Analytics and SEO Dashboards | Webmaster's Blog

A dashboard for Google Analytics 4 (GA4) data and a Search Engine Optimization dashboard are now available for Modern Campus CMS websites, Michigan Tech Blogs, and Michigan Tech Events Calendar in Looker Studio. In the GA4 dashboard, you will find charts with analytics for:

Page traffic and users
Acquisition
User demographics
Device information
404 hits
Vanity URLs
Files and outbound links
Anchor, call, and email links
Buttons, cards, and touts
Accordions
Pop-ups, forms, and gift box shares
Header media and image galleries
Lightboxes (pop-up images)
Tabs
Videos
Search terms

The SEO dashboard provides details on traffic coming from Google Search and how that traffic converts to prospective student leads.

Notes

There is navigation across the top of the screen to get to other pages within the dashboard.
All comparisons are to the previous year unless otherwise noted.
Data is either pulled from BigQuery (not subject to data thresholding) or GA4 (see notes below):
- Due to privacy law compliance, Google may apply a data threshold and not display information for a specific segment if the number of users is too low and the report includes user information.
  - For example, you may see desktop, mobile, tablet, and smart TV as devices in the pie chart and the table of views, however, a specific device may not be listed in the table of user and engagement data.
If you encounter errors on specific charts, you can click on the link in the chart to see more information about why it’s broken. Here are a couple examples.
- Due to restrictions in data compatibility for privacy purposes, you may not be able to do certain combinations of controls, or changing a control may give errors on a specific chart. We would not be able to change this, but please let webmaster@mtu.edu know what data combination you need to see and why it would be helpful so we can determine if there is an alternate option.
- Google has applied quota limits for data access. If there are too many requests through their API each hour, the data may not be visible. While we are working on an alternative data source, please email webmaster@mtu.edu if you run into quota errors. Generally, you should be able to access the data again within 60 minutes.
Regardless of the data source, the previous day’s data is typically fully processed between 2 and 3 p.m. daily, so the date control defaults to seven days ending two days prior to today to ensure all dates contain data.

Instructions

The controls in the gold section at the top of each page will filter the data being shown.
- Selections made in the controls will be applied to all charts on all pages, with the exception of the Google Search Terms, which has separate controls.
- Hover over a specific row and click the Only button to display information just for that option or use the checkboxes to select multiple options.
- Use the global checkbox in the top black bar of the control to check or uncheck all options.
- Making a selection in one control may change the options available in other controls.
- To undo control options, use the global checkbox to check all boxes again, starting with the more specific controls (usually at the bottom of the gold section) and working to the more general ones.
- To reset all controls hover over the very top of the right side of the navigation bar and click the Reset button in the menu that appears.
On line charts and pie charts, you can sometimes change the metric that is graphed using the Optional Metrics icon at the top of the chart.
On tables, you can change the sort column by clicking on the column heading. Click it again to change the sort direction.
You can drill into the Geo Location map and tables to display data by country, region, or city.
- Select a location and use the arrows at the top of the map or right-click and choose the Drill down or Drill up options on the map or the tables. On the tables, you do not have to select a location in order to drill down.
- Change the metric that is displayed on the map using the Optional Metric icon at the top.
- Reset the data using the icon in the upper left (map only) or right-clicking on the map or table and selecting Reset.
You can customize reports, including adding other filters, dimensions, or metrics or changing the formatting, using Explorer.
- Right-click on the chart you want to start with and choose Explore.
- The chart will open in a new window with existing filters across the top, chart types on the top right, dimensions and metrics in the Setup tab on the right, and styling options in the Style tab on the right.
- Add filters using the + icon in the Filter area. Select from the available fields. Click on filter names to select the desired values to filter on.
- There are many options in the Setup tab that will determine what information is displayed in your chart. Different chart types will have other options available.
  - Use the Comparison date range to choose specific comparison dates from the calendar or a default range, such as previous year, previous period, or none from the dropdown in the upper right of the calendar.
  - Use the Add dimension or Add metric boxes to choose additional fields. Delete existing dimensions or metrics by hovering over it and clicking the x.
- Use the options in the Style tab to change the formatting of the chart, including font color and size, label styling, justification, backgrounds, borders, and headers. Different chart types will have different options available.
  - You can add a trendline to a line chart. There is a dropdown for Trendline at the bottom of each series’ section. The trendline can have a different color than the existing chart line(s) using the pencil icon below the Trendline dropdown.
You can export data from a chart to use in an outside program by right-clicking and selecting Export.

GA4 Dashboard Definitions

Average Engagement Time: The user engagement time divided by the total number of users. This is how long, on average, users spend on the site.
Engaged Session: A session that lasted 10 seconds or longer, had one or more conversion events, or two or more page or screen views.
Engagement Rate: The number of engaged sessions divided by the total number of sessions. This is the inverse of the old bounce rate metric from Universal Analytics.
New User: Active user who has zero previous sessions.
Page URL (Control): The main URL of a specific webpage not including https:// or any parameters at the end of the URL that starts with ?.
Session: Period of time a user is actively engaged with the website.
- A session will end when there have been more than 30 minutes of inactivity.
- Sessions are not restarted at midnight.
- If a user comes back after a session timeout, it will start a new session.
Site (Control): The main directory following mtu.edu (from the URL).
Site Grouping (Control): Custom groups of websites for liaisons with more than one site. Email webmaster@mtu.edu to request a new Site Grouping or to have an existing grouping updated or deleted.
Tab/Subdomain Grouping (Control): Custom groups of single, tab-level sections of websites or whole subdomains. This control should only be used with your site(s) already selected in the Site Grouping or Site control. Email webmaster@mtu.edu to request a new Tab Grouping.
Total Users: Total number of users.
Views: The total number of webpages the users saw. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Analytics Dashboard Demo

Watch the video of the analytics dashboard demo from the June 12, 2024 Digital Marketers Meeting. Here are times for the various scenarios:

7:35 Traffic and engagement
11:47 Scrolling
13:35 Vanity URL
16:13 Traffic acquisition
23:00 Location
26:46 Device
30:06 404s
32:50 Widgets performance
36:55 PDF views
38:55 Searches
45:10 Questions from attendees