Getting traffic is definitely the most important thing for any website owner. And understanding how traffic comes and goes is crucial in maximizing the traffic that you get. Thus, web analytics is a must to do for any site operator.
And this is the part where using Google Analytics comes in. But what the heck is it anyway? As the name says, Google Analytics, or GA for short, is a tool for studying web statistics. It is distributed free of charge by Google, either as a stand alone software or integrated into their other web marketing programs.
GA tracks down all visitors coming to the site from various sources and referrers, such as search engines, and compile them. These are then presented to the user as statistical data. Often other types of information is also present in the data, like those coming from pay per click networks and email marketing materials, as well as PDF links. And when integrated with other Google market analysis tools, such as AdSense, GA will also show data from the areas covered by these.
Because of the large amounts of data that GA present, it can be quite confusing for many first time users. However, once you get the hang of it, it should become much easier. However, there are some items that you need to take note from the very start.
The traffic chart at the top of your GA page is the easiest to notice. It is also the most important, as it gives you a visual overview of your site's traffic. Here, you can adjust the coverage of the chart by simply selecting your desired dates. You can also immediately compare different data sets by choosing the time periods you want to display.
Below the traffic chart graph is the Site Usage section. Here, you will see a breakdown of site traffic into its components. There are six sections in here, three of which provide you with important general data. The Visitors section obviously gives you the actual number of people going into your site. Page views, on the other hand, tells you how many times each page of your site has been accessed. Lastly, the New Visitors section gives you an idea of how many new visitors you are getting, this is very important as it will help you determine your increase in reach. Each section also has a View Report option so that you can see a more detailed analysis.
In addition to these major features, GA also has a map overlay section, which gives you a breakdown of the countries from where people are accessing your site. This is especially important for those that want to market their sites globally. The application will also give you a lowdown of where the traffic actually comes from: whether it is a direct access, a query from search engines or a link from other sites. These information will then come in handy for search engine optimization purposes.
