands of people are going to use over the next few months.

Graphics, interface

If you have become familiar with the new look dashboard for Google Analytics then you’ll feel right at home with Real-Time, as it quite honestly is themed and built around it. Orange bars, blue lined graphs and black text are consistent throughout and what’s more, the menu system is very familiar also allowing navigation across the board to be easy. In tests, the graphic design Birmingham team found the interface to be practical.

To access Real-Time you need to first of all open up one of your accounts (so Technology Blogged, for example) and then let it load. Once loaded, towards the top menu you have ‘Standard Reporting’ (the default tab), ‘custom reporting’ and ‘home’, to access real-time, you’ll be wanting to click ‘home’. This then brings up a sort of synopsis of your website which is customization, however on the left hand side of this page is a drop down for ‘Real-Time’ and click this, and you’ll be greeted with a few options.

In the options you have ‘overview’, ‘locations’, ‘traffic sources’ and ‘content’. All of these as you can image once clicked load up what they say on the tin, but on a real-time basis. Clicking overview will bring up what I use the most, a sort of combination of all the individual options including who is on your site right now, top keywords, top locations and content.

In use, accuracy

For me the accuracy of Real-Time is very good indeed. The only real test I have conducted includeS going to my own website from my smartphone on 3G and also on my laptop connected to Wifi, and within 4 seconds of going there Google Analytics Real-Time picked them up and added them to who was on Technology Blogged right now (obviously as a returning visitor).

When it comes to using Real-Time I have found it extremely useful in terms of what content topics interest my users the most on weekends and exactly when is busiest time of the day for Technology Blogged. It has allowed me to capitalize on my visitors and the way they also navigate my website, as creating specific new posts surrounding keywords getting existing hits within organic search, I have increased unique visitors by 13% with the aid of Real-Time alone.

Also very beneficial is Google Analytics Real-Time within Google Image search. Using the tool (Real-Time) and monitoring the keywords used to land on specific pages in real-time, I have found that Technology Blogged shows up in the top image results for some very interesting keywords such as high profile brand names, which we get traffic from.

Improvements

The one thing I have found lacking within this Beta version of Google Analaytics is saved history or ‘past 5 minutes’, ‘past 10 minutes’ etc. Google Real-Time is very much real-time, meaning that once a visitor goes they get wiped and just added to your next day standard reporting results. It would be nice to evaluate how many visitors I get within a new post without having to monitor it constantly, for instance.

Overall

Overall real-time is an excellent beneficial feature within GA. It just goes to show how good Google really is at meeting customer expectations, and also that they are listeing to what people want and monitoring what their paid competitors have. I also find myself randomly logging in to Google analytics just for a laugh to see who’s on my site right now, making it quite addictive. Overall if Google can make the improvement I have listed above by storing a little bit of history in to real-time then I can see no reason as to why I would ever pay for a different real-time programme.

With thanks to web designer London for contributing to this review.