Track Your Success With Google Analytics Part 1

Part 1 - Intro and Install

Google Analytics is a highly integrated net tool that puts a ‘finger on the pulse’ of your site’s activity. Without it, web marketers and small business owners find it difficult to know how their website efforts are performing. Google provides support for Google Analytics users in an effort to make it accessible to everyone. Having a basic familiarity with HTML will help with setting up GA. If not, you won’t lose out. In general, all webmasters and web marketers should be using Analytics frequently!

Here are just a few things Analytics will allow you to do:

• Check how many people are coming to your site in any chosen timeframe, from where, and how they’re searching for you
• Check your most popular pages for visiting activity, and which are generating sales and other conversions
• Check how many people are new or returning users, how long they stay for and how many exit immediately 
• Most importantly: you can use all the above and more to decide how well / not so well just about everything is going!

An example of the Google Analytic tracking code. Here it is inserted in the Footer (bottom) of every page. It is Written in Java script and is entirely generated by google, so do not worry about not being able to understand it. Google can only track pages with the code, so Make sure the code is installed on every page of Your website. 

You can sign up for a free account at www.google.com/analytics, enter your gmail account or make one. Once there you need to enter your website address which will give you a tracking code. Google doesn’t automatically track your webpage, so in order to do so you need to install the provided tracking code.

Once installed, allow a few days for data to be generated. The sooner you implement it and have a plan of continually setting up and tracking new pages the better. Next we will look into what this program can do to give you that “Wow, I know stuff about my site now!” factor.

Hit List

        Made a Google Analytics account

        Installed the necessary tracking code

        Get a basic feel of the site’s navigation