subject: Google Analytics: A Powerful Tool [print this page] Google Analytics is such a powerful tool to use - it actually allows you to decide what you want to measure on your website. You can literally put this tool to work for you and personalize it as well.
Google Analytics allows you to identify you ideal objective, goals and specifics. If all you want to know is who visited your website and how they got there - that is simple enough, you can do that. However, the power of Google Analytics lies in the ability to define goals and put on filters that will allow you to do in-depth analysis of your website.
What does this mean? Let's break it down for you so you understand how Google Analytics works to your advantage. First of all, Google works with objectives, goals, and specifics these allow you to really hone in on what you are trying to accomplish when managing your website.
Objectives: An objective is the big picture - what do you want your website to do? What is the purpose for your website - what do you want visitors to do once they are there?
If you are an e-commerce site maybe you want to sell an item and make lots of money. On the other hand, you may want to know what products are selling and what products you should take off your catalogue.
This would be an objective.
Goals: If objectives are the result you ultimately want to achieve with your website,a goal is a short term aim. What has to happen for you to hit your objective. Do you have to track visitors that enter on a certain web page? Or perhaps your goal is to sell 30% more widgets within 6 months.
You can do this using Google Analytics as the tool and setting goals within the application.
Specifics: Now that you have outlined your objectives and goals you are ready to use Analytics to your advantage. Specifics are the "how" the action steps you will take to reach what you really want.
Example: You would set up the sales page and a funnel (using google analytics) to measure how traffic is coming into your website. Google can tell you where they are entering as well as where your visitors are exiting your website. Knowing how your visitors are responding to your website allows you to go to these pages and tweak them - this help you achieve the results you want.
Google has made it easy to place code in your web pages, they do the initial metrics for you and best of all it is free.
If you are not particularly savvy about how your website is put together or developed - leave it up to your website professional to add the code to your individual web pages. Once the code is embedded analytics will start collecting data and within a few days you will see countless stats related to your site.
Once you become familiar with the dashboard that Google Analytic's provides, you will be able to set up the goals and specifics of your website. You will access all the data through the Internet, you can login and set the parameter right then and there.
Another great function of Google Analytics is that you can set up different profiles for one website. You can break down your website into different sections called "profiles" and monitor them independently, this allows you to see which sections of your website are effective and which need work.
AdWords and Analytics
Google AdWords is a pay-per-click advertising program. Essentially you would buy keywords and then pay a small amount for every time a potential client (website visitor) clicks on an ad you put up through Google.
If you are thinking about using AdWords as part of your marketing campaign or are using them already, Google works seamlessly in providing you with the answers to all important questions like, is this add working or am I making more money on these ads then I am spending? You will be able to monitor visitors who click on the ads and buy and those who just leave your site before every going to the sales page.
When you sign up for Google AdWords use the same account number as you did with analytics (Google uses your gmail accounts login and password). You will then be able to link both accounts together. AdWords will be imported into your Google Analytics account. This helps provide you with a safety net so you can watch the behavior of your visitors and change what isn't working.
The development team at Google has a way of making their tools very usable and Google Analytics is just one of many tools that lives up to Googles high standards.
