As I've mentioned previously in my blog, "Define Your Audience," one of the first steps in optimizing your site is to determine who you want to attract. However, you also need to know who your site is currently attracting and where it stands currently in the search engines. Only after this assessment can you adjust or modify your site's design accordingly. A powerful tool for this assessment is Google Analytics. As pointed out by Eric Lander in his article, Google Analytics only measures user data. Therefore, you would have to view your web site's log files to get a complete report of visibility and navigation through your site. However, if you are interested user metrics such as page visits, bounce rates, time on site (these topics will be discussed in laters posts), then Google Analytics is a great tool for getting started.
Navigating through Google Analytics and interpreting the data reports can be pretty confusing for beginners. Therefore, as part of my search engine optimization series, I'm going to be including some posts on how to interpret various parts of the reports provided by Google Analytics.
To begin, we'll need to install Google Analytics on your web site. In order to install Analytics, you must have capabilities of editing the source code of your web site. If you don't, please contact your web site designer or hosting company.
Go to http://www.google.com/. You'll need to login to Google (create an account if you don't have one). Then click on "My Account" at the top. (See Examble A)
EXAMPLE A:
Now, if you see Analytics under "My Products" click on it. Otherwise, click on "More" under "Try Something New." (Examble B)
EXAMPLE B:
Once you are in Analytics, choose "Add Website Profile" at the bottom left of your screen. (See Example C)
EXAMPLE C:
Under the Create New Website Profile wizard, choose "Add a profile for a new domain" (1). Enter the web site URL (2) and click Continue (3). (See Example D)
EXAMPLE D:
There are two options for tracking codes. There are a few technical reasons for using the legacy tracking code ("Urchin"). However, unless you have a reason, use the new tracking code. (See Example E) If, for some reason, you are not seeing metrics, check to make sure you have followed all of the steps correctly. Only, after you have checked and re-checked, try using the legacy tracking code.
Copy the code (highlight the code and press "Ctrl+C"). As the instructions say, insert the copied code just before the </body> tag. And click Finish.
EXAMPLE E:
Now, your site will be displayed under you Google Analytics account. In order to see your reports click "View Reports." (See Example F)
EXAMPLE F:
If the script is installed correctly, it will take approximately 24 hrs before you start seeing your site's metrics.
Congratulations, the hard part is over!