Google recently released the Google Analytics tool Benchmarking into Beta. To setup and view Benchmarking click on the Benchmarking link under Visitors(see screenshot).

What is Benchmarking? According to Google;

"Benchmarking is an optional Google Analytics service that shows how your website’s statistics compare against other industry verticals. In the beta version of this service, you are able to compare your site’s Visits, Pageviews, Pages per Visit, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, and New Visits data against benchmark data from categories of other participating websites. You can use this data to gain broader context for your site so you can identify additional opportunities to improve your site’s metrics."

Using this new tool you can compare your site to other like minded or completely opposites participating sites

To start measuring your site against other ones click on the Open category list and select a matching category(see Screenshot)

Once you have your category selected Analytics will then measure your site against comparable sites.

In the comparison below the site selected is doing better than the Benchmark. The Benchmark is the gray line at the bottom(numbers have been blurred for security).

• *note this was just released so the numbers are not true indicators of the effectiveness of a site. As more data is collected you will get a better idea of how your site is doing

If you monitor your own Google Analytics follow the instructions above on how to activate it. If we maintain your Analytics let us know if you would like to turn this service on.

Jason McElweenie

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com