Best Ways to Use Google Analytics

By: studio scoops

Google Analytics is a free analytics solution designed to give you a complete view of every aspect of activity on your Web site. Understanding how to properly analyze and implement the numerous types of data that Google Analytics provides gives you a considerable edge over your competition in the quest for top search-engine rankings.

A robust analytics program is an often overlooked but entirely vital part of a successful search engine optimization, or SEO, campaign. After all, without knowing what is currently working for your Web site, you have no idea what areas need to be improved, or what successes can be expanded upon.

The use of Google Analytics presents you with multiple advantages as a site owner, from the ability to track goals and sales to the knowledge of where your visitors exit your Web site. The first step is to ensure you properly install the tracking code on your Web site. Next, you begin the process of learning how to use Google Analytics as a tool to improve your Web site performance.

Install Google Analytics

To use Google Analytics with your Web site you must create an account and install tracking code on your Web site. Installing tracking code is what allows Google Analytics to capture, collect, and analyze the information about the way users reach and interact with your Web site. The most important detail in the installation process is making sure that your tracking code is correctly placed on every single page of your Web site.

This ensures that all of your Google Analytics reports are as accurate as possible. Without proper installation, you cannot make accurate judgments about the performance of your Web site, which can severely damage the success of your SEO campaigns.

Set and Track Goals

If your Web site includes some sort of lead generation such as a newsletter subscription, catalog request, or even something as simple as a contact page, goal tracking can make gauging the success of your online marketing campaigns simple. Any goal action can be traced back to the original source of the visitor, which allows you to determine what traffic sources are working for your site, what search keywords are performing the best, and what methods are ineffective.

The Google Analytics goal-setting feature is especially useful when targeting keywords in your SEO efforts. Knowing ahead of time what keywords are already converting for your site and targeting those keywords until you reach the top organic positions is a very effective SEO strategy.

Apply Filters

The tracking code for Google Analytics tracks the user behavior for each visit to your site. At times, you may want to track certain parts of your site separately, or exclude certain traffic from reports. For these reasons, Google Analytics has made it simple to apply filters to your Web site profile to ensure your data is as accurate and useful as possible. Adding filters to exclude your own IP address prevents your own internal traffic from skewing the data about your true Web site performance.

This ensures certain statistics such as time on site, pages per visit, and visitor loyalty are derived from actual site performance. You can also use Google Analytics filters to track specific directories located on your Web site. This filter is best utilized in a separate Web site profile, and is very useful for quickly analyzing a section of your Web site. It is most useful for larger sites that have multiple areas, such as a forum, a blog, a resource directory, or an e-commerce section.

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Issued by Studio Scoops.

(ArticlesBase SC #3778978)

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