Using the unique capabilities of the Nextanalytics add-in for Excel 2007 (2003 version also available), we whipped up a quick dashboard that combines many of the key visitor-tracking metrics from Google Analytics all on one page, and it’s all yours, in a Microsoft Excel workbook. Use it as-is or customize to suit your distinctive needs. Simply enter your Google Analytics account information and click the Nextanalytics Refresh menu item. Nextanalytics takes care of the rest by leveraging the Google Analytics Data API to download all the information required and performing all the heavy lifting. The workbook uses simple cell references along with Excel charts and formatting – even a casual user would feel comfortable.

The dashboard includes a number of valuable information nuggets, starting with the top trend chart that shows not just the visits over time, but what proportion was from new visitors versus returning visitors. We’d all love to see people coming back more often. Next down the page is the full suite of high-level metrics along with mini trend-charts.
In the middle of the page we dig deep into how engaged your visitors are with your site. Their loyalty, or how many times they have been to your site. The length of time they stayed on your site, or how ‘sticky’ it is. How many pages they looked at while they were there—how deep they went. And their recency, or how long ago did they last visit your site. Four powerful visitor engagement reports side-by-side.

The dashboard ends with a technical profile of the visitors – what kind of computer and browser are they using, how fast a connection they have, what their default language setting is, and what screen resolution they are using. While it may not seem like earth-shattering stuff, this information can be really useful to, or even required by, your web developers. Are all your site visitors experiencing the site the way you intended? That is one of those questions you shouldn’t overlook.

It was all built using Nextanalytics for Excel with its Google Analytics data connector. This small Excel add-in has an easy-to-use interface that lets you pull data direct from the Google Analytics API – their programming interface – but you don’t need to be a programmer to use this tool. Simple point and click or drag and drop operations let you pull down the information you want directly into an Excel workbook. If you need to, you can take advantage of the many transformational capabilities of Nextanalytics, then save the entire sequence so it can be refreshed with the click of a button. Week after week. Keeping track of your web site just got a whole lot easier.

To use the dashboard, simply download and open the spreadsheet file (Excel 2003 and 2007 versions included) and enter your Google Analytics account information. You’ll need the profile ID number for your web site, but you can find that simply by logging in to the Google Analytics data connection – we’ll show you all your profiles and their ID numbers. After you have entered that into the AccountInfo sheet, click on the Nextanalytics Refresh menu item, and watch your website data appear.