Improving Your Content and Site - Google AdWords Learning Center

Pageviews: The total number of times the page was viewed across all visits.
Unique Pageviews: Unlike Pageviews, Unique Pageviews does not count repeat visits to a page. So, if page A was viewed twice during a single visit, Unique Pageviews will only count it once. Pageviews, however, will count it twice.
Time on Page: The average amount of time that visitors spent on the page is useful for learning if visitors are looking at the content or if they immediately clicked to go somewhere else. If they're leaving quickly, ask yourself:

What information is missing from the page?
Is that information on the pages they go to?
Can you move more important information onto pages with short average times?

Bounce Rate: The percentage of entrances on the page that result in the person immediately leaving the site. Non-entrance pages always have a Bounce Rate of 0.00%. A high bounce rate indicates that the page is not well matched to the ad or link that is driving traffic to the page.

% Exit: Tells you the percentage of visitors leaving your site immediately after viewing that page. For example, if a page received 100 pageviews and 20 of them were the last pageviews on your site, the % Exit would be 20%. A high % Exit may indicate that something about the page turns your visitors off or it could simply mean that visitors are leaving after concluding their business on your site. Things that might turn away visitors include:

A product price that is uncompetitive
A landing page that doesn't match well with the advertising that directed the visitor to it

$ Index: If you have assigned values to your goals, or if you have an e-commerce site (learn more about tracking ecommerce transactions), the $ Index indicates how often a page was visited prior to the visitor reaching a goal. The $ Index will be higher when the value of the goal is higher, and when the the page is visited frequently prior to goal completion. If you sort on the $ Index column, the top listed pages will show which pages are most valuable on your site . You can then analyze what's working well with these pages, and perhaps add the same characteristics to your other pages.

If you have organized your site content into directories, use the Content Drilldown report (in the Content section) to evaluate the popularity and value of each directory's content. Identify poorly performing directories as candidates for improvement, based on Pageviews, % Exit, and $ Index.

Use the Content by Title report (in the Content section) to see the same information aggregated by page title. The Page Title appears at the top of the browser and is written into the page's HTML code. This is useful if you have groups of pages that share the same page title, such as 'Catalog.'

One large company used Analytics to restructure their website to determine which method for navigating their site was the easiest to use and resulted in the most goal conversions. They compared four different methods and learned which performed best using the Content by Title report and the $ Index.

Use the Depth of Visit report (under Visitor Loyalty, within the Visitors section) to find out how deep the visits to your site were. If all of the visits are clustered at the top of the graph, visitors are leaving your site after viewing only a few pages - you may wish to enhance your content or find ways to keep visitors on your site. This may require getting feedback from your visitors and asking specifically what they are looking for or would like to see. For more information about enhancing content, refer to the articles available in our Conversion University.

Use the Length of Visit report (also under Visitor Loyalty, within the Visitors section) to find out how long visitors are spending on your pages. Similar to the Depth of Visit report, the distribution of visits across this graph can give a good indication of how interesting your site is to visitors.

Use the Top Landing Pages report in the Content section to evaluate how effectively your landing pages keep visitors on the site:

Entrances: Shows the number of times a visit began with a view of the page.
Bounces: Shows the number of times the visitor left without viewing any other pages.
Bounce Rate: Shows the percentage of visits the visitor left without viewing any other pages.

A high bounce rate indicates that the landing page is not enticing visitors to click further into the site. This might indicate a mismatch between ad and landing page, or a page design that doesn't make visitors confident of a high-quality online-shopping experience.

Again, use the Top Content report (also in the Content section) to review the Average Time and the $ Index of your landing pages. Your most effective landing pages will have the highest $ Index.

It is important not to confuse the bounces listed in the Bounce Rate report with the % Exits listed in the Top Content report. The bounce rate is the rate at which people leave your site after viewing only a single page. The % Exit is the percentage of people ending their visit to your site on that page.

Is your site achieving its goals? If you have not defined goals for your site, see the topic on Goals.

Visitors drop off the path before completing a goal for many reasons. They may get confused if the steps are too complicated, or they may want to go back and get more information before moving forward.

The abandonment rate is the percentage of visitors who begin down the path to a goal (the funnel), but drop out before reaching the goal. For example, if Goal 1 has abandonment rate of 90%, only 10% of visitors who begin the funnel process actually reach the goal. Use the Abandoned Funnels report in the Goals section to evaluate the abandonment rate for each of your funnels.

Use the Funnel Visualization report in the Goals section to identify the steps where you lose most of your visitors. In the center of the report, you'll see one box for each step you have defined. The box at the bottom is the goal. Each box shows the percentage of visits that remain in the funnel at each step.

The Abandonment Points shown at the right hand side of the report show where visitors went when they abandoned the funnel: either a page or "exit", which indicates that they left the site.

For example, the right hand side of the Funnel Visualization report may show that many of your visitors are returning to your 'product information pages' after beginning the checkout process. By including the product information on your checkout pages, you may be able to keep more visitors in the funnel on their way to becoming customers.

Carefully consider how you can re-design the pages in your funnel to keep more visitors. Do visitors drop out immediately or on one of the subsequent steps? Do you do a good job of showing visitors where they are in the process and what they need to do next? Consider:

Consolidating steps into fewer pages
Enabling visitors to go back and get information without leaving the funnel by opening pages in new windows
Reducing the amount of input you require from customers (for example, requiring customers to create a login is known to drive down conversions)