Web Analytics is the process of tracking and analyzing how people find your site, how they navigate through your site and how they become customers. This information is vital to ensure consistent improvement on the performance of your website.
According to a latest report by Bizreport.com “Less than half (47%) of the 1,545 American and British marketing professionals use Analytics to measure their online campaign”. Analyzing your visitor is very crucial because it helps you stay focused and spend your money in the right direction.
In these series of articles, I will cover every aspect of Web Analytics and show you how they help in improving your sites performance.
“Web Analytics is the measurement of the behavior of visitors to a website. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of which aspects of the website work towards business objectives” – Wikipedia
There are many Web Analytic programs available in the market. The most popular one is Google Analytics which is absolutely free to use and very easy to install. All the screenshots in this article is from Google Analytics as it is easier to understand.
Signing up and Installing Google Analytics
You can sign in to Google Analytics here http://www.google.com/analytics; during the sign in process you will be requested to enter your site name for which you want to install Google analytics. At the end of the sign in process you will be given a personalized Google Analytics Tracking code which you have to place in every single page of your site within the html <body> tag. The code looks something like this
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((”https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try{
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(”UA-xxxxxx-x”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
</script>
Once the code is installed in all your pages Google Analytic will start tracking each and every activity that happens on your site.
Google Analytics Interface
- Date Range:
The default date range for Google Analytic is 1 month, you change the dates using the Flash based calendar on the right side of the page, usually while tracking visitors of multiple websites, it is nice to see the current day activity. - Dashboard:
On the extreme left is the dashboard which gives you detailed information about your ‘Visitors’, ‘Traffic Sources’, ‘Content’ and ‘Goals’. - Help Resources:
At Help resources you can find answers to all your common questions, about report generation and much more. - Graph Tool:
A flexible graphing tool allowing you to see the larger trend even if you analyze and compare specific time periods, a detailed report is just a click away. This tool helps you visualize your data in new ways. - Site Usage Stats:
Under ‘ Site Usage’ you will find quick information on various site traffic stats for the time period shown in the main chart. Site Usage helps you explore your data in variety of formats. - Widgets:
You can set up to 12 graphical overviews of reports that you want to see at a glance. You can move them around, remove from the dash board or add new ones as per your need.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey.. yeah I have tried this…. Google rocks at this… its very neat… and totally Free…
I have tried this for many of my blogs…Its cool and excellent….!
Very well explained! Looking forward to read more.