Google Analytics Basics
You’ve made the effort to get a free Google Analytics account and added the tracking code to your website or blog. You’re collecting data about every visitor and visit to your site. Now what?
A client asked me this morning how to best use Analytics to figure out what was happening on her website. Here are a few recommendations on getting your feet wet in the big world of web analytics:
- Buy a book. There are lots of them – Advanced Web Metrics and Performance Marketing with Google Analytics are good, thorough overviews for beginners to advanced users. Sams Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes is a short primer on the basics.
- Watch a video – this Google Analytics walkthrough from Conversation Marketing is a very good review of the basics, but there are plenty of others online.
Don’t want to wade through tons of data? Learn how to set up a report containing only the information you want to see and have it emailed to you every week (or whatever time interval you want to use).