In 2005 Google purchased Urchin and in 2006 released it as the free Google Analytics tool. A half a million webmasters adopted it within 6 months. It’s a very sophisticated tool and it’s still free! I find that an amazing gift.

The problem is that most people stare at their analytics reports and think, “Okay… but it’s not telling me how to improve my site!” Unfortunately there’s a big lack of practical knowledge so there’s a huge gap in understanding how to use those numbers to improve results.

But first I need to explain that I’m not an expert in analytics.  I’m a web developer. I rely on understanding what I need to so that I can improve performance for my clients.

So, I won’t be going beyond offering you a helpful understanding.  I want you to be able to use this info to improve what you need to and hopefully achieve greater success online. I’m not going to put you (or leave you) in analysis paralysis!  What I’m talking about here is actionable info.

Note: If you didn’t see my post on Google Analytics yesterday, refer to it to learn more about it and see how to put it on your site or blog.

At any rate, I figure you would like to know such things as:

1. What are the most productive inbound sources of traffic for my site?

This can found in the “referring site ” in Google Analytics (GA). You can also go deeper and set up “goals” but we’ll save that for later (if you’re interested). Below is a quick look at a graph of referring sites…

It goes on to tell me details such as: 35.8% of my traffic came from organic search, 12.96% came direct (probably bookmarked), 12.35% came from Twitter, 8.02% from Facebook, and then down the line from there.  I can even drill down more. For instance, I know that my visitors have come from 50 countries.  And that 65.64% of my visitors use Firefox, 15.02% use IE, 13.37 Chrome, 5.76 Safari, .021 other.

2. What are the most visited pages? And which are the least visited pages?  What should we focus on first?

It’s important to know what’s working and what’s not… what people are reading and what they’re clicking away from.  Site content popularity is very important.  You could be surprised by learning the facts. Are visitors to your site “doing” what it is you want them to do? After all, your site has one or more goals, right?  If not, that’s the first thing you need to work on!

3.  What keywords and phrases are bringing visitors to my site the most?

Knowing this will show you the intent of your visitors… or where you’re missing the mark with your content.  If the keywords that you want to draw in people with aren’t showing up, you need to fix that!

Some of my keywords (though I won’t be too specific) included WordPress, plugins, widgets, and some long tail phrases that included social networking sites, and so on.

Analytics is about answering your business questions so you can improve results. This is one of the few areas where a “little knowledge” isn’t dangerous and can help.

Just about anything you do to improve your site for your visitors (and by doing so, also search engines) will lead to better performance all the way around.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute to the information provided here, please feel free to do so below…

To Your Success!

Deb

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