UPDATE: The Google Analytics interface has changed significantly since this post was written. Check out the updated post and video.
Problem: We don’t know what grabs visitors’ attention the most from our homepage.
Solution: The Entrance Paths report is your best friend.
A lot of thought goes into what people put on their homepage. And yet how do you know what visitors like most? One solution is to use Google’s latest In-Page Analytics (under Content in the left navbar). But results have been spotty with it. It’s great when it works the way it’s supposed to, but they never really got all the bugs out before unleashing it. Hey, you get what you pay for.
A more surefire solution is to use the Entrance Sources report accessible from every Content report.
How to Use the Entrance Paths Report in Google Analytics
1. Navigate to your homepage in the Content report: Content > Top Content > Click on homepage.
2. Click on Entrance Paths under Navigation Analysis.
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3. Google Analytics lists the pages that visitors navigate to from the homepage in descending order. By default, Google shows you the top 10 pages, but you can bump that up, if you want.
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4. If you want to see what page visitors click on next from each of these pages, just click on the page. This will generate a similar list of pages under “And ended up here.”
Of course, you’re not just limited to the homepage when running this report; that just happens to be most site owners’ bread and butter.
Also, while you’re playing around in this reports, you may also want to take note of the exit rates for each of these pages. It could reveal some of your site’s weak links or internal linking opportunities (in the event of orphaned pages).
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