Web development, running and blogging

Why use Google Analytics and how to set it up?

Posted by myblog on Aug 24, 2010 in Google Analytics | 0 comments

Google Analytics is a free tool from Google that allows you to track the number of people who come to your website, where they come from and what they do. This service is comprehensive and the statistics provided are truly remarkable especially considering that Google Analytics is provided for free.

So how do you set up Google Analytics?

First of all you need to set up an Google Analytics account and create a profile for the website you wish to track. There will be code provided and you paste it in the head section before the body tag. Then you verify that the code is installed.

What you can use it for?

The main use of Google Analytics is to track how much traffic comes to your website but Google Analytics has many more functions. You can track where the traffic comes from, although this is automatic you still need to view the reports and analyze where your traffic is coming from. You can use this to determine which sources of traffic are best for you and which aren‚Äôt working.

Why you should track conversions with Google Analytics?

Conversions are the number of people who make a purchase and the value of the purchase divided by the number of people who visit your site. This gives you how much each person who visits your site is worth to you. This can be used to bid on pay per click campaigns and know that you are making a profit.

So how do you track conversions?

You need to set up thank you pages that a person who makes a purchase is directed to. On these thank you pages you can simply say thank you and let your customer know when and how there purchase will be delivered. But if you really want to make the most of your customers then you can up sell your customer or promote an affiliate product. So you set up a goal in Google Analytics you do this by simply clicking on set up goal within the profile of your website. You must specify how much each purchase is worth to you and that it is in fact a purchase because you can also set up thank you pages for contacting the webmaster or a number of other things. Then just like with regular Google Analytics you paste the code provided into the html of the thank you page. Google will automatically provide stats and graphs that will help you track which keywords are performing best for you and which products are selling best. You can also use a new tool from Google which will automatically target the best performing keywords and stop using the bad keywords for a Google Adwords account. This new tool will make sure you are making a profit and using only effective keywords

If your looking deploy a Google Analytics strategy the contact me on hello@stevegillone.co.uk or steve@justthink.co.uk or call 01325 313412 or come and talk to us. Google Analytics is a global serviuce, Nationally but we specialise in