If you have ever worked with clients and Google Analytics then you know it can be a difficult task teaching them how to use GA and what dashboards to look at. If they have been around a while, they may understand GA perfectly well, but many smaller to medium sized clients just don't understand the complexities of GA. Google Analytics Dashboard for MODx by Sterc takes that all away.
With a fully functioning MODx instance in place, it is a fairly easy process to setup following these steps:
- Change the permissions of the folders 'manager/controllers' and 'manager/templates' to 777
- Install the package in Package Management and follow the on-screen instructions
- Enter your Google Analytics username and password
- When installation is complete, continue to the manager homepage
- Select a website profile from your Analytics account and you’re all set!
(source: http://modx.com/extras/package/googleanalyticsdashboard )
Visitors
This is a great overall tab that shows all the analytics the average client would need. Specifically, the number of Unique Visitors and Bounce Rate are particularly useful. The graph is a nice visual representation of the data similar to that used in GA. If you roll over the points in the graph you will get a small flyover with that days data.
Traffic Sources
People love data in simple terms. This tab does a great job of that with pie charts. One quick glance and you can see where your primary traffic is coming from; search, direct or referring. However, the most useful analytics on this tab is the Referring Sites section. Knowing where you are getting back links is very useful information and may surprise you.
Top Content
Knowing where your visitor lands and exits is key to good site content and architecture. If the landing page has a high bounce rate then you better do something about that to keep visitors browsing or going to a CTA. In the case of this client, the most landed on page is the homepage with a really low bounce rate. Once again, a great tab with useful analytics.
Goals
This tab is fantastic. Although nothing new to GA, it is particularly useful to clients who want a quick view into their goal conversions. Often times forms can go to different recipients so no one knows the total number of conversions from a site. This takes care of that. Setup a goal for each of your forms and you will know which form is performing best.
Keywords
If your clients are wondering what search terms people are using to find them direct them to the Keywords tab. They may be surprised again at the analytics. This can help in defining keywords and keyword density for site pages.
In short, this is a great little MODx manager theme that should be the default for any website. It's easy to implement and a breeze to show clients. If you have questions about GA Dashboard for MODx contact @sterc or for further help contact @greengoatmedia.
UPDATE: January 18th, 2012
Be advised that this version does not uninstall well. I would recommend updating to the new version then removing if necessary.
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