What to do With Google Analytics

[Chris Norman]

Hi Gang,

Just wondered what you all thought of how to use google analytics. There is a ton of info there and I am wondering the best ways to use that info for our advantage. How can we best use the data? What is the most pertinent data?

Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Have a great weekend whatever you do, Chris

[wade_watson]

Well, since GA lists your most viewed pages, it's easy to tell what you could benefit from doing more of and what's not getting interest. The world map/country listing can give you clues as to interest areas on which to focus. If half your viewers are in Italy, you might want to lay off the American football references, for instance. The reports on search sources are useful, but the keyword list is gold. You can find out how your keywords are actually performing and, even better, find new keywords bringing in traffic that you hadn't thought of yet.

Wade Watson

[christianwins]

Wade hit a lot of the good ones. There are a couple other things too, you can see how long people are spending on your pages (to see if they are reading your content or just checking out your site and leaving).

If you don't have something else for split testing, you can see which pages are getting the best hits/conversion percentage.

The best like mentioned above is it tells you where all your traffic is coming from and what keywords.

[Kayla Fay]

Susan, that is really good advice - and comforting. I always feel a bit guilty because I'm not analyzing the Analytics enough. By your measure, I'm pretty much on track!

[DianaWalker]

For about 3 years I've been using the free service www.statcounter.com for tracking keywords and phrases used, hit counter, web stats, traffic and countries that people come from, etc. I really like it, doesn't seem too overwhelming.
There are probably advantages to Google Analytics that I don't know about, but for now I'm happy with statcounter
Diana

[Baggs]

Statcounter does everything I need it to - it hasn't got some of the flashy images that Analytics (and I atill have some sites tracking through Analytics) has but it's simplicity means I spend less time analysing and more time doing.

[Steve]

I use analytics primarily for number of visitors, bounce rate, time on site and keywords being searched.

also, I had a site down for a day and didn't realize it because I go to analytics everyday but not the sites. Helped me get the issue taken care of quickly.

Also, I have a report emailed to me each day and all I need to do is open the PDF for my stats.

Steve