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Understanding Google Analytics: How to harness the power of free web analytics
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It’s weird, but there are people wary of using anything with a low price tag. It’s as though they automatically associate low cost with low quality. While this association may be accurate in some cases, unthinkingly writing something off as inferior because it’s inexpensive can lead to missed opportunities. This is true in the case of Google Analytics, which is a free service that outperforms much of its more costly competition.
Understanding Google Analytics is fundamental for any webmaster. Its nonexistent price tag is highly misleading; one would expect it to be an entry-level program with a few features that might be able to tell the novice webmaster how many hits his site is getting, but it actually includes a huge number of tracking capabilities that give great insight into the quality of your SEO campaign.
Promote Your Website in the Search Engines with One of the best features of Google Analytics is itswebsite, which has a full support menu that includes blogs, tutorials, and user forums. Anyone starting out with the tool can use this website as a jumping off point in their research on how to use it effectively.
There’s a common saying, “You can’t get something for nothing,” and it’s a cliché for a reason: It’s the truth. Even though Google Analytics is free, you should expect some expense from using it, even though it’s not immediate. You’ll need to take the time needed to acquaint yourself with its functions, or hire someone with experience to monitor the data for you; either way, you’ll have to put some capital into it. Regardless, it’s a worthwhile investment, as the tool itself is a good way to analyse your SEO campaign.
If you decide to use Google Analytics on your own, be sure to use these features:
- Email reports: This is a handy feature if you want to inform others about the performance of the site.
- Geographic data: Google Analytics provides valuable geographically specific data that allows you to tweak your SEO to accommodate certain regions.
- Keyword data: Find out which keywords are providing you with the most visitors, and which are contributing to conversion goals.
- Referral sites: Track which sites are referring the most visitors, and how many users from those sources are converting.
- IP address filter: You and your employees are probably using your website more than anyone else, so you can filter out data from your company’s IP addresses to get more accurate data.
- About this report feature: This sidebar feature is a precious resource for those new to Google Analytics, and each report has a description of its purpose.
Posted on November 16, 2009
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