Analytics to Action: I have read the above Houfy story and I took action to implement Google Analytics with Houfy. It will be helpful to see the analytics and trends over time but let's look at just this past week and the actions I can either take based on it as well as the actions I've already taken and can see from the reports.
Pages Visited: At the outset it is important to understand this isn't a contest. You may get way more visits or fewer visits than us. It is important to understand we are all starting from our own unique place and want to see traffic grow no matter the number of visits. It is not a sprint to the finish line. There is no finish line. I am sure if I threw money to do ad campaigns, I could drive traffic, but I am not currently doing so.
What this Google Analytics page is showing is the number of page views over the past week. In total, it is around 1,000 page views. This represents a 225%+ increase in number of users and sessions, which is visible in another report. So on face value, this is a terrific increase from last week to this week. That makes us happy!
The chart above also shows which pages are being viewed. We see which property listings are viewed the most. Some of you will note two different references to the same property listing. This has to do with my shifting to a model where I'm embedding the full Houfy listing within my website.
There are a couple of articles on Houfy that are nearing 100 views and those are my "How To" tips. See link below for my How To Guide.
Sessions by Device: I believe it is increasingly important that we consider how our prospective guests are viewing our websites, listings and content to ensure it can be viewed properly and that we are empowering them to take action.
In this report, you can see that 46% of visitors are on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. That is nearly half my visitors. In the past, I had embedded a price estimate tool from a Vacation Property Management System that was not compatible with mobile devices. The tools didn't adjust to the screen resolution and was essentially not functional.
Would you turn away half your customers? Why of course not. But that's what I was doing before I found Houfy.
Not only is my website optimized to be viewed on mobile devices but I am able to use a set of action tools at the bottom of the page, which are always accessible as you scroll through the property listing. This is a capability provided to Wix users.
I wasn't successful in capturing the buttons at the bottom but the green, red and blue parts are buttons that viewers can click on to Phone, Email or Chat online with us.
Referring Sites: There are more reports with Google Analytics than you can shake a stick at, but they all tell you a little something. for example, there are reports that can tell you how many of your users are coming from sites like Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn. This can tell you whether you are expending energy in the right places to market your listing and content.
Demographics: There are reports that can tell you how old your visitors are and the gender. Take a look at the following report. It isn't based on a lot of data so it may change over time. But what an interest equal split of men and women. No real surprise by the average age of people looking for vacation property.
If we're being super attentive, reports like this one might have us ponder what content might appeal to men or women, or what cultural contexts and terminology used in writing might appeal to a given audience of a particular age. Whatever edge you can get, use it.
Real-Time Report: If you are a voyeur, well you might just enjoy Google Analytic's Real-Time report. As people are on your site, you can see what part of the world they are from and what page they are currently visiting. I must say, that is kind of fun to do.
What's Next?: There is so much more to Google Analytics. You can couple it together with Google Search to see what search words people are using to find your website and/or listing. You can see how many times your website has been shown (impressions) and how many then clicked a link to you. In my case out of 1,180 impressions someone clicked to my site 85 times (7.2% of the time). Is that good? I'm not really sure, but this is how you get to a better understanding.
I'd like to do a Google Ad and track it using these tools. This would be a good experiment and the source for a follow Story in the future.
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Something changed in Google Analytics. I used to be able to set up a filter to exclude my IP address from all the various reports. That doesn't seem to work anymore. By searching real-time users on one browser window while accessing my Houfy posts on another, I can see that Google Analytics is showing my connection -- location, page I'm looking at, etc. However, I really don't want to see all my own interactions included in these reports. Do you know how I can do this?
Go to Admin > All Filters > Add Filter. Give your filter a name like "Filter My IP Address." Filter Type = Predefined and Exclude. In the IP Address field enter your address. If you are unsure what it is, go to Google and type "what is my IP address." It should show you. Click each item in available views and click Add. Click Save. Your filter should be saved and your IP address excluded from your reports.
I signed up for Google Analytics and it gives a code to add to the page. Since it's in code, how do you add it to the Houfy listing that's not in code?
Did you work through this post first? https://www.houfy.com/houfyinc/posts/get-started-with-google-analytics-for-your-houfy-account-including-your-listing-10442