Need some awesome Google Analytics dashboards to segment your data?
Last week I found a page on my site was taking 25.4 seconds to load for people in Seattle. Embarrassing, but I made the fix. I found this using my Google Analytics custom dashboards.
These dashboards can help you see the big picture, but they can also help you make improvements in very specific ways. Like which pages have the slowest load time, pages that are being viewed from mobile (so you can make sure there are no errors), or even which pages people exit your site the most (so you can do a better job at converting them).
A couple things to know before you start:
- Use the download links to add these dashboards to your own GA account
- For widgets that say “non-branded,” edit the filter to include your own website name
1. General Analytics Dashboard
Get a glimpse of everything: SEO, social, referral traffic and more.
Metrics:
- Unique visitors
- Unique visitors from SEO, social media
- How people find your website: organic, referral, direct
- Top keywords (non-branded)
- Top vewied pages
- Social networks sending the most traffic
- Referral websites (excludes major websites like Google and social networks)
Download the General Analytics Dashboard
2. SEO Analytics
My Google Analytics SEO dashboard is good for getting a glimpse at your SEO, but the absolute best way to get SEO analytics is through the “landing pages” tab in Google Analytics as well as the “Search Analytics” section in Google Search Console. See instructions below…
Metrics:
- Unique visitors from SEO
- Top keyword (non-branded)
- Chicago keywords (for local SEO, change this to your city)
- Keywords related to “WordPress SEO” (a service I offer – change this to one of yours)
- Search engines used: Google, Yahoo, Bing…
- Top viewed pages from SEO
- Cities finding your website through search
Landing Page Metrics
To get better SEO metrics (like click-through rates, ranking position, and bounce rates by page) see the left side of Google Analytics and go to Acquisition → Search Console → Landing Pages.
Search Analytics (Google Search Console)
Google Search Console does a MUCH better job at showing SEO metrics like all your keywords, rankings, click-through rates, etc. Use the search analytics tab to see this (and see my full Google Search Console tutorial if you’re using Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin) which shows you how to use search analytics, fix crawl errors, and identify errors on your website.
3. Social Media Analytics
Learn what social networks drive traffic, plus other useful social data. This dashboard breaks down most main social networks into their own widget. Most of widgets were taken from Sharon Hall’s Google Analytics dashboards. And, I know, mine is a pretty weak right now.
Metrics:
- Visits from each major social network
- Most socially shared content
- Top “socially referred” pages
- Location of social media visitors (creepy yet?)
Download the Social Media Dashboard
4. Geography Dashboard
Especially if you’re doing local marketing, you might want to know where your visitors are from. Try using filters in the “maps” widget to cross reference it with a specific piece of data.
Metrics:
- Visits by city
- Visits by state
- Visits by continent
- Cities with slow load times (if this is a problem and you want to make your site faster for national/global visitors, use StackPath’s content delivery network)
Download the Geography Dashboard
5. Mobile Analytics
What percent of your visitors are mobile? Are they on Ipad, Iphone, or Android? Are mobile users finding what they need or which pages are they bouncing away from? You should also visit the mobile usability section of Google Search Console since this finds ALL mobile errors on your website (while Google’s Mobile Testing Tool only shows errors for one single page).
Metrics:
- What % of visitors are mobile
- What mobile devices they’re using
- Top mobile content
- Top Ipad content
- Top Iphone content
- Average time on site for mobile visitors
- Bounce rate by mobile device
6. Entrances/Exits
Where do people enter your site, and where do they leave? Use this custom Google Analytics dashboard to find pages where people leave your site the most. This indicates you need to improve the content by improve the design, internal links, call to actions, or the actual content.
Metrics:
- What pages people enter your site most
- What pages people exit your site most
- Average pages viewed per visit
- Bounce rates
- Pages with the highest bounce rate
Download the Entrances/Exits Dashboard
7. Technical Dashboard
Which browsers have the highest bounce rate? Which pages load the slowest? If your load times are slow (eg. in GTmetrix) you should configure a cache plugin, optimize images, and setup Cloudflare + MaxCDN. I have a great speed optimization guide if you’re on WordPress.
Metrics:
- Average page load time
- Slowest loading pages
- Operating systems used
- Bounce rate by browser
- Average time on site
- Days between visits
Download the Technical Dashboard
Create Your Own Custom Dashboards
Want to setup your own custom Google Analytics dashboards? Login to Google Analytics and look to the left on the main menu. You will see the Dashboard section where you can add new custom dashboards. Add a dashboard and create a few widgets with your metrics.
More dashboards for the addicts:
Frequently Asked Questions
✅ Where can I import other Google Analytics dashboards?
The Google Analytics Solutions Gallery has the largest collections of custom dashboards, otherwise you should check out other blog posts.
✅ How do I create my own dashboards?
Go to the Dashboards tab and click Create. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Select whether you want to use a pie chart, table, bar, etc. Add the metrics you want and you're done! You can create multiple widgets in your dashboard.
✅ Where can I find definitions of all the metrics?
When creating a widget within your dashboard, each metric will have a question mark icon. When you hover it, it will show the definition of that metric.
If you found these dashboards helpful, please share. I would appreciate that!
See Also:
How I Optimized My WordPress Site To Load In .2s (100% GTmetrix/Pingdom Scores)
Cheers,
Tom
THANK YOU SO MUCH! You just saved me a TON of time!!!
You’re welcome Amberly, glad it helped!
thank you really helpful insights in how to create GA Dashboards, plus great downloads!
I could CRY this is so helpful. I am trying to learn everything website related myself and was immediately overwhelmed. Thank you so much, you have earned a dedicated follower.
:-))
Wow, thank you so much! I’m a beginner with GA and this is so helpful
Anytime Paul, glad you like them!
Thank you, so much, this is really useful.
Great article! One question…. The Google SEO dashboard has “Top Keywords” listed, but my top keywords are “Not Provided” and “Not Set.” I read online that Google was encrypting a lot of keyword data now. So, what’s the status?
Yes you are right… the easiest way to see this is in Google Search Console’s “search analytics” tab.
Thanks for this great post.
Some time ago I found Gauss Analytics Widget https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nikas.analytics.widget and using it you can make your own dashboard on your Android desktop putting widgets one by one
Thanks for the post. I use Google Analytics through web analytics.google.com and also on my Android desktop https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nikas.analytics.widget
Hello Tom,
I can’t download any of the dashboards, it gives me an error when clicking on the links. Am I the only one?
Great Tutorial. Thank you so much!
You got it :)
Great post would be good if you could add templates
Great post! Used 2 examples. Got question: how hard it would be to make a dashboard showing data only for BLOG pages? Excluding index, pricing, contact etc?
What I do is create a table widget then use the “page title” filter to include a specific keyword (topic) I blog about. For example I do affiliate marketing for SiteGround so I have a widget for “top viewed siteground pages” where Page Title includes keywords containing “SiteGround”. I also do this for other topics like WordPress themes, etc. It’s not a perfect solution… but helps me measure the performance of specific topics.
Very informative article for novice. I am enjoying it. Thanks for such a good piece of information.
Thank you for sharing these! Google Analytics can be an intimidating experience for the novice user and I’m just getting to grips with it. These are tremendously helpful to understand the different ways GA can help you to understand your site’s usage. Once again, thank you very much!
Anytime Ron! I’m actually in the middle of writing a more extensive (but easy to follow) guide on Google Analytics. New dashboards, configuring the ‘admin’ settings, navigating through the basics, etc. Will be releasing some blog articles when it’s done!
Hi,
I downloaded the mobile dashboard and when it tried editing it, i noticed the message “metrics/ dimensions” deprecated. what does it mean. I am afraid i wont; be able to show it to my client’s.
Yes, for some reason Google Analytics doesn’t allow you to see that anymore, but my dashboard should still work if you don’t edit that widget.
This is fantastic post Tom, have read e consultancy’s post too. Thanks for providing clear information on downloading these templates :)
Anytime Santosh, don’t forget adjust the filters for brand and non-branded searches! Glad you like the dashboards.
Hi Guys–
Can anybody have an idea that what is the average load time of sites having 3-4 dashboards and working on 14 to 16 millions of rows
Thanks in advance
This is FANTASTIC. I’ve been reading websites and blog articles on Google Analytics for days and this is by far one of the best articles I’ve found. Thanks so much for the download links as well.
Thanks for the wonderful comment Jessica and you’re welcome! Let me know if there’s anything else you need help with – planning on creating more dashboards soon so stay tuned :)
Thank you. Really helpful for my new site. BTW I really like your website template-Clean & Clear. May I know which template are you using?
Thanks, it’s a customized version of the Outreach Pro Theme from StudioPress: http://my.studiopress.com/themes/outreach/
These are so helpful. Thank you for sharing!
You’re welcome Jen! Glad you liked them.
Awesome dashboards. Can I add more cities on the Geography dashboard?
Thanks,
Jack
Thanks Jack. On the left hand side of GA you can go to Audience –> Geo –> Location. I don’t think there’s a way to extend the dashboards though.
Really nice..
thank u so much..
Anytime :)
Greta tuto. Thanx.
Glad to help :)
i have the sale issue as anumenon
Hey, These dashboards look great. However, when I try to install them, I get a message “Security problem. Please try reloading the page. We cannot verify your account credentials. Please verify your account information, then sign in again.”.
I’ve googled how to solve this & nothing seems to be working. Was anyone else able to download these dashboards without any issues? Thanks!
Thanks for letting me know Anumenon. I’m working on getting them fixed now.
anumenon Thanks for letting me know about the security issue. I’ve also researched this and you’re right – not a lot of solutions out there.
Have you tried downloading dashboards from other sources, and has it work for you?
Thanks,
Tom
Tom Dupuis Hey Tom, Yes I was able to download dashboards from http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/03/11/google-analytics-custom-dashboards/ and http://www.5starnet.com/theblog/2012/11/29/20-custom-google-analytics-dashboards.
anumenon DMOPC The links should be fixed. There was an issue with how the permalink was setup: it was using /#import instead of /permalink. Thanks for baring with me – I tested the links so they should work.