How to Use Analytics Compare to Past Feature
I’m not sure whether I have been sleeping in class or wether Google has just added a new feature to their Analytics tool, but this weekend I have had some time to check the “Compare to Past” option within Analytics.
As many of you already know I do a monthly summary of how my Case 2008 site is performing in terms of ranking, traffic and income each month. Previously I’ve created my own charts with the data I had from Analytics but now I have the option to visually show you (on a day to day basis) how my site is performing. Besides the fact that graphics are often easier to grasp I think it is great to be able to compare and monitor the trends like this.
To show you an example the chart below will show you how PetInsurancePro.com performed in the first two weeks of August compare to the first two weeks of September. (Blue is September and Green is August).
As you can see from the chart and stats there has been a nice increase in traffic, pageviews and time on the site and the bounce rate has dropped. Google shows you with a green or a red percentage whether things are improving (green) or getting worse (red).
The only red figure showing up is that of New Visits. I can’t really see how this is supposed to be a bad thing that I have more regular visitors instead of new visitors but I am not going to spend much time thinking about that.
Besides that it is great that the traffic is increasing and I am also thrilled that people are starting to spend more time on the site and read more articles (see more pages) than they did previously. My theory is that once you have visitors that are viewing more than 3 pages you will have a “serious” visitor (because they have taken action and clicked at least twice) and that means that it will be easier to sell them something (my own or an affiliate product).
I’m not going to go into anymore details right now so you’ll have to wait for the monthly update in the beginning of October. 
EDIT UPDATE:
I’ve realised that I HAVE been sleeping in class and that this is actually old news (sorry about that). If you want to read more great info on this (in Danish), take a look at Vadskær’s blog.
