Early this month SEO endured Google’s transformative search update “Search Plus Your World”, but this wasn’t the only home improvement endeavor Google showcased in the past year. Sandwiched between the release of Google+ and Search Plus Your World was a very important update to Google Analytics. In case you missed it, or you already forgot about it in midst of the razzle dazzle, here are a few of the most important Google Analytics improvements and what they could mean for your business.

1. New Interface and Intuitive Navigation

Personally, I think the new navigation for Google Analytics is way more intuitive and, as a result, much faster to use than the old bulky one. I greatly prefer opening my account to a display of all account information without having to scroll through an ity-bity drop-down menu. In addition to being better organized, the new navigation is also cleaner and easier to read. When dealing with numbers, pie charts and other data the new clean interface is very helpful for keeping on task.

2. Site Speed Reports

The integration of site speed reports and other Webmaster Tools can cut out extra time spent navigating between tools. In order to combine site speed reports into your normal Google Analytics work flow you need only add a small portion of code to the normal Google Analytics code. Then the site speed reports will be bundled in with your other Google analytics data. While it might not be a report you look at every week, it will be there when you need it.

3. Real Time Data

Having real time data for your website is kind of like getting a sneak preview of your birthday presents. The significance being you don’t have to wait around to get early results on campaigns. Not only does this instant gratification prove helpful for hand tailoring campaigns based on results but it can also prove as a great commodity for A/B testing.

4. Social Stats

Another newbie to the analtyics package is the Social Engagement report and plug-in. This report is jam-packed with useful information. You can tell if a browser is socially engaged with your site and via which social channel, compare data between browsers who share vs. non-sharers and track social engagement performance by page. This information will definitely show you where your site is performing best and what social networks you may want to focus on.

5. Multi Channel Funnels

Probably the most exciting improvement are the Multi Channel Funnels. Prior to the current version of Google Analytics, one could only see the last channel a browser touched before conversion. Now with multi channel funnels you get the broader picture of how conversions are acquired. Seeing the whole cause and effect of a conversion gives you a much keener insight in the effectiveness of advertisements and can even help you discern where to focus moving forward.

Overall, the update makes Google Analytics an easier tool to use and a more complete analytics solution. If you haven’t switched to the new version yet, I strongly suggest you do but make sure you have time to take it on a test run.

Think you have a healthy handle on Google Analtyics, test your know how with an online Google Analytics IQ test.

In case you haven’t already heard, Google has drastically shaken up SEO with the release of Google “Search Plus Your World”. The search update integrates the new social network Google+ with good ol’ Google search results. Now, when users search a term in Google’s search engine the real-estate above the results list, to the right of the results (previously ad space) and under individual results will be populated with Google+ data.

The update was released last week and seems to only be active part of the time. So I’ve captured a search query with Google’s personal results filter turned on and off to better illustrate what this change means to overall SEO.

Logged In/Show Personal Results

The default setting when you are logged into Google populates personal results all over the page. Viewers receive a list of Google+ profiles from their circles related to the search terms shown above the search results. To the right Google highlights global Google+ people and pages they think are most pertinent to your search terms. Finally, mixed in with the results are posts from your circles that directly relate to the terms searched.

Logged In/Hide Personal Results

Here I am logged in to Google but I have clicked “Hide Personal Results” on the top right. All circle related content is removed from results, but Google’s top people and pages related to the search terms are still shown. These same results are shown when I am not logged in.

As Google remains the most popular search engine to date this in turn now makes Google+ the most visible social network in search. A lot of criticism regarding the fairness of a search engine promoting its own social results has been circulating, but Google is standing by its decision. Marketers have no choice but to follow Google’s lead and get their brands represented as soon as possible to keep up with those already on Google+.

Want help to quickly create and optimize your Google+ brand page? Contact Monkee-Boy to strengthen your Google search coverage!