Google Analytics
“Google Analytics has been re-designed to help you learn
even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your
site.
The new Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your
results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and
create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free
to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.
Google Analytics helps you find out what keywords attract
your most desirable prospects, what advertising copy pulled the most responses,
and what landing pages and content make the most money for you.
Spend on marketing, not on web analytics.
Google Analytics has all the features you'd expect from a high-end
analytics offering. It also provides tightly integrated AdWords
support, so you can view AdWords ROI metrics without
having to import cost data or add keyword tracking codes.
Google Analytics is easy to use for novice marketers, while delivering
all of the capabilities that experienced web analytics professionals expect.
Google Analytics is a hosted service that runs on the same
servers that power Google. From large, high-traffic corporate
sites to small sites, Google Analytics delivers consistent service.
If you have an AdWords account,
you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords
interface. Google Analytics also calculates ROI metrics from automatically
imported cost and keyword tracking data, saving you time.
Google Analytics tracks all online campaigns, from emails to
keywords, regardless of search engine or referral source.
Google takes the trust people place in us very seriously,
and is pledged to safeguard the privacy of your corporate data. We understand
that web analytics data is sensitive information, so we accord it the ironclad
protection it deserves. Read our industry leading privacy policy.”
-www.google.com
I wanted to
find a web analytics application, and my research revealed webalizer,
awstats, etc. After which I stumbled upon google analytics. This seemed to be ideal,
it’s platform independent and therefore will work on Linux, Windows, etc (all
you need is a flash enabled web browser). Installation is a breeze – you just
copy the script into each page to be tracked, no configuration, no installation problems! And the results are indepth.
How to Use/Install Google Webanalytics
Google Webanalytics is linked to your google
account.
When you’ve
logged in to your google account you are presented
with your normal options (Webmaster Tools, Web History, Igoogle,
Google Mail, etc) in addition to Analytics.
When
Analytics is chosen you can add the sites you want to monitor. In my case I
have added:
·
www.hospitalitymachine.co.uk
To add a
site, google simply requires you to copy and paste a
small script into each page (just before the /body tag) in the site you want to
be tracked.
If you use a
common include or template, you can enter it there.
Monitoring Options:
There are a
·
“Visitors
Overview”: You’re presented with a graph showing visits over time, and you can
see how many visits each day has produced.
·
“Visitors
-> Network Properties -> Network Location”: Shows the originating network
Location. Useful if you want to drill down further than geographic detail (“Map
Overlay”).
·
“Visitors
-> Browser Capabilities”: Very useful to see the most common browsers,
resolutions, colours, operating systems, etc used to view your site. This
information is invaluable when designing your site – you know exactly who must
be catered for.
·
“Visitors
-> Map Overlay”: Very useful to get a quick idea of how many visits you’re
getting and from what part of the globe.
·
“Traffic
Sources -> Keywords”: Shows the phrases used in search engines that users
have entered to reach your site.
·
“Traffic
Sources –> Overview”: From here you can see how visitors got to your site;
1. Direct (bookmark, typed address in, etc), 2. Search Engine, 3. Referring
Sites (site linking to yours).