What is Session?
A session is defined as a group of interactions that a user has on your website over a specified period of time. Google Analytics defaults this time frame to 30 minutes. This equates to a single session of everything a user does on your website (for example, browsing pages, downloading resources, purchasing products) before leaving your site. In short, sessions are a combined way of reporting metrics, “Visits” and “Active Users”.
What makes session reporting better on “visits” is that you can accurately gauge whether individuals are actually interacting with your website. Because a session times out, “passive” visitors do not corrupt data. For example, visitors who keep your website open in a separate tab and continue to browse elsewhere will not be counted beyond the 30-minute session marker.
A Google Analytics session is a group of user interactions (also known as “hits”) with your website recorded over a period of time. Like a container, a session collects every interaction a user has with the website: for example, when someone spends five minutes on a website and loads two pages, triggers several events, interacts with a social element, and completes an action, all these actions will take place in the same session. :
You can find out how many sessions you have had on your site in a given period by going to Audience > Overview and finding 'Sessions':
Why is it Important to Track Google Analytics Sessions?
Monitoring your website sessions can help you evaluate whether your marketing and SEO campaigns are working.
Let's say you have an average of three sessions per user per day. You do a good job of driving people back to your site through different campaigns.
However, if your ideal client only has two sessions per month, you may need to devote more time to marketing and advertising to bring them back to your site multiple times.
If you're running an e-commerce site, you can also use GA's Shopping Behavior Analysis report to monitor how key transaction sessions affect your shopping activity:
- In how many sessions was a product viewed?
- How many sessions had an 'add to cart' event?
- How many sessions resulted in payment?
- How many resulted in a successful transaction?
Find the report by going to Conversions > Ecommerce > Shopping Behavior:
The above example shows that people tend to log out if they don't add items to their shopping cart. If that's your case, you can start thinking about how to increase the chances of a user adding something to their shopping cart – for example, through sales, internal links to product pages, or product recommendations in the sidebar.
How Long Does a Session Take in Google Analytics?
A new session starts when a visitor comes to your page. But when does it end?
When Session Duration Reaches a Time Limit: By default, a session expires after 30 minutes of operation by the user.
Example 1: The user comes to the site at 12:00. > The user leaves the site at 12:15. > User returns to site at 12:25 pm → ONE SESSION
Example 2: The user logs into the site at 12:00. > The user leaves the site at 12:15. > The user returns to the site at 12:35. → TWO SESSIONS (one session starting at 12:00 and ending at 12:15 and another session starting at 12:35)
When User Changes Campaigns: For example, if someone comes to your site through a Facebook campaign, leaves, and then returns via organic search, they are classified as two different sessions.
A Note About Time Limits: If the default value of 30 minutes doesn't work well for you, you can customize the length of a session by going to Admin > Tracking Information > Session Settings:
Difference Between Sessions and Users in Google Analytics
In Google Analytics, 'sessions' refers to the number of individual sessions initiated by all users of your website, and 'users' refers to the number of unique visitors to the site.
This term is not as perfect as it sounds. Google stopped using the term "unique visitors" because they are not always unique. For example, if you log in from two devices, the report will show two users. That's why they are now called users.
Let me give a practical example:
– The first time you enter a website, a GA cookie is set with a unique identifier that recognizes you as a new user.
– You would spend 5 minutes on the website, check a few pages and then leave. Google has just completed your first session.
– If you return to the website later on the same day from the same device and browser, GA will recognize you as a returning user: if you spend a few more minutes on the website, you will have completed another session.
At this point, you are a user with two sessions.
In other words, a user can have multiple sessions; however, you can't have more than one session since each user starts a session the first time they visit your site.
What is Pageview?
A page render happens when a user's browser runs Javascript (JS) for a web page.
JS is the programming language that runs on the browser side (client side) of the web experience. When JS is triggered for a web page, Google Analytics records a page view. Bots typically do not execute JS, which prevents them from logging page views.
What's the Difference Between a Google Analytics Session and a Pageview?
Pageviews are the number of times users click on a single URL. This means you can have multiple pageviews in a single session.
For example:
If a user comes to your site and views seven pages before leaving, that's seven pageviews in one session.
If the person returns to check out three more pages, that will be another session and ten pageviews for that user.
What's the Difference Between Session and Unique Pageview in Google Analytics?
If a user visits multiple pages on your website before leaving, these are counted as pageviews that created a session. However, when the user reloads a page or hits the back button to revisit the previous page, the page is still saved as a pageview, but not as a unique page.
A unique pageview is counted when a user comes to a particular page in a single session. If the person comes back to your site and visits a page again, it counts as a unique pageview because it's a new session. It's mostly a good thing that pageviews have more than unique pageviews. This means your page is a reference / go-to resource.
How to Explore Differences in Sessions, Users, and Pageviews
“I have 1000 pageviews and 300 sessions. Is that good or bad?”
“I have 2000 sessions and 50 users. Is it a problem?"
If these are the questions on your mind, you are not alone. Technically, the first case indicates that people viewed several pages in one visit, and the second, that each person returned to your website for multiple sessions. But what does this actually mean? Why are people viewing several pages at once?
Google Analytics may show that there is something about sessions, users, and pageviews on your website, but it won't tell you exactly why. To find this type of answer, you need to gather additional context using a few complementary tools.
# Session 1 Logs: Track How People Interact With Your Website
Record how people interact with your website pages. This is a very important insight for managing all sessions.
You can use the recordings to:
- Find out which pages users have reached.
- See which links they click to visit other pages.
- Determine on which page their session ends.
# 2. Funnels: Find Where Sessions Are Dropping
Funnels show the path to the typical goal for your customers, and you can use them specifically to see where sessions are leaving; this helps you prioritize which pages with high drop rates should be optimized.
Here are some funnel examples to get you started:
- E-Commerce Sites: Home Page > Product Pages > Shopping Cart > Checkout > Thank You Page
- blog: Home > Article Pages > Subscribe Page > Success Page
- SaaS: Home > Trial Registration Page > Interface > Upgrade Page > Thank You Page
- Lead Generation: Category Pages > Landing Page with Form > Thank You Page
İnsanların dönüşüme giden yolculuklarında nerede ayrıldığını izleyin. Oturumların %50’sinin belirli bir sayfada bittiğini görebilirsiniz.
# 3. Onsite Surveys: Ask Your Visitors Why They Visited Multiple Times
Customer feedback is a goldmine for marketers, especially when reviewing your Google Analytics sessions. You can use onsite surveys to ask people why they're leaving their session instead of guessing at their decisions:
- What are you researching on our site today?
- Have you been here before? (Yes No)
- (If No) What was your goal on your first visit?
How Are Google Analytics Sessions Calculated?
When a web page loads in a user's browser window, it triggers a session to start. When the web page is finished loading, the analytics tracking code sends the data to Google.
The tracking code data you submit to Google is saved by Google Analytics for your account ID and is the start of a session.
A session is the starting point for Google to measure a web user's experience.
A session can include many pageviews and events that happen while a visitor is on your site. For example, multiple page views, one video view, and one purchase can all happen in a single session.
How to Calculate a Google Analytics Session
A session ends when a user leaves a website or has been inactive for 30 minutes. Inactivity or “timeout” refers to the amount of time a user has not logged a hit in Google Analytics.
When a user performs a new activity on a site after 30 minutes of inactivity, a new session starts.
Can I Change Session Reporting?
Yes. As mentioned earlier, Sessions are used to measure 30-minute increments by default, but can be as short as one minute or as long as four hours. Google recommends that you consider the following when considering changing the time of a session:
- If your site logs a user out after a period of inactivity
- If your site contains long content that you expect the user to spend time on
- If a campaign is expected to last less than two years (this is specific to campaign timing, not individual sessions)
If your website meets any of the three points above, it would be wise to change your session timeout process to track the user properly. Otherwise, use your current average time spent on site as a baseline for what your timeout amount should be.
You can change the way Google handles the time limit for your sessions. You can completely reduce the session timeout interval to one minute and increase it to four hours.
How Can You Change Google Analytics Session Reporting?
Google Analytics Sessions expire after 30 minutes of inactivity and campaign reporting stops after six months. You can change session and campaign settings to expire after a certain period of time. Session and campaign timeout reports depend on your website and goals.
Here are a few things to consider before changing session and campaign timeouts:
- If your website automatically logs out if any user is inactive, set the session timeout to this time.
- If you have a large content library that takes a long interaction time, extend the session timeout and vice versa.
- Set the campaign timeout to the exact time the campaign will run.
To change the session setting:
- Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
- Click "Administrator"
- Click “Tracking Information” from the Property column. Next, select “Session Settings” from the drop-down menu.
- You will be able to edit session or campaign timeout settings. Then click “Done”.
Does Scrolling Extend Sessions in Google Analytics?
By default, page scrolling is not recorded as a hit. Default Google settings do not track page scrolling. Therefore, page scrolling will not lengthen sessions.
How Can You Increase Your Average Session Time?
Is your average session time too low? With the following tips, you can increase your visitors by keeping them on your site longer.
Interactive Website Design – An interactive design is simple, attractive and straight to the point. No matter how great your website content is, if your design is poor or complex, visitors will leave immediately. Use a user-friendly theme, super readable font and size, attractive colors and high-quality graphics.
Readability of Web Pages – Your website copy should be crawlable and readable. Content layout, navigation, ad placements, bullet points, blog post formatting, and grammar should be easy, straightforward, and understandable. Also, add spaces, walls of text are unreadable.
High Engagement Pages – Normally, your website home page gets the most visits. So optimize for engagement and conversion. However, there may be a few more pages that receive high attention. By updating with useful content, linking to other website pages, displaying relevant ads, etc. Focus on making them better for new and returning visitors.
Related Images – Include unique, relevant, high-quality and small-size images to increase users' session time on your site. People are attracted to content with visual content. Use eye-catching images to convey your message in a way that resonates with your audience. Use appropriate image sizes and alternative text.
High Quality Content – Once your audience decides to stay for a while, your content will determine whether it stays longer. Create high-quality content that resonates with your audience and provides solutions to their problems. Your content should be original, informative, engaging, actionable and accurate. Include relevant images that support your claim.
Informative Videos – Users are even more interested in seeing videos than images or text. Adding videos to your website can increase conversion %4. Overall, relevant videos can increase your website engagement.
Buyer's Journey – It is necessary to know, understand and address the different stages in a buyer's journey. Create a buyer's characters and map the buyer's journey. This will help you produce custom content that fits the three phases of the buyer's journey (awareness, evaluation, and decision).
Internal Link – Internal linking is not only good for improving average session time but also good for SEO. Linking relevant keywords to link to other relevant pages on your site where users can find relevant information about a particular topic will keep them on your site longer.
Content Update – Content may become out of date over time. Therefore, it is necessary to update old posts with new information about a visitor. No matter how 'evergreen' a piece of information is, there are always updates to make it fresher.
Calls to Action and Comments – At the end of your content – videos or blog posts, you should encourage your viewers to take action to increase your website engagement. This means adding a call-to-action (CTA) to the end of your content. Answering a question, asking anyone, sharing your post, leaving your thoughts, etc. it could be.
Website Reliability – Users frequently visit websites they trust. To gain the trust and credibility of users, you must:
- You should regularly post great content.
- Guest post on a higher authority website.
- Collaborate with other websites in your niche.
- Add certificates, prizes and bets.
- Add customer references.