Google Analytics Tutorial: Getting The Best Out Of Your Web Site

Businesses are all about decisions, and informed decisions are the thin line of difference between success and confusion. This concept goes for the Internet and websites too, and any tool that provides you with information about your website is a Godsend. Analytics engine is one such simple to use and free tool that gives you web statistics. Here is a short tutorial that will help you harness the true potential of Google.

Step 1 # 1: Making an Account

Analytics software system is a free tool provided by Google. Making an account is convenient and simple. All you need to make a Analytics engine account is a Gmail e-mail id. Once your Gmail e-mail id is set up, you can go to the Analytics engine website and sign up your website for Google Analytics.

Step # 2: Installing the Tracking Code

Once you have signed into Analytics engine, you will be redirected to a page which has links to the analytics reports of your website. If you have not installed the tracking code on your websites, click on the Add Website Profile link.

If this is your first time on Analytics engine, and you have not installed the tracking code on your website or any of its pages, choose the "Add a profile for a new domain" option. Once that is done, scroll down and type in the URL of the home page that you wish to install the tracker to.

Select the time zone you are in and click Continue. Once this is done, the Analytics engine will automatically detect whether the tracking code has been installed on the website or page that you provided them with. Choose any of the code given below (best way is to press Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C) and paste the copied code into the website and webpage that you would want Analytics engine to analyze.

Make sure that you install the code anywhere before the End Body (/body) tag. Click Continue. The pa
ge will now show the webpage, website or websites that you have installed the tracker code to. Click on the View Reports link to go to the The System Dashboard.

Step 3 # 3: The Dashboard

The Dashboard is your Google homepage. Through this page, you can access almost any information you would require about your website, or even any page within the website. Once you have signed into the The System website, you will be redirected to the list of website profiles, that is, the analytics reports of any and all websites that you have installed the Google Analytics tracker code.

Once you are on the Dashboard, you can view the following analytics about your website:

Site Usage: The site usage column gives you the relevant information about the traffic for your website. The Visits column tells you the number of visits and unique visits in a given time frame. You can also know about the number of page views per visit at the Dashboard.

You can also find out the Bounce rate of your website or webpage. Bounce rate is the number of visitors to your websites who browsed away from your website directly from the landing page or the home page. Analytics engine also tells you the exact amount of time one particular user has spent on your website. It can also calculate the percentage of new and unique visits on your website.

Traffic Sources Section: The Traffic Sources Section tells you more about the traffic of your website, and explains it further. You can get information about all the traffic sources for your website. You can also divide your traffic from direct traffic, Search Engine traffic and Referring sites. Google Analytics can also give you traffic related information regarding your AdSense account if you have one.