How to more easily view Page Titles in Google Analytics reports

Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 6.22.47 AM
(#2) This is the default view of the Google Analytics report. It shows the URL path of the post but can be a little difficult to figure out what you’re looking at at times. See #9 on this list for an example of that.
Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 6.59.01 AM
(#1) If you view the full report in Behavior –> Overview, you can select to view the Page Title of different posts and it makes it much easier to see which post the data is reporting. You can see a big difference in #9 on this screenshot and the other one on this page. It’s the same report but much easier to tell, at a glance, which post is being shown in this report.

I sent out the most recent JEA Digital Media Committee report a few weeks ago that included data from the last six months of the site. Part of the report showed the most visited posts from the site during that time period and I included a screenshot similar to the first one shown in this post (#1).

While it shows the data I was looking for (most visited posts during the time period), the big problem was that it showed the title of the piece in the form of it’s URL path. In some instances, it’s pretty easy to tell at a glance what the post is, in others, it’s not as easy.

Following the release of my report, JEA Executive Director Kelly Furnas dropped me a note and showed me how to easily change that column to view the page title of the post, rather than the URL path (#2). In retrospect, I think I’d been told this a couple times before, but my brain hadn’t allowed it to stick. To make it stick this time, I decided to write this post so I would remember it, and to hopefully help someone else in the process.

Aaron Manfull

Aaron is in his 26th year of advising student media. He is currently the Director of Student Media at Francis Howell North High School in St. Charles, Missouri. He is the Journalism Education Association Digital Media Chair and co-Director of Media Now. He is the 2023 JEA Teacher Inspiration Award Winner and is a former Dow Jones News Fund National Journalism Teacher of the Year. He is one of the authors of the textbook "Student Journalism and Media Literacy." You can find him on X and Instagram @manfull. He's a proud father. A transplanted Iowan. And an avid Hawkeye Fan.

Aaron Manfull has 862 posts and counting. See all posts by Aaron Manfull

2 thoughts on “How to more easily view Page Titles in Google Analytics reports

  • July 31, 2017 at 3:55 pm
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