I find Google Analytics addictive. For me, it's like looking at maps: I can keep looking over and over again and still find new things to interest me.
I'm starting 2014 with a look at the statistics for my website, www.nicomorgan.com. Some of it amazes me, some of it is a useful and interesting insight into how the tools used to read websites have changed dramatically over the past twelve months.
The image at the top of this post, which may seem like an odd choice, is the most visited single image anywhere on my site, during 2013. Why? Well, it shows the second fence on the 2013 Melton Hunt Club Ride, a fence which attracted a lot of online discussion before the race because of the significant width of the ditch behind it!
A pleasing increase in overall activity compared to 2012. Visits were up by 38,414 (40%), Unique Visitors by 14,732 (28%) and Pageviews by a significant 2,148,318 (110%).
Averaged, these 2013 figures equate to 365 Visits per day (nice symmetry, huh?), generating more than 11 thousand daily Pageviews.
The number of United Kingdom visits represents 77% of the total visits and represents a 40% increase compared to 2012. The US figure of 14,218 shows a 109% increase in US Visits compared to last year.
The frustratingly enigmatic "not set" figure of 1,121 is a mixture of mobile and tablet visits for which location cannot be calculated.
As if it wasn't already obvious that websites should be mobile friendly we can see a phenomenal 173% increase (13,015 more Visits) in traffic from tablets and 134% increase (16,063 more Visits) from mobiles.
The cynical amongst you might suggest that this data does not reveal how long these visits lasted. Perhaps these mobile users were visiting the site but finding it unfriendly to mobile devices, resulting in low Visit Duration times. Let's have a look:
| 2012 | 2013 | % change | |
| Desktop | 00:05:18 | 00:06:01 | 13.72% |
| Mobile | 00:07:12 | 00:08:35 | 19.11% |
| Tablet | 00:07:56 | 00:09:25 | 18.83% |
So, encouragingly, not only are the numbers of visits from mobiles and tablets significantly higher than in 2012, those visits are also an average of nearly 20% longer.
So, what were those devices?
A remarkable similarity in the numbers of Visits from iPhones and iPads, I'm sure you will agree. Let's compare those number to the previous 12 months:
| 2012 | 2013 | % change | |
| Apple iPhone | 8,035 | 19,435 | 141.88% |
| Apple iPad | 7,343 | 19,036 | 159.24% |
A significant increase in traffic from Apple devices in particular.
In fact the total number of Visits from devices running iOS was 39,252 in 2013, an increase of 28,679 (271%) on the previous year.
By comparison, the total number of Visits from devices running Android was 7,866 in 2013, an increase of 5,230 (198%) on the previous year.
Windows Phone demonstrated an even bigger percentage rise (345%) but Visits were on up from 94 to 419.
Finally, those technology figures should give us an indication of which browsers might be the most popular:
Numbers are up, across the board, which is encouraging. I'm also pleased to see that the number of mobile users is rapidly increasing and that those mobiles users, whether they be on a phone or tablet, are the ones who spend the most time on the site on each visit.
Of course, these figures don't indicate how the site performs in terms of sales. That is for me and my accountant to know, so mind your own business, literally!
Happy New Year!
Fascinating info - I might investigate my own now!
http://www.kirstyscounting.com