Google Analytics Tips

[vangogh]

SEOmoz recently posted a couple of articles with tips on using Analytics. If you aren't using some kind of analytics to measure what's happening on your site shame on you. Get over to Google Analytics right now and sign up (http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html)

Assuming you are using Analytics here are the posts


The first one,
5 Simple Google Analytics Tips You Should Be Using (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-simple-google-analytics-tips-you-should-be-using), really are some simple tips. Ok one involves some code, but the rest are pretty simple and helpful.

The second one, Google Analytics Event Tracking to Monitor Calls to Action (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-analytics-event-tracking-to-monitor-calls-to-action), does involve a bit of code to set up. Nothing too complicated, but you will want to feel comfortable editing web files. It's useful stuff as it will let you better track what's happening on your site. You'll be able to tell if call-to-action buttons are working, which is definitely something worth knowing.

Anyway thought I'd share since both posts have helpful tips for working with analytics and again if you aren't using some kind of analytics on your site, Google or otherwise, you really should be. Otherwise you really have no idea what is and isn't working on your site.

[dynocat]

Thank, Steve, for the links. They look really useful.

so much to do...so little time

[vangogh]

I already played around with the tips and they are useful. Simple too. I never knew how easy it was to select a specific month or week of data. Now that I know I wonder how I didn't figure it out on my own.

[KristineS]

I didn't know about the Overview Comparison reports. That's a great feature. I will have to try that out.

[nealrm]

I found one of the best features is where you can plot 2 time ranges on the same chart. I normally will plot weekly data for 2 different year. You then get a good idea how traffic changed over time.

[vangogh]

I like to compare things over two time ranges too. Another good thing is to compare time ranges around a specific event. Say you ran a marketing campaign to pick up more traffic or sell a specific product. You can run the time comparison before and after the marketing campaign and better see how successful you are.

If you sell things directly through your site there are ways to set up Analytics to directly track your sales and then everything is tied into the money. You can see which keywords lead to the most profit or which sites send you the most profitable traffic. I don't currently sell directly through my site, but I am using analytics to track where subscribers to my blog come from and which specific post or page they were on when they subscribed.

[amir]

Goals are very powerful in google analytics.

[vangogh]

Yeah. I usually try to set them up where I can. Once you get into Analytics there are a lot of custom ways to set them up. Just tracking the default stuff only gets you so far. You want to tie things in to the actions you want people to take.