An Introduction to Google Analytics as a User Experience Research Tool

Google Analytics is usually thought of as a marketing tool rather than a user experience tool. Last I checked, Googling “Google Analytics Marketing” returns about 65.7 million results, but “Google Analytics UX” returns only 2.2 million results. Regardless, I think it’s an underrated tool for UX research and this post is meant to give you an overview on how to use Google Analytics for UX research.

Google Analytics is good at answering how or what questions and not so good at answering why questions. Google Analytics is what you turn to when you want to find out where users are dropping off an important flow; what users are having trouble finding on your site; what errors are causing the most headaches. We’ll get into all that and more.

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Measuring Site Speed with Google Analytics

Site speed has a huge impact on everything from user experience to search engine rankings. Google Analytics provides site speed reports so that you can monitor site speed over time. There are many other tools that will give you instant feedback on your site speed but I think Google Analytics is great because it allows you to see how the site loads for actual users. Let’s take a look at the site speed report.

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What to Do when Your Google Analytics Account Number is Stolen

One problem with Google Analytics is that your account number is viewable to anyone. To see any site’s Google Analytics account all you need to do is simply view source and find the GA code.

It’s so easy to find anyone’s account number that you may find yourself viewing your analytics one day and see some strange behavior. Read this post to see if your Google Analytics account has been hijacked and how to fix it.
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6 Google Analytics Gotchas

Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking your web analytics. It’s a must if you want to keep track of visitors and their habits on your website. It does have some quirky functionality that you will want to be aware of.

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Guide to Tracking Multiple Subdomains in Google Analytics

Last updated on March 17th, 2016

If you’re trying to track a website in Google Analytics with multiple subdomains then you have come to the right place for help. I tried tracking subdomains in 2012 and found Google’s documentation unhelpful, so I created this guide. Since then, it has received over 132,000 pageviews, and I have been told on many occasions that this is the best source of information about tracking multiple subdomains in Google Analytics. I also update this guide, so it’s up to date with the latest information.

Tracking multiple subdomains in Google Analytics is a little tricky and there are a few pitfalls to avoid. I’ll take you through the steps necessary to ensure that you are tracking subdomains and also that your data is being reported correctly.

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