Google Analytics - The Basics


google-analytics-intro1There’s a recurring conversation I seem to have a lot when pI start working with a client.

It goes something like this:

Client: “Hey, take look at my site! What do you think?”

Me: “Ok, but it doesn’t matter what I think.”

Client: “Um.. what?”

Me: “You may have the prettiest site in the world, but if it’s not DOING anything for you- generating sales, or leads, or signups, then what’s the point?”

Client: “So you’re saying you don’t like my site?”

Me: “No no… look. Rather than look at the design, let me look at your NUMBERS. Show me the stats of your site.”

Client: “Right… my stats. I’ve never seen any stats on my website.”

Me: “OK, NOW we’re down to the root of the issue! Let’s start with generating some measurements, how your site is performing- THEN I’ll tell you what I think of it!”

The good news is, most people “get it” after this talk. After all, most people pay to have a website in the hopes it will generate some income for them.

The bad news is, most people have no idea what statistics they need to be measuring, much less how to retrieve them.

To all of these people, let me introduce you to your new best friend: GOOGLE ANALYTICS.

(And before I go any further, let me just say 2 words: absolutely free. Resume article.)

Once you have Google Analytics set up on your site, here are the Top 10 cool statstics you can analyze:

1. How many unique visitors you have to your site. (Forget those “counters” that were popular in the 90s. They’re useless. Your mom could keep refreshing her browser and you’d have 1000 hits per day.) This is absolute new people that reach

your site!

2. How many pages the average unique visitor views.

3. Which pages on your site are most popular.

4. Your site’s bounce rate (defined as people who land on your page and immediately click away.) If your site has a high bounce rate, you’ve got problems.

5. How much time the average person spends on your site.

6. How people got to your site. (Directly typed it into a browser, referred by another site, or clicked from a search engine.)

7. If they got there from a search engine, what search terms did they use to find you?

8. If another site referred them to you, which site was that?

9. What connection speed is the user on? (i.e. if you find most of your visitors are on dial-up, you might want to tone down all the big flash animations!)

10. My personal favorite, where geographically (country, state, city) each visitor is from.

google-analytics

And this is just scratching the surface of what Google Analytics can do.

(Let me repeat something- this is absolutely free. Even if they charged $100 per month for this, it would be worth it to you.)

Setting this up on your site is a snap also.
Your steps:

1. http://analytics.google.com

2. Sign in using your google account login (if you have gmail, use that.) If you don’t have a google account, create one now.

3. Once you’re insite Google Analytics, click “Add Website Profile”.  Select “Add a Profile for a new domain”, and type the domain in the box.

4. You’ll then see a box with a chuck of javascript code. (You’re looking for “New Tracking Code (ga.js) ).  Select all this code, and have your web person paste this exact code just before the tag of every page on your site. Just tell them exactly that, they’ll know what it means.

That’s it!

bangkokIt takes about 24 hours for the data to begin showing up, but each time you log in to your Google Analytics account, you’ll see this website’s profile, and you’ll see all the data you can handle!

Only then you can really determine how your site is REALLY doing!

There are many more useful things with G.A. that I will write about in future posts.

But.. even if you’re not interested in doing anything with these stats, you can at least find out who around the planet is visiting your site- as I’m writing this, I just saw that I have 2 people from Bangkok who visit this blog!

Sawaddee krab, my friends!