The vital Traffic Sources segment consists of the various reports that offers an overview of the various types of sources, which direct traffic to your website. There are various vital elements such as All Traffic Sources, Direct Traffic, Referring Sites, Search Engines, Keywords, AdWords Campaign, Keyword Position and Ad Versions that the important section of Google Analytics deals with in-depth. Here we study each one of them.
Referring Sites
How do the users who are referred from other websites compare to your site’s ‘average’ visitor? The graph indicates the overall trends in traffic volume courtesy referrals whereas the table will list the websites driving the trends.
Search Engines
How does traffic from compare to overall traffic to your website? The graph will show overall traffic trends whereas the table will list the top search engines driving the (traffic) trends.
Keywords
How does traffic directed from search keywords roughly compare to overall traffic to your website? The graph will show overall traffic trends whereas the table denotes the keywords driving the traffic trends.
AdWords Campaign (AdWords)
How do the users who are referred from AdWords Campaigns compare to your site’s ‘average’ visitor? You may click an AdWords Campaign parameter in the table to check its component ad groups as well as keywords.
The ‘Clicks’ tab will display the AdWords cost, impression data as well as ROI data, which is handy to monitor your AdWords Campaign’s and keywords’ profitability.
Keyword Position (AdWords)
Where do exactly your AdWords ads get shown on a Google search results page? How much is the influence that search position has on volume (Visits) as well as visit quality (Average pageviews, conversion rates and per visit value)? You may utilize this report for determining your optimal search position for specific keywords and accordingly plan your bidding.
Drill down from a particular keyword to check its display position: T1 through T3 will denote that your ad was promoted right to the top of the relevant search results page. On the other hand, positions 1 through 8 will indicate a position in right-hand column on first page.
Campaigns
How do the users who are referred from your configured campaigns compare to your site’s ‘average’ visitor? The graph will indicate overall trends whereas the table will list all your configured campaigns. Since all traffic in the report results from campaigns you explicitly control, you may utilize this data to add/delete campaigns, or to work out the effectiveness of tests you have set up employing custom tags.
Ad Versions
How do your AdWords ads as well as configured campaigns in which you’ve used the ‘content’ tag perform in comparison to each other? This report will show which ad copy (in configured campaigns or in AdWords ads) is more effective.
Ads with high clickthrough rates indicate that the copy is successful in getting the users to click, whereas high bounce rates, for instance, points to a need for landing pages that are more consistent with what the ad actually promises.
