Once you start looking at your Google Analytics, it is thrilling to see that visitors are coming to your humble Web site and some even return. Your first inclination is to create fancy charts to show the traffic patterns, compare the patterns by day of week, segment into New and Returning visitors, soon your charts may even be trending on #StuffDataGeeksDo. In the past few weeks I have been leaning on you to adding more VA-Voom!!! (in the words of Dr. Suess) to your data using the SAS BI Dashboard. [More Google Analytics and SAS BI Dashboard articles] Why Have a Website? When I started this blog, the main purpose was to ensure SAS BI users were aware of my book, see my writing style, and determine if I knew enough to have written a reliable book. To this end, I had to measure was how many people followed the More Book Info link I had prepared. As a introverted data geek, this was a hard for me because I did not want to be the in-your-face, buy-this-now pushy sales lady! What I wanted was for SAS BI users to know that Angela and I had created an awesome resource that […]
Tag: dashboards
Peek Inside SAS BI Book: Building Business Intelligence with SAS
You may be aware by now, our new SAS BI book Building Business Intelligence with SAS:Content Development Examples launched last week on the SAS Press site. That’s right, SAS Press or Amazon will be delighted to bring a copy of this SAS BI book to your door. When Angela and I set out to write this book, one of the first things we discussed was how new users get access to the SAS BI toolset and have no idea of its astonishing capabilities. This book guides you through each one so you understand it. Intermediate and advanced users will also find this book as a valuable reference. Several times, Angela & I have both found ourselves pulling out the draft copy to reference an advanced technique. This book fulfills a unique spot in the marketplace; there is no other single book that leads you through each SAS BI component with step-by-step examples along with hundreds of tips and techniques to make you successful! SAS Institute offers over nine SAS BI courses to cover all the topics we have jammed packed into this book. Making this an excellent study guide for those planning to take the SAS BI Content Development Exam. Your SAS […]
SAS BI Dashboard Rocks My Google Analytics Data Analysis
I have to say I’m in love with the new SAS BI Dashboard and it’s many features. It really brings the Google Analytics to life and helps me understand how the Website traffic changed over time along with the key influences. The following figure gives you an idea of how you can integrate dashboard indicators for an interactive user experience. The best part is how easy it is. Once I understood the how the feature worked, this indicators below took less than an hour to setup and most of that was deciding what data I wanted to see. [More articles about Google Analytics here.] Quick Dashboard Tour This dashboard has two indicators, a line graph that shows the traffic over time and a spark table that contains specific data about site visitors. As the user drags the slider and clicks, the data in spark table updates. I left the Week variable in the Spark Chart to help you understand what was happening. Also in the Last Wk Delta, New Visitors (%) and New Visitor Delta columns, you can see the various gauges available. Creating an Interactive Dashboard For several weeks I’ve been discussing using Google Analytics with the SAS […]
SAS BI Dashboard: Google Analytics Dashboard Kicked Up a Notch
Google Analytics uses data from your Website to prepare a neat looking application where you can explore your data and answer what I consider your first-level questions. First-level questions are the most basic things you might want to know, such as How many? What Time Period? It is the second- and third-level questions where the analysis and action plans come into play. After all, it’s not enough to know how many people visited the site – you need to know what segment attracted them and how do you keep them coming back for more. [More articles about Google Analytics here] Reviewing the Google Analytics Dashboard In the Google Analytics site from the Home tab, you can design a dashboard to review what you consider key measurements for your site. This dashboard is easy to use and works great for checking daily traffic. However, these measurements answer your basic questions, such as the counts. It’s more difficult to use the information for in-depth discovery. For instance, in the following figure I am comparing month over month traffic for the site using the Dashboard. This number indicates the total visits for each month. So, what can I learn from these metrics? Traffic […]