Google Analytics

WHAT IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

When a browser visits a web page, it must download the information on that page to the reader’s local computer. When that information is downloaded, the web site can include a script that will count that browser and reader as a “unique” user for that day.

Adding up all of those users, browsers and readers is called Analytics. It is a way of analyzing website traffic, who is visiting a web site, how often they are visiting, what information they are viewing and where they are from.

This information is tremendously useful for companies and individuals running web sites. With Analytics installed, a web site operator can determine down to the page how well an ad campaign is performing, which keyword is attracting the most interest, which sites are sending him or her the most traffic and which pages on the site are the most popular. With some of the advanced options, web site operators can even measure the conversion rate of their sales and improve their marketing capabilities.

Google began offering Analytics as a free service in 2006 after it acquired Urchin Software. The service is part of their “Webmaster Tools” suite of utilities and facilities available to individual web site owners and companies so they can better track the performance of their web sites.

BENEFITS

UNIQUE VISITORS COUNT

Knowing how many people have visited a site in a given time interval vs. knowing how many times a site was visited is a key benefit of a good Analytics package. From a marketing standpoint there is a big difference between one person visiting a site 100 times and 100 people visiting a site once. Google Analytics is able to tell the difference and also make it possible for users to see how those differences affect their web marketing.

BOUNCE RATE

When a user visits a web site, takes one look around and leaves, this is known in the industry as a “bounce.” If a web site is experiencing a high number of “bounces” it could indicate something is technically wrong with the site. It could also mean the site’s content is broken, hard to read or just not very attractive.

Google Analytics provides statistics on the bounce rate of both the site and individual pages and can even measure the rate based on visitors from specific sites.

GEOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

Knowing where your site visitors are coming from is vitally important. If you are providing reference material, written content or even video content and a majority of your readers are located in a Spanish-speaking country, for example, you might want to consider making your site available in Spanish. Google Analytics can tell any site owner where their visitors are coming from right down to which city they are in.

REFERRING SITE

What links your traffic is following to get to your site is just as important as where they live and what language they speak.

Knowing that a particular site has mentioned yours and is providing its users links to your pages gives you the opportunity to contact that site and see if you can work out a way to produce more pages, articles, videos, etc. for their specific readers. Without a package like Google Analytics it would be very difficult to know for sure how many visits your site is getting from a particular link.

RETURN VISITS

While this statistic might be a bit more obscure than something as straightforward as unique visits, it is just as important. If your site is getting a large number of return visits, this indicates your pages, articles, videos, etc. are popular with your audience.

This kind of information is vital to a successful site as it allows you to tailor and target your presentation to your audience and build a community around those people who are most likely to enjoy what you have to offer. Google Analytics makes measuring return visits easy.

When combined with the powerful tools in the Google Webmaster Suite, Analytics can give you a tremendous advantage when measuring the success of your web marketing efforts.