What is a web analytics dashboard?
Webmasters and digital marketers use web analytics dashboards to visualize the performance and health of their website. Although many free tools, such as Google Analytics, give website owners access to a vast array of information, it’s not always easy to present the most important information in an easy-to-digest format. This is where custom KPI dashboards can be most effective.
Examples of web analytics dashboards
Website KPI dashboard
This dashboard is designed to visualize how effectively a website is converting traffic. A ‘goal completion’ occurs when a user submits a lead generation form, which is then processed by one of the Sales Managers.
In this example, the Marketing Manager can quickly and easily see that conversions have dropped significantly in the past month. This is despite the number of website sessions remaining constant. It’s possible that something on the website is preventing the users from converting, such as a slow loading landing page, or a broken form.
This dashboard is also tracking engagement metrics, such as bounce rate and session duration, in order to show how effective the site is at maintaining users’ interest and attention.
Focus area
Conversion rates, website engagement
Who looks at it?
Webmaster, Marketing Manager
How often?
Every day
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4
In 2020, Google released Google Analytics 4 as its default analytics platform, though many Google Analytics users can still (and often do) also choose to use the previous version – Universal Analytics.
Google Analytics 4 made sweeping changes to the data Google Analytics collects, including moving to new metrics such as Engaged Sessions and Engagement Rate. The structure of data it now collects also makes it easy to measure performance across different platforms, which is especially useful for companies who need to track user behaviour on their apps, as well as their website.
The dashboard above visualizes data collected on Google Analytics 4 so the team can quickly and easily monitor user engagement and the performance of their platforms. It tracks user metrics concurrently for both app and website.
Focus area
Conversion rates, website engagement
Who looks at it?
Webmaster, Marketing Manager
How often?
Every day
- Google Analytics
Website launch dashboard
Web analytics dashboards aren’t just used for day-to-day operations. Many dashboards are set up to track one-off or time-limited events. This dashboard has been set up to track the launch of a new, refreshed website.
The dashboard can quickly highlight any acute problems with the new site that would affect the visitors’ experience. This includes tracking website uptime (using data from Pingdom), load time and general session metrics (using data from Google Analytics).
Focus area
Website uptime, bug fixing, user experience
Who looks at it?
Marketing Director, marketing team
How often?
Several times a day
- Google AnalyticsPingdom