Google Analytics How-to

The last couple months, Jerri and I have been hard at work on the new edition of Google Analytics, titled OH-SO-CREATIVELY “Google Analytics 2.0.” Much to my surprise yesterday, a client yesterday told me “the new book is on Amazon.” Gosh, we authors are the last to know!

We’re still struggling towards the deadline for the magnificently improved, highly useful, Dave-impervious edition. You can pre-order it here: Google Analytics 2.0.

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Hello Analytics Peoples!

I’m terribly sorry that you haven’t heard from me in a couple of weeks.  I’ve been moving, and it’s throwing the whole world into chaos.  There’s good news though…the move is finished, the boxes are unpacked, and the furniture is all (almost) in place.  I can finally think again.

And I can concentrate on Google Analytics, too.  In fact, I had a nice conversation with Tim Bourquin over at SmallBusinessPodcast.com on Wednesday of this week.  Tim’s a great guy, and I enjoyed talking to him.  You can listen to the podcast September 21st.  Actually, Mary and I both spoke with Tim, so there will be two podcasts that go live the same day.

During the conversation with Tim, he and I discussed how you can use the data that Google Analytics collects for you.  It was a fun conversation.  Of course, most of the information in the podcast is covered in the book, too, which you should now be able to find at any local bookstore.  I actually found copies of it at my local Barnes and Noble in Alabama.  If it’s there, I have to assume it’s everywhere.

In the conversation with Tim, we talked about what the most useful feature of  Google Analytics is, and to be honest, I have a hard time just naming one.  There’s so much to learn about your site from the data that Analytics collects.  I think I’ve already told you about learning about a link from years ago that’s still driving traffic to my site.  And in the book, we talk (a lot) about how we discovered that my site is not user friendly because of the program used to design it.

One thing that I haven’t talked to you about is learning where users are leaving my site.  A large majority of users bounce–that is they land on a page and immediately leave the site from that page.  And, as it turns out, that’s due to the whole problem with the site design.  I did, however, learn that users tend to spend more time on the content pages than on the information pages.  That tells me that I could add more content to my site, redesign it in a program that actually supports browsers other than Internet Explorer, and my site would not only have more quality visits, but it would also have visits that last longer.  In other words, I could provide more value to my site visitors, so they would spend more time on the site.

With Google Analytics, there is a little something for everyone.  I don’t sell products on my site, but you might.  And if you do, you can learn all kinds of interesting information about how users travel through your site and ultimately arrive at the decision to complete (or not) a purchase.  That kind of information is simply invaluable.

We did our first online chat about Google Analytics this week.  It was a fun chat with lots of interesting people and questions.  The chat transcript should be available after this weekend.  But one thing I noticed during the chat and I think it is especially applicable to small and micro-businesses, is that people have heard of Google Analytics, they just aren’t entirely sure what it will do for them.

Let me help you with that a little.  Google Analytics is a tool for measuring the traffic on your web site.  Now, Google Analytics will measure your traffic in a variety of ways including where your traffic comes from, how long they spend on your site, and where they exit your site.

This is all very valuable information.  For example, remember my post from last week?  I would never have known that Writers Write was still linked to my site if I hadn’t been using Google Analytics.  My measurements also show me that a large number of my visitors exit my site after they hit the front page.

I suspect the reason for that is because the site is designed using Microsoft PUblisher, and so it’s only accessible from a recent version of Internet Explorer.  The site just won’t render properly for other browsers.  (I’ll change that…eventually!)

Another use for Google Analytics is to track the keywords that are driving traffic to your site.  You can not only see the performance of keywords that you’re paying for if you use a pay-per-click service, but you can also gain insight into keywords that draw a lot of traffic but that you aren’t paying for.  This will help you to better target your keyword campaigns.

The next most popular question was something along the lines of, “I use a log analyzer provided by my hosting provider, why do I need Google Analytics?”  The easy answer to that is because the chances are that Google Analytics is much easier to understand than the log analyzer that your hosting provider offers.

Google Analytics is a very visual program.  There are graphs and charts with all of the measurements that are collected, so there’s no guessing at what the numbers mean.  Google draws you a picture.  How much easier could it be?  In addition to that, Google Analytics probably picks up a lot of information that your log analyzer doesn’t.

There are several chapters in the book that explain the differences between a well-known log analyzer and Google Analytics, so if you’re really interested in the differences check it out.

So, if I had to give you one sentence about why you should use Google Analytics, even if you already have a log analyzer, I would say: Because Google Analytics will make sense of your measurements so that you can use them to improve your business, whether it’s a product, service, or information business.  ‘Nuff said.

Just a small reminder that Jerri and I will be visiting the Work at Home Productions small business chat today at 12:30 ET  (that’s noon-ish). If you have a web site–or a question–definitely come. If you’re just one of Jerri’s or my personal friends, moral support is always appreciated.

Every so often I head over to Analytics to see how my web site is performing.  It’s not great, but then I don’t use the site for much more than a reference should editors want to touch base with me.  I mean, I still haven’t had the time to bring it in out of the dark ages and get it into a format that all browsers can opne (to learn more about this, check out the book, Mary details my follies in web design).

Anyway, one of the things that I’ve consistently noticed on my analytics tracking is that I consistenly receive about 11-12% of my hits from the Writer’s Write web site.  Writer’s Write is a site that I used to access frequently, but for the life of me, I haven’t been able figure out why I’m getting referrals from them.

In an effort to figure it out, I thought I might find the exact URL in the Referring Resources report.  No such luck.  The site is listed only as writerwrite.com.  Dang it!

The next step, then was a Google search.  I found it.  It turns out that an old newsletter I used to write, Marketing eBooks Newsletter, is still listed on that site with a direct link to my site.  Evidently, a few people a week hit that site, click on the link and head over to my site.

It makes me wonder if there’s some interest there that I should try to tap into.  I’m not getting back into the newsletter.  I enjoyed it, but there just no more time in my day to add another ongoing project.  But there’s interest in the topic of marketing ebooks, evidently.  So, if I were looking for additional outlets, this would be a good outlet to pursue.

That’s the power of Google Anaytics.  I never would have known visitors were STILL hitting my site from that link.  After all, it was several years ago that I wrote that newsletter.  But Google Analtyics is tracking my site, and because I could visually see where the referrals were coming from, it opened a door for me, should I decide to walk through it.

What could you learn from your web site metrics?  What referrals are you getting that you can build on? And what do those referrals tell you about your web site and the people who visit it? Analytics gives you the power…all you have to do is put it to use.

Search Engine Optimization is one of those things I do, so I watch the search terms and the traffic they bring in, both in AWStats and in Google Analytics. I also use this keyword tracker to get an idea where my sites rank for particular terms.

But sometimes there’s no substitute for doing a by-eye search–most keyword trackers only search down to 200 in the rankings. If you rank lower than 200, you’re SOL. Of course, if you rank lower than 200, you might as well not exist since pretty much no one looks any lower than about 50 (page 4) in the Google rankings.

So anyway, we do exist. I found this mention of Google Analytics on page 18. Page 18 is not good. But at least it’s in the top 200. That means we have a prayer. I didn’t find any mention of our site Google Analytics How-to. Oh well. Haven’t been up more than a few days.

What I did find surprised the heck outta me. I found Jerri’s forthcoming book on Google Productivity Tools, due out in January of 2007. There it is. Right there in black and white.

Congrats, Jerri.

So, on a recent post to the Official Google Analytics Blog about the Search Engine Strategies 2006 Conference and Expo, something interesting came up. It was a feature that NO analytics package in the world has–not even Google Analytics–yet it was the single MOST important feature that could possibly be added.

“What is that crucial thing? It’s analyzing and then taking action on your web analytics data. Knowing how to do that makes all the difference. To properly monitor and analyze your data, (they) suggested doing one of three things (or some combination of them): analyze and act on the data yourself; hire a professional services firm; or hire an in-house analyst.”

If you do a search for Google Analytics at Google, you’ll get lots of Adwords ads for services companies. Google itself will tell you about the partners you can hire–if you have scads of dough laying about. You could theoretically, hire your own in-house analyst–right after you win the PowerBall, right? Neither solution is all that realistic for the shoestring-conscious small business owner.

And that leaves DIY-ers to wander the free support boards asking “dumb questions” that don’t get, answered by people who sneer at you for being such an ID10t and say “RTFM.” So you to try Read the F-ing Manual, spending hours wading through technical documentation which has all the hallmarks of technical documentation:

1. Density approaching that of a wandering black hole.
2. As clear as the Pittsburgh sky (where it’s cloudy, on average, 338 days per year).
3. As easy to understand as wave motion calculus.
4. Has the entertainment value of Andy Warhol’s Sleep (great art, maybe, great entertainment–NOT)

And technical documentation is not exactly known for being timely, complete or even accurate. And there’s the whole problem of FINDING the question before you can even THINK of looking for the answer. Why is that that the FAQ never contains questions YOU frequently ask?

So what’s the point?

Exactly this:

1. You gotta measure.
2. You gotta understand what you’ve measured and why.
3. You gotta know what to do about it.
4. You gotta do something about it.

Stick with us. We’re a lot more entertaining and clear than technical documentation, but fair warning, we might encourage you to buy and read our non-f-ing book.

I’m so excited. I just found out that Google Analytics is now open to the public, without a waiting list! How awesome is that?

Now to access Google Analytics all you have to do is go to http://www.google.com/analytics, click the Sign up now link and sign in with your Google account. If you don’t happen to have a Google account, getting on is simple. Just click the link provided and follow the instructions.

So, why am I so excited about this? Well, mostly because it means there’s no waiting to set up your Analytics account. Setting up the account takes just a few minutes, but it takes a couple days for enough data to be collected to be useful, so the sooner you set the account up, the sooner you’ll have information that you can use.

Once you have the data, analytics information can tell you far more about your site than you could get just by looking at visitor logs (if you even do that). And what’s more, Google Analytics puts the data into a context that’s valuable. You can find out how many visitors your site had, but you can also find out how many of those visitor left as soon as they entered or site, or if they stayed, how long.

There’s just so much you can do with Google Analytics. I’m thrilled it’s now immediately available. So, go sign up. And set up your account. Don’t worry about all of the details right now, just get the setup process started. Then we’ll show you have to make the best of the information that Google collects for you.

So something funny happened to me yesterday and I thought I’d share it since I don’t have huge amounts of actual content. More content later, I promise.

The night before I had been mucking around on Amazon, looking at all the people who reviewed books like ours–the same books we list in our “further resources” section in the first chapter of our Google Analytics book. Most of them are generally about analytics, rather than beeing about Google Analytics. But we need the reviews, ya’ know?

So I was contacting reviewers through their email or web site if they listed one and through Amazon’s Invite as Friend feature if they didn’t. I offered review copies of our book to people who would post reviews. Response, BTW, has been rather good. So far about 12 of the 25 or so people I contacted have replied and requested review copies.

One declined and it’s about this one I’m writing. He wrote me that he was swamped. So I wrote back that I understood being busy and it was okay and if he got unbusy, he should give me a yell. Fair enough.

I guess having seen our blog, he came and wandered around—wish it made him want to review the book, he was a top reviewer at Amazon—but apparently not. But he did reply that he thought my bio was “amazing.” Now, personally, I’ve always found Jerri to be far more impressive. People outside of IT have actually heard of her clients. But, one takes compliments when they come… and gives a self-deprecating reply. Mine was:

“Gee, I didn’t know the tomatoes were that impressive.”

Don’t get it? Visit our About the Authors page for a clue-stick with which to beat yourself.

Hi Everyone! Hasn’t Mary done a fantabulous job of putting this blog together? She’s the smart one, you know. I’m just along for the ride!

That being said, I thought I would take advantage of this first post to stick a little disclaimer out there about Google Analytics. I’ve been putzing around in the program lately. Sadly enough, my Web site still bytes (read the book, you’ll understand), but Google Analytics is doing a good job of tracking it.

The thing is, I thought I should highlight the fact that Google Analytics is still a beta program, so it’s changing a little here and there. For example, one recent (very nice) addition to GA is the ability to add up to 10 profiles, rather than five. I think you’ll find this a handy feature if you have to run multiple sites and want to keep track of them all. I know that Mary’s probably loving it, because she’s got several sites that she keeps track of.

Occasionally you may find that things change at GA. Don’t stress over it too much. The program is still in the developmental stages, so some things are going to change. We’ll cross our fingers and hope that those changes will all be for the better.

The good news is that I finally have the blog looking like I want it to. The colors are right. The layout is right as far as I can tell. It even shows, automatically, who posted which post: me or Jerri, at the bottom of each post. It even has a nifty horizontal rule straight off our book cover. Oh, and if you buy a copy from Amazon using the sidebar links, Jerri and I split the Associate revenue… might as well make a few more pennies on each copy, eh?

The bad news is that the producer over at Internet Voices Radio won’t let us archive the interview from Janet’s show last night. Its too bad because, most of people I talked to couldn’t make the audio feed work in the first place. So, hopefully, y’all can can find it. Internet Voices Radio isn’t the best designed—or easiest to navigate—site around.

Sound peevish? Me? No!