Written by Jon Bergan on the 10/02/2008
If you’re a business owner with a website, then you need to be using Google Analytics. Sure, most web hosts provide some level of statistical information for you to browse over, but Google Analytics does that and so much more. With no setup or monthly fee’s, Google has taken a step in the right direction by providing website owners with the ability to track loads of statistics quickly and easily.
Basically, its similar to your standard web hosting statistics page such as those produced by Webalyzer and other similar statistics engines, however it goes above and beyond. This software can provide you with detailed statistical information relating to your visitors, traffic sources, content and more. By applying these statistics with your businesses goals, you will soon realize how valuable this tool is in getting the most out of your company website.
Users who are new to Google Analytics can sign up for a free account at http://www.google.com/analytics/. If you already have a Google Account, then you simply have to log in with your username and password and follow the on-screen prompts. The software will show you how to update your website accordingly to support the new tool, however you may require assistance from your web designer to get this up and running properly. Once you have Google Analytics installed, give the software 24-48 hours and you’ll start seeing results.
For those of you who have already implemented Google Analytics or those interested in finding out what kinds of information you can retrieve from the software, please see below. We have included a detailed list of the statistics that are obtainable from Google Analytics and a brief description next to each. You will quickly see the power behind this software as you browse over the next page or so.
Google Analytics provides you with the ability to review your site’s visitors at various levels. From a complete map overlay of the world identifying where each of your users come from visually to identifying new versus returning visitors.
The map overlay shows a map of the world and identifies where each of your users are coming from. You can zoom in on certain areas to find out exactly where your users are from. For example, instead of just knowing users are from Australia, you could potentially see what city/state the users are from.
The New vs Returning page outlines new users versus returning users. This is a quick and easily way of determining whether you have repeat users or all of your users are new.
This page identifies the various languages people are using who hit your site. This may help you determine whether you need to have someone interpret your site into a different language to meet the demands of its users.
The visitor trending screen is a great way of finding trends amongst the types of users who visit your site. You can view how many unique visitors hit your site daily, what the average pageviews are, the average time on the site and more.
The Visitor Loyalty page allows you to identify how loyal your users are, how often they return, their length of their visit and more. This is a great way of determining how many users are loyal to your site if this is something you are aiming for.
Have you ever wondered what Internet Browser your users are using? Wonder no more! Here you can find out what browser they are using, what operating system they are using, their screen resolution and much, much more.
The Network Properties screen allows you to see who is viewing your site, what their general connection speeds are like and more. This is great if you are running a Flash based website or are considering running one. You will quickly be able to determine whether the users who visit your site can handle a Flash-driven site or not based on the connection speeds they are using.
Having the ability to review where your users are coming from is critical to successfully marketing your website especially within the online arena. Reviewing the source of your website’s traffic will allow you to determine where your users came from and how they found your site.
Direct traffic is traffic that hit your site directly without browsing through a search engine or any other means. For example, if a user browses directly to http://www.yourcompany.com/, then this is direct traffic. Here you can monitor the types of traffic browsing directly to your website.
Referring sites are websites that link through to your site. If you placed your website’s link on a forum or were added to a business directory, then this would be classed as a referral link. When users click that link and are sent to your site, they are referred to your site.
Ever wondered which search engines are working best for you? This page identifies what search engines sent which users to your site.
This is basically an overall summary of the various traffic sources and how/when they hit your site. This page is great for reviewing all of your potential traffic sources in one single page – similar to the overview page.
The keywords screen identifies which keywords users used when they browsed directly to your website. This may help you improve your SEO on your site or when posting within your business blog.
The AdWords screen is similar to the keywords screen, however it allows you to see which ads you are paying Google for are actually working for you. The benefit of this screen is that you are actually able to see where your hard earned dollars are going when it comes to Google AdWords.
Now that we know everything about our visitors and where they're coming from, we need to analyse our website itself, its content and how its structured. The Content section of Google Analytics will help us do just that.
Reviewing which pages attract the most users is a great way of finding out which content is the most popular on your site. This may assist you in deciding whether you should focus on providing more of that content or whether your site is structured incorrectly. This page will help you identify such statistics.
If each of the pages on your site is adequately titled, then this page will serve its purpose by converting the URLs found on the Top Content page into plain English and identifying which URLs are the most popular.
The top landing and exit pages identify which pages on your website are hit the most as an initial page or as the exit page. An initial page is the page the user browses directly to. For example, if you had a link to an article on your website in your e-newsletter, the article the user gets linked to would be a landing page. An exit page is the page the user was last on when they left your site. Knowing which landing and exit pages are the most popular will allow you to determine where your website is serving its purpose and where it isn’t.
The site overlay is a great tool that allows you to visit your website and view your Google Analytics stats visually. By moving your mouse over specific links and content, statistics will appear that are relevant to that area of the page!
As per Google Analytics, a Goal Conversion is the primary metric for measuring how well your site fulfills business objectives. A goal is a website page which a visitor reaches once they have made a purchase or completed another desired action, such as a registration or download.
With that in mind, you can set up goals on your website which allow Google Analytics to track information that relate to that goal. For example, you can set up a goal so that whenever a user purchases something from your online store, statistics are gathered about that user to help you identify target markets and market trends.
The other great thing about Google Analytics is user-defined reports. These allow you to set up specific reports based on the report types mentioned within this article and have them sent to you in an email or other form. This is particularly useful if you don’t have time to visit Google Analytics on a regular basis and only want to review certain content or statistics.
Now that you know everything there is to know about Analytics, its time you implemented this tool and started making some serious use of it. You will quickly see how versatile and robust it truly is and how it can easily become a cost effective yet valuable and reliable tool within your organization. Remember, your website is a business asset just like any other and tracking its performance is critical.
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