Google Analytics: Why? And How?
California Business Resource
Copyright © 2009 by CaliforniaBusinessResource.com · All Rights reserved · E-Mail: kathekline@ofdenterprises.com
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Generate More Income
If you are a small business owner, or if you are thinking about becoming one, today’s market demands a website. Are you using your website presence to its full advantage? It is one thing to hang your shingle, so to speak, on the World Wide Web. It is better yet to use your website for e-commerce - that is, customers using your site to place orders for products or services. But - are you using your website presence to learn about your customers - who they are, where they come from, how long they spend on your site, which pages are their favorite, and when (or even why) they leave? In short, are you using your website for customer research and preferences?
Fortunately, there are no cost and easy-to-use tools that can tell you how your customers are utilizing your website. The only cost is an investment in time: to register your site with the tool, to make some simple additions to your website pages, and to review the reports that are generated as a result. One such tool is called “Google Analytics” and it is a no cost service offered by Google.
Setup and use of the tool is easy. Three simple steps will give you insights to your customer’s use of your site you did not think was possible.
Step 1: Get a Google account and sign up for Analytics. You must have a Google account in order to use Analytics. You can use your existing Google account or create one here: https://www.google.com/accounts/Login. Once you have a Google account, log in to Google Analytics here: https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/login. Follow the step-by-step instructions to create an account and agree to the terms of service. Google Analytics will present some ‘HTML code’ in a window. This text is what is needed in order for Google Analytics to work. Copy the HTML code from the window and Paste it into a local Notepad or other text document.
Step 2: Add the code to every page on your Website. Once you have the HTML code, the next step is to add it to every page on your website. This is a job for your Webmaster or other person responsible for maintaining your site. The code you copied should be placed just before the <body> section of every page you present to your customers. This code is what tracks your customer usage on your site. Once your web pages are updated with the addition of the Google Analytics HTML code, wait a week or so for Google to collect some statistics and usage of your site.
Step 3: Analyze Customer behavior. After a few days or a week, you can log in to Google Analytics to check out how customers are using your site. Log in to Google Analytics here: http://analytics.google.com . A green check mark next to your domain name indicates that Google Analytics is working. Click on your domain name, and start exploring all that Google has learned about how customers use your website.
Google Analytics can track virtually all customer behavior, including performance of paid search advertisements if you use them. Best of all, for the startup business, or the small business, the only investment is your time to sign up, set up and review the reports on an ongoing basis.
# # # # #
For more detailed instructions on how to set up Google Analytics, please visit: http://www.slideshare.net/djlucarelli/web-analytics-what-is-going-on.
Dan Lucarelli is the Director of Marketing for a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, and an independent consultant helping small business utilize the Web better. He can be reached at dan@dlucarelli.com or www.dlucarelli.com.
Copyright© 2009 by Dan Lucarelli.
Fortunately, there are no cost and easy-to-use tools that can tell you how your customers are utilizing your website. The only cost is an investment in time: to register your site with the tool, to make some simple additions to your website pages, and to review the reports that are generated as a result. One such tool is called “Google Analytics” and it is a no cost service offered by Google.
Setup and use of the tool is easy. Three simple steps will give you insights to your customer’s use of your site you did not think was possible.
Step 1: Get a Google account and sign up for Analytics. You must have a Google account in order to use Analytics. You can use your existing Google account or create one here: https://www.google.com/accounts/Login. Once you have a Google account, log in to Google Analytics here: https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/login. Follow the step-by-step instructions to create an account and agree to the terms of service. Google Analytics will present some ‘HTML code’ in a window. This text is what is needed in order for Google Analytics to work. Copy the HTML code from the window and Paste it into a local Notepad or other text document.
Step 2: Add the code to every page on your Website. Once you have the HTML code, the next step is to add it to every page on your website. This is a job for your Webmaster or other person responsible for maintaining your site. The code you copied should be placed just before the <body> section of every page you present to your customers. This code is what tracks your customer usage on your site. Once your web pages are updated with the addition of the Google Analytics HTML code, wait a week or so for Google to collect some statistics and usage of your site.
Step 3: Analyze Customer behavior. After a few days or a week, you can log in to Google Analytics to check out how customers are using your site. Log in to Google Analytics here: http://analytics.google.com . A green check mark next to your domain name indicates that Google Analytics is working. Click on your domain name, and start exploring all that Google has learned about how customers use your website.
Google Analytics can track virtually all customer behavior, including performance of paid search advertisements if you use them. Best of all, for the startup business, or the small business, the only investment is your time to sign up, set up and review the reports on an ongoing basis.
# # # # #
For more detailed instructions on how to set up Google Analytics, please visit: http://www.slideshare.net/djlucarelli/web-analytics-what-is-going-on.
Dan Lucarelli is the Director of Marketing for a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, and an independent consultant helping small business utilize the Web better. He can be reached at dan@dlucarelli.com or www.dlucarelli.com.
Copyright© 2009 by Dan Lucarelli.