14 DAY TRIAL // Google Analytics is about to get a lot more visual. The team has been working on ways of enabling webmasters to follow their visitors' path through their sites in a way that provides ample information, but doesn't overwhelm them.
Google has come up with the Flow Visualization concept. Flow Visualizations group visitors together based on browser, location and so on.
They enable website owners to get detailed info on how particular groups of users go through the site, without the hassle of having to follow them one by one.
For now, Google is launching with two types of Flow Visualizations, the Visitors Flow and the Goal Flow. There are plans to launch more types in the short term future.
"The Visitors Flow view provides a graphical representation of visitors’ flow through the site by traffic source (or any other dimensions) so you can see their journey, as well as where they dropped off," Phil Mui, Google Analytics team, wrote.
"You’ll find this visualizer on the left hand navigation menu, where you’ll see a new 'Visitors Flow' link under the Visitors section," he said.
The visualizations are dynamic, you can dig deeper into any of the paths or steps and you can get more detailed info on any node. While, by default, only the most relevant visitor paths are displayed, you can discover more about any visitor that went through a 'node.'
"Goal Flow provides a graphical representation for how visitors flow through your goal steps and where they dropped off. Because the goal steps are defined by the site owner, they should reflect the important steps and page groups of interest to the site," Mui said.
"In this first iteration, we’re supporting only URL goals, but we’ll soon be adding events and possibly other goal types," he explained. These new tools will be rolling out to all users in the coming weeks, but more are coming after that.
