Google Analytics adds "Site Overlay"

[brian.mark]

Google Analytics has a new option that I hadn't seen before today. They added "Site Overlay" to the Marketer view. This allows you to see your site with indications of how many visitors click on each link on the page. What does this really mean?

Well, I can tell that the most popular link from this page is the cordless drill parts page. I should be able to see conversion rates individually for each link as well. Additionally, it shows the drop-out rate of the page. All very useful data, and it makes it fun to browse through the site and see what each page produces.

It appears that the conversion part isn't working yet, but just knowing the most clicked seems useful. Maybe I'll have to make those links even more visible to see what effect that has on the drop-off rate. That could be very useful.

They say it doesn't work with all links, but it seems like most of them should work. Here are their reasons why it wouldn't track clicks properly. Not too many, and rather understandable.

I think this will be cool after we get more data collected and when I have time to analyze what links convert to money (when that is working) and what doesn't. So far, it even shows our "Checkout" link as non-converting, but I'd expect that bug to get worked out soon.

Brian.

[brian.mark]

Conversion works, but you have to have the e-commerce values running. Without having a dollar value, everything is assumed to be a non-sale conversion.

I'll be interested in seeing what the dollars per visitor is when compared to our other site. I've found that $/visitor a rather useful metric when comparing dissimilar businesses.

Brian.

[JamesBang]

Ini my site overlay for one of my sites, the stats for external links are all the same. Is there a reason for this?