People are likely to behave differently on your website depending upon whether they are New (people visiting for the first time) or Returning (people who have visited your website previously).
Ideally you would expect New Visitors to have a lower Bounce Rate, because they are enticed by your click-able links to click through to another page to read more articles or learn more about your products or services. Whereas Returning Visitors might have already seen that information and only be interesting in reading the blog article or the content of whatever page drew them back.
Follow these steps to segment the stats for the New and Returning Visitors in your Google Analytics account, which will help you get a better understanding of your web visitors.
Select Some Advanced Segments
1. Click on “Advanced Segments” under the words Audience Overview
2. Check the boxes next to “New Visitors” and “Returning Visitors”
3. Click “Apply”
Selecting Advanced Segments for “New Visitors” and “Returning Visitors”
Until you go back and reverse the process by unchecking the boxes and clicking “Apply”, all data in your Google Analytics will show separate stats for “New Visitors” and “Returning Visitors”.
For example, this is the data on the Audience Overview screen.
Give it a try now and see what you can discover about the differences between your “New” and “Returning” visitors.
From the screen shot above, you can see that, opposite to my prediction, this website has a lower Bounce Rate and longer Average Visit Duration for Returning visitors so those who repeat a visit are more engaged with the site.
Until next time
Melinda
Image courtesy of phanlop88 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Melinda aka Mel is a Google Partner, Google Ads & Consultant, Speaker and Trainer and co-owner of Click-Winning Content.
Mel provides results-driven services to organisations around the world and is committed to never using an acronym without explaining it first. She also likes greyhounds as pets, grand slam tennis, cracked pepper and Melbourne sunsets.
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