I monitor all of my sites with Google Analytics, and here is another reason why. It’s the new beta Advanced Segment option. One of the things I like to analyze is my Top Content. By knowing what your top content is, you can see what is driving traffic to your site, and what is at least capturing your visitors interest. What if the page is simply keyword rich though? Are you just getting a bunch of search engine traffic that you are not really trying to capture? Basically, did you create a high quality page that all of your visitors like, or did you just get lucky with some keyword?

What Bounces Your Regulars?

So with the new beta Advanced Segments that Google has you can see not just what your top content is, but what your top content is for your regulars. By selecting Direct Traffic or Returning Traffic, you can get a good idea what your regular visitors are doing. You can find what they like, and what makes them bounce out. What’s even better about this, is that you can select several sources, and it will graph them individually so you can see any similarity or differences. Don’t be surprised when you find the spikes are not the same.

After selecting your source, look at that bounce column to find out what your stinkers are. Compare them to the low bounce rate pages, and find out what the difference is. It could be anything, picture vs. no picture, less links vs. more links, layout, whatever. Depending on your site it could simply be the quality or subject matter of that page. There is most likely something though, so really look hard if it is not obvious.

Finding the Real Winners

Using the same method as above, but selecting Direct, Return, and Search, find out what pages are the real winners. After applying the filter to your Top Content scroll down to see the break down of bounces for each category. Make sure you check out the Exit percentage as well. You will probably find that your returning visitors have the lowest bounce rate, and that is to be expected. What you are looking for here though, is for the low bounce rate for all categories. These are your real winners because they are what the random search traffic visitor wants, and it’s what your regulars want. As before, compare these winners to the losers so you know what to do next time. There are a lot of different ways you can mix this, but it’s all thanks to the new beta Advanced Segments.