As recently as a month ago I was a victim of a state of mind I call Analytics Dismissal Disorder. This mindset is common after hearing about the importance of analytics, installing the tracking code and then getting overwhelmed by all of the graphs and scary numbers. When I suffered from analytics dismissal disorder (which my doctors called A.D.D. for short), I knew Google Analytics was important but avoided the extra effort necessary to learn how to get the most out of the software. This post explains what I needed to learn to get over this.
After learning the basics of Google Analytics, you can learn interesting facts like what search terms people use to find your website. In this case, web searchers are more interested in fat people falling than they are in me.
Here is the problem with Google Analytics:
It is obviously potentially useful but who has the time to study how to use a product. I don’t even read the text-less IKEA manuals so why would I read documentation for software. Sounds boring.
This all changed when SEOmoz offered to pay for me to go to WebShare’s Google Analytics Seminar (Wait, you are paying me to leave the office? Mission Accomplished). This 16 hour class walked me through Google Analytics and pushed me through the massive learning curve.
This post distills what I learned in those 16 hours of employer-paid-learning into something you can understand and act on in 20 minutes. Nerd High Five! (*Pushes up glasses*)
Overcome the Google Analytics Learning Curve in 20 Minutes:
An actionable guide to learning what you need to know about Google Analytics.
First Things First:
What are Accounts and Profiles and how are they different?
When you first log in to Google Analytics you need to navigate to your desired data set. This is much more confusing than it ought to be.
Accounts are like folders on a computer. They can contain a lot of different files (profiles) and serve mostly just for organization. An example of an account might be Work Websites or Personal Websites. (Be forewarned, this is not intuitive on setup. Don't make the mistake I did and name an account after a website. That naming convention is more appropriate for a profile).
Profiles, on the other hand, are like files on a computer. They can't contain additional profiles or accounts. They represent one view of a website (although not necessarily the only view). An example of a profile might be api.seomoz.org or SEOmoz minus Office IP addresses. You can limit a profile to whatever view of a website you want by using filters.
What are Filters and Segments and how are they different?
This is also more complicated than it ought to be. (grrr)
Filters are attached to website profiles (i.e. "SEOmoz minus office IP addresses") and are permanent. If a profile includes traffic data from all IP addresses except SEOmoz's office computers, there is absolutely no way to reinclude this excluded data in the given profile at a later time. Filters are irreversible and kinda mean (thus the anal in Google Analytics). You can set them up on the profiles page. (See Below)
Segments are similar to filters except they are profile agnostic and their effects are temporary. In addition, they can be compared against each other. The example segments below shows all visitors (blue line), new visitors (orange line), and returning visitors (green line) and their distribution on the top content of the given website.
What are "raw" profiles and why use them? (Ctrl+Z won’t save you here)
Google Analytics is different from other Google products in that it doesn't provide a way to undo certain types of data processing (i.e. filters). In order to give you freedom to explore (and potentially ruin) your profiles, it is important that you create an unfiltered (raw) profile of your website that you can use in case something goes wrong with one of your other profiles. In SEOmoz's case, this profile is literally called "Do Not Touch! Backup Profile". This is the backup profile we will use to get historical data when Joanna Lord screws up our other profiles. (Danny!)
What if I don't trust a specific metric?
Tough beans! The key to getting the most out of Google Analytics is to trust it. This is very similar to how we measure time. We all know that our bedroom clock is probably not exactly synced with our office clock but we trust each time-peice as close enough. You need to make the same leap of faith for Google Analytics. The metrics might not be 100% accurate all of the time, but like a clock, at least they are consistent. This makes Google Analytics metrics good enough. (And quite frankly it is as accurate as all of its competitors)
Navigating Google Analytics:
Google Analytics Navigation
Dashboard (Mostly Useless High-level Metrics)
As you would expect, the dashboard shows you the high-level status of your website. The problem is that these metrics tend not to drastically change very often so if you keep looking at your dashboard, you won't like see any big changes. ZzzzzzzzZZZzzzzz.
Real analytics pros don't let friends rely on the default dashboard stats.
Intelligence (Automated e-mail alerts) - Check Monthly
Intelligence is Google's confusing name for automatic alerts. Did traffic to your homepage jump 1000% over last week? Are visits from New Zealand down 80% from yesterday? Intelligence alerts will, with your permission, e-mail you if anything unexpected happens on your website.
Visitors (The type of people that come to your site) - Check Monthly
As the name implies, this section reveals information about your visitors. Want to know what percentage of your users have Flash enabled or how many people viewed your website on an iPad? This section will tell you. (Long live Steve Jobs!)
Traffic Sources (Where people are coming from to reach your site) - Check Weekly
This section shows you different reports on the sources that drove you traffic.
Content (Metrics on your pages) - Check Weekly
Whereas, Traffic Sources shows you information about other people's pages as they relate to yours, the Content section only shows you information about what happens on your pages.
Goals (Metrics on whether or not people are doing what you want them to do) - Check Daily
Goals are predefined actions on your website that you want others to perform. It is important to note that you must configure these manually. Google can't auto detect these. This section shows metrics on how people completed these goals or where they dropped off if they didn't complete them.
Report Interface:
The bread and butter of Google Analytics are the reports. These are the frameworks for learning about how people interact with your website.
Graph:
The graphs/reports in Google Analytics have 6 important options. The first three are detailed below:
- Export. This is pretty self explanatory. You can export to PDF, XML, CSV, CSV for Excel or if you are too good for commas you can export to TSV.
- E-mail. This is one of Google Analytics more useful features. This tab allows you to schedule reoccurring e-mails or one time reports for your co-workers. As an added bonus, if you set up these auto-reports, the recipeients don't even need to log into Google Analytics to access this data.
- Units (in this case Pageviews). This is a report dependent unit that you can change based on the context.
- Advanced Segments. This is an extremely powerful feature that allows you to slice and dice your data to your likings.
- Date Range (in this case, Apr 24 2010 - May 24 2010).
- Graph By. This feature allows you to choose the scope of the graph in relation to time intervals. For some reports you can even break down data to the hour.
Data:
Data is your tool to see specifics and and make quantifiable decisions.
- Views. This feature actually affects the graphs and the data. It dictates the type of graph or the format or the data.
- ?. This is your source for help on any given metric.
- Secondary Dimension (in this case, None). This allows you to splice the data table by specific data dimensions (cities, sources, etc...)
Which Reports To Track and When:
I recommend using this as a starting point and tailoring it to your needs as you learn more about the unique needs for your website.
Daily
.gif)
Goals -> Total Conversions
Content -> Top Content (at the page level)
Traffic Sources -> All Traffic Sources
Traffic Sources -> Campaigns - (Optional)
Weekly (or bi-weekly if you have a content intensive website)
Goals -> Funnel Visualization
Goals -> Goal Abandoned Funnels
Content -> Site Search
Traffic Sources -> Direct Traffic
Traffic Sources -> Referring Sites
Traffic Sources -> Keywords
Monthly
Visitors -> Overview
Intelligence -> Overview
Content -> Content Drilldown (at the folder level)
Content -> Top Landing Pages
Content -> Top Exit Pages
Traffic Sources -> Adwords - (Optional)
Which Reports to Ignore:
Visitors -> Benchmarking
From installation validation tools, it's estimated that as many as 70% of Google Analytics installs are either incomplete or incorrect. This means that the data that these benchmarks rely on, is very likely inaccurate.
Visitors -> Map Overlay
While this feature is one of the most popular features of Google Analytics, it is also one of the least useful. The data these maps present is not normalized so areas with high populations tend to always dominate the screen. They are not completely useless as they show trends but they are not something that can be relied on heavily either. Use your best judgement when viewing this report.
Content -> Site Overlay
This feature seems like a good idea but is not able to be implemented in a way that makes it accurate. Put simply, in order for this tool to work, Google Analytics would need to have more information about the location of a link on a page and a mechanism for tracking which instance of a link gets clicked. Clicktale and Crazy Egg are nice alternatives.
Conclusion:
Tracking the metrics above is only the first step. Imagine Google Analytics as a magical yard stick (For you sissies on the metric system, a yard stick is like a meter stick but better). It is essential for measuring the success or failure of a given online strategy but it is not an online strategy alone. It is best used as a supplement to the your current activities and should be treated as such.
I am surely going to get some flak from some Analytics gurus who know more than me. (You want to go Kaushik?) Remember, this guide is intended to help people get over the GA learning curve, not to be a comprehensive guide. If you are looking for the latter, check out the hundreds of blog posts at the Google Analytics Blog.
One last thing, if you’re interested in taking the Seminars for Success classes, here’s the upcoming schedule.
| Phoenix, AZ | June 9-11, 2010 |
| Chicago, IL | June 23-25, 2010 |
| Berkeley, CA | July 28-30, 2010 |
| Los Angeles, CA | Aug 18-20, 2010 |
| San Diego, CA | Sep 1-3, 2010 |
| Salt Lake City, UT | Sep 15-17, 2010 |
| Vancouver, BC | Oct 6-8, 2010 |
| Atlanta, GA | Oct 27-29, 2010 |
| Orlando, FL | Nov 3-5, 2010 |
| Washington, DC | Dec 8-10, 2010 |
If you have any other advice that you think is worth sharing, feel free to post it in the comments. This post is very much a work in progress. As always, feel free to e-mail me if you have any suggestions on how I can make my posts more useful. All of my contact information is available on my profile: Danny Thanks!
I really appreciate what you guys are doing to educate the masses on not just SEO but web analytics as well.
I guess it kind of surprises me that the bar is so low in terms of what the community is looking for in posts about Google Analytics. Based on the topics SEOmoz has been posting lately (basic GA stuff) and what I see through monitoring Twitter hashtags, there is still a long way to go for web analytics adoption.
I've been writing posts about how to track blog comments, how to install the new asynchronous tracking snippet, how to use motion charts... all this time I should have been writing about how to set the darn thing up :)
Well said that man! Although I am fortunate enough to work in a team where there are dedicated web analytics ream members (thus allowing more freedom to tackle the SEO), I still find it baffling so many people who purport to be SEO professionals cannot even comphrend the most basic fundamentals of analytics.
My organisation doesn't use Google Analytics (it's great for SMEs but it's not really a professional package) so I haven't used it in over a year but I it is so incredibly intuative I genuienlly sruggle to understand why people can't grasp the basics. Next I'll be reading here that people think "average time spent on site" is a useful metric?! (I sincerely hope not!!)
Overall I thought it was a good post although I vehemently disagree with the paragraph entitled "What if I don't trust a specific metric?". That is unprofessional and shockingly gun-ho.
Hey Bludge. Re: the "what if I don't trust a specific metric".
I can't tell you the number of times I've read that every single Analytics package has it's own quirks and variances. There's not a single package, free or paid, that is 100% accurate.
The value in any robust Analytics package lies in being able to benchmark KPI's against itself. That way, it's as close to 100% accurate as it can be.
It's not just GA I'm referring to. Even Omniture has the same limitations.
Yes, I accept what you're saying. I think perhaps I just didn't like the way that small section of the original article was written. My point is if you don't trust a specific metric, then this may be because you know it is wrong because of your intimiate relationship with a website. Therefore further investigation may be required as to if the analytics pacakage is properly tagged in all relevant areas of your site rather than blindly accepting the figures as as good as they're gonna get.
However, the point that no analytics data is 100% accurate I agree with, so long as all relevant stakeholders are aware that the numbers are not absolute then there isn't usually a problem. That, once again, comes back to one of the most important parts of an SEO/web analysts job: education of others.
Hi Bludge,
I would actually disagree with the comment that Google Analytics is not a "professional package".
In the five-plus years that I've been working with Google Analytics I've noticed a huge growth in the number of enterprise clients choosing GA over other solutions.
When you consider that GA now contains many advanced features (advanced custom segments, custom reports, custom variables, an API, event tracking, mobile web tracking, app tracking, etc.) it's becoming harder and harder for organizations to justify a six-figure spend on an analytics tool.
As always, every organization must make a decision based on their specific analysis needs but I've seen momentum for GA in the enterprise market steadily increase.
Best,
Justin
Hi Justin I'd definitely agree with your comment that GA is a "professional package" as I've been using it as that for a wide range of clients since it was first released. Those clients include companies with sites that attract just a few visits a day to large international organisations. I'd consider myself an advanced user but the more I use it (like many things in life) the more I realise I don't know. We regularly use the more advanced techniques like event tracking, virtual page-views, custom segments and also the even more advanced techniques like custom code. Where the tool does fall down is in the portability and re-stating of data. That is and will be more of an issue with larger enterprise/corporate clients, but there is the API. The situation may well change further in the future. If there's a best thing about GA it's that you can extract easy to understand and actionable information on performance. Rather than getting bogged down in 150 different fairly pointless stats you can focus what to do about barriers to engagement, barriers to conversion, barriers to sales and - ultimately - improving the user experience, which is what it's all about.
Hi, I agree that GA has come on leaps and bounds and I am a huge fan of it. If I had it my way, it's what I'd use. However, the shortcomings you point out are why we do not currently use it although if it continues to develop at it's current rate it will soon have all the features we would probably require. I admit my choice of words describing GA wasn't the best in hindsgiht, I gave an impression I hadn't fully intended.
I agree that we could use more GA article fodder Josh. How 'bout a YOUmoz post? I'd guarantee you at least one thumbs up (mine).
PS - Is that a brand spankin' new avitar?
I didn't know my comment would resonate so deeply. I get scared of writing YOUmoz posts because I always feel like I'm the presence of super geniuses here at SEOmoz. Perhaps this exchange is what I needed to start contributing more.
The avatar is new as of February or so. I can't argue with free head shots :)
I'm not a super genious of SEO but I have ideas and experiences I like to share... therefore I collected enough bravery to propose a YOUmoz and it was accepted and published... therefore you too could try.
And don't worry about criticism... somehow I like it, as it can help me being a better SEO.
And a better soccer watcher ;-)
Ahahah... well... honestly I don't know how I will be able to work and follow the World Cup matches at the same time!... Well, I've few weeks to a find out an idea.
Wait, you are paying me to leave the office? Mission Accomplished Well done Danny! :D Bookmarked instantly for future reference, analytics is still an unidentified object for me, thanks. There's also a good post (a bit old) on advanced uses of analytics,this could be useful to answer specific problems that people might have. (For example how to track exit clicks) It's worht a read.
Nice tip Marco (Patrick's post)
Thanks for posting the link Marco. Useful stuff and now bookmarked...
Good article, Danny, thanks for this.
I think the real 'learning curve' with Analytics is that, like any raw data set, the value isn't in having a logical knowledge of the tools, its in having an ability to translate the metrics into workable insight. IMO, that's only gained through experience (and some people adapt quicker than others).
A lot of the logical knowledge you need is on the free GA IQ lessons:
https://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=iq_learning_center.cs
That's where I learnt the bulk of it. Actually joining the dots, pulling insight and forming strategy of the back of it is another story!
This is really helpful stuff! Thank you!
Yep the conversion university videos are really good, but then you need to get your hands dirty and have a good old rummage.
You can then try the GA IQ test and get certified (note that the pass mark is now 80%).
The backup profile is a good idea, as you mentioned, there is no undo button...
Danny, like what everyone else has said this is an excellent post, thanks for going through the pain on our behalf. I just wish we could have these sessions here in Scotland. But at least tomorrow my seminar will be even more interesting for my audience as I take them through some of this stuff you have highlighted here, and of course send them off with the link back to here in their notes. There is no doubt about it - America's got talent - and its all hangin out at SEOMOZ!
Hey Danny!
Great post! I'm sure you loaded up on caffeine for this.
Here's a post from Avinash in case there are still people out there who find analytics terms a little bit overlapping and/or confusing: https://bit.ly/as1VWL
On a side note, great office!
Thanks again!
Jurgen
nice post on Google Analytics Danny. I just wished Google would add tabs to easily switch between Analytics, Adsense, and webmaster tools
This is great. Google Analytics skills can definitely help you at being more effective at SEO and more valuable to companies. People who really understand Google Analytics seem exceedingly rare.
Looking forward to your book Danny!
Hah, nice one, Danny, I'd call it "back to basics and beyond." I have been using analytics for a while, so your post has stirred vague memories of not being profocient with it at some point. Even so, there's a lot in there and I am sure I have not plumbed everything yet.
Some Good Analytics tricks can be found here.
Hi Philip-SEO, Thanks for that link. Really informative analytics tips they have. They have PDF download track tips and 404 page track tips which were really new to me but useful to everyone using GA.
And yet another great comment Phillip. Thanks for the tip about Ann Smarty's GA tricks.
thanks for posting that link! I can't believe there is a Google Analytics post without a link to Avinash Kaushik! https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/
Another good resource is the Lunametrics blog. It's great to see some more posts about Google Analytics. I'm an analyst turned SEO and I don't know how any site owner, seo, developer, etc gets by without it? People aren't still using "hit counters" are they?!
Philip,
Thanks for posting that link. I will definitely try out the GA/Wordpress stuff...
Cheers,
Kev
Thanks for the great post Danny. Now I can appear all knowledgeable and smart about analytics, so you've boosted my geek appeal.
John
I haven't tackled GA yet, but this overview will certainly help when I get started! Already bookmarked! =)
Extremely useful stuff. Thanks for the guide. Having used analytics recently I know that some of the elements are not self explanatory but these usually are the most important! Great tool.
Thanks Danny. Very informative and I never realised I could laugh out loud about Google Analytics. lol :-)
Great Post Danny!
I have been using GA ( yes, it gets a bit anal at times ) to track all websites I'm working on.
My favorite part of this post was explaining the setup process - accounts vs. profiles, etc. This is extremely important (especially for agencies managing multiple clients) to organize sites you work on and it can be rather confusing in the beginning.
Thanks!
For those of you who are "afraid" of GA I would encourage you just install it collect the data and sift through it later. It takes time to collect enough data where it is actually useful to see which keywords drive traffic, which ones have a high bounce rate and which ones convert customers.
Great article, I especially like the custom reporting and appropriate timeline for tracking the data.
I started covering up my learning gap regarding google analytics by reading your article... I think now I can handle analytics better than ever before. Thanks for your efforts. :)
Thank you for this well written step-by-step article -- I read it twice :-)
Very well done Danny. Definitely something to bookmark for reference...
Cheers,
Kev
This is excellent. We're just starting to use GA and I need to provide a brief overview for some folks higher up the chain. I had no idea how to start. Now I do!
very informative Danny, Your right in decphiering how people get to your site, even if it's fat people falling over...
I admit to being intimidated by GA, i think it's more of finding the information your looking for so you can interupt and anaylsize it,
So if would be the ritalin to this form of ADD?
Shawn,
Nice overview of Google Analytics.
I definitely know what you mean about having ADD! I was terrified the first time I logged on to GA. It took me weeks to get around my phobia and actually play around with it, but I finally did and I'm loving every minute of it too!
I try to learn something new about GA everytime I log in, that way I'm not overloading my brain with too much info. And so far so good, it's been pretty darn good. Learning Advanced Segementation and personalising my reports right now. Real good stuff!!
Good to hear I am not alone :-) This stuff is complicated!
I have a question actually, I know it is possible to create profile with sub-domains as one site profile, but is it possible to have profile that will unite several domains and show results as if it was one?
This is an area where things can get really tricky. The best place to get answers is probably on a Google Analytics help forum. I know that you can track multiple domains as one profile, but you need to add specific tracking code for each domain and you also have to use additional tracking code on links (if any) between the domains you want to track.
Try startiing here: https://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingSite.html#multipleDomains
It's hard for me to believe there's someone out there, let alone many someones, who don't gleefully spend hours per day in Google Analytics. Thank you, Danny, for taking pity on their souls.
Hi Danny,
Once again an incredible post from your side. I am very eager to learn more in GA every time. Well explained. Thanks a lot.
Happy to do it. More posts to come! :-)
Thanks Danny. Awaiting. :-)
A great wrap up of the GA Seminar you attended Danny. My favorite take aways form this post are as follows:
I was a victim of a state of mind I call Analytics Dismissal Disorder
An example of an account might be Work Websites or Personal Websites. (Be forewarned, this is not intuitive on setup. Don't make the mistake I did and name an account after a website.
[re: Filters] there is absolutely no way to reinclude this excluded data in the given profile at a later time. Filters are irreversible and kinda mean
it is important that you create an unfiltered (raw) profile of your website that you can use in case something goes wrong with one of your other profiles.
Joanna Lord screws up our other profiles.
Real analytics pros don't let friends rely on the default dashboard stats.
Intelligence is Google's confusing name for automatic alerts
Which Reports To Track and When: EXCELLENT
Which Reports to Ignore: EVEN BETTER!
And my personal favorite and best line of the entire article:
(For you sissies on the metric system, a yard stick is like a meter stick but better)
That was helpful, I picked up a few new things. :) What I would be interested in is finding some good CUSTOM reports to add to Analytics. I was able to find a good one that gives me the amount of goals that come in, rather than the irritating % mark. SO if there are any other great custom reports out there... BLOG POST! ;-)
doenst anaylitics give you the amount of completed goals in the standard goals view?
It gives you completed goals in the standard view but it does not tell you what source they came from. I made a few custom reports that tells you where they come from, which is what my boss wants to know. :) Plus, I like to see when they come in hourly to track them and notate them in our customer database.
Great post. The 'raw' profiles tip is especially helpful for new users.
Thank you for the cure of ADD. It is funny that the three pages you say to avoid are the pages most of the people looking very intensively. Also thank you very much for making me understand the Goals section
Very Usefull
Great post. Especially like the what-reports-when section. That's the hard part, because there is soooo much data that you can look at and get sidetracked.
Really useful post, Danny. Sometimes when I look at analytics I feel like my eyes are about to start bleeding :-(
Bookmarked!
Thanks.
I am one of those pussies using te matric system ;) dont worry you guys will one day see the light :P
anyway.. me and my colelgaues at BCSBV(Netherlands, www.bcsbv.nl) used this article to overcome our "analytics fear" .
Thanks a bunch as it worked just fine. two thumbs up from the netherlands!
Something we consider vital to track in our Spanish SEO campaigns are the keyword positioning. At Hispanic Market Advisors, we monitor closely our clients' keywords in all relevant search engines, with the use of a software, and take actions to stay on top of rankings. This allows our organic searches to grow.
Thanks for the excellent overview of Google Analytics. I thought I was getting a lot out of the package (and I was!) but didn’t realize just how much useful information I was leaving on the table. I'm anxious to put this new information to work to extract more useful gems out of Analytics.
I've been trying to learn more about Google Analytics for a while and it's overwhelming to say the least. When I log in it seems pretty straight forward, but then I see so much data and don't know where to even begin, what's important, etc. I love the checklist you included. I have saved it to Evernote and printed out a copy. I will follow it starting today and look forward to seeing how it helps. Mostly, I think the checklist will help me learn more about GA in an organized and hopefully more efficient way. Now I at least know where to start. Love the articles you guys write, keep up the great work (PLEASE!).
really helpfull information, thank you
Brief and useful Guide!!!
Thanks for updating Danny, I seriously don't know how to use google analytics. I am not so familiar with all of those graphs and stuff.
Good review and well-written/funny.
Goals only seem to work for me when they involve goals on my site, not links to external sites. Can you review goals?
Campaigns are tricky because you have to paste additional code in your javascript. Can you review campaigns?
Event tracking is also tricky and deserves its own post.
I need a post like yours on each of these topics to show my students next semester.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi dmhoro,
I can't promise I will do posts entirely on those specific topics but I will add them to my list and try to include them. :-)
Danny
Goals are a bit tricky with external links - I believe the way around it is to create a virtual page view that is triggered when the link is clicked, then create a goal corresponding to a 'view' of that page.
You need to be careful about putting in a slight delay (a code amend) so that the virtual page view actually has time to complete, otherwise the click on the link might not be recorded.
An alternative method would be to assign an Event to an external link being clicked, but Events aren't import-able into Google AdWords, which is a drawback and why we tend to prefer Goals as many clients are interested in advertising driving specific outcomes that aren't related directly to sales.
Great post and did help me overcome ADD... however I wouldn't brag about the "fat people falling" bit - sure it is an easy way to capture traffic from people looking for daft videos but most of the videos have been removed and the one with the wee Hispanic kid is a bordering bullying - somewhat akin to https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8533695.stm
Fair point, not trying to offend anyone. Included it because I think the graph is a funny anecdote.
I'm all for going back to the basics and highlighting rudimentary principles, but I really am surprised at the general response to these analytics blog posts. Meaning there are clearly many talented and passionate SEO's out there that don't use site data (obtained through Google Analytics, Omniture or whatever) to drive their SEO decisions.
I say this with all the love in the world (honestly, I love the Moz community), but frankly, this is a real eye opener.
Maps are not useless if your targeting a specific geographical location (as many businesses do).
Love the analytics posts! Keep these comin' please.
This is the area in which I most definitely still feel like a total n00b!
Thanks for this post. I've had GA running on some sites for years but frankly haven't done much if anything with the data. This at least gets me thinking.
If you have any intention on following up with additional posts, two topics that come to mind are 1) Utilizing campaigns and 2) perhaps a little more detail on what we can actually do with the data (e.g. what should we be looking for in terms of trends or raw output).
And one question I have is can GA generate email reports like you suggested where it sends data on a daily/weekly/monthly basis that COMBINES the various metrics we wish to see in one report?
thanks
I've read this many times, and the only conclusion I can draw from these statements that I don't know half of what I need to know about installing Google Analytics. Are there any good information sources on this subject? The GA installation instructions don't give me much to go on I'm afraid.
Thanks Danny.....When does your book come out?
Tony
Hey Tony. As far as Mr. "Darn it! I'm late again getting this revised manuscript to my Publisher" Dover's book is concerned, the latest from Amazon is "Not yet shipped
Shipping Estimate: July 19, 2010"
Woah! That is not the status anymore. That was from a couple months ago.
The book is now in the final stages. I have been working with Wiley doing the final edits (checking layouts mostly). Its looking really good and I can honestly say I am really proud of how it has turned out. The latest publish date I have heard is August 2nd.
As soon as I get more definitive information, I'll post it on the blog. Thanks!
More information at https://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO-Secrets/dp/0470554185
[must...not...thumb...Danny....down...for...making...me...wait...to...receive...his...book!]
Aww danny, you're gonna make me all whiny now. It was bad enough when Amazon gave me the date of July 19th!
I will buy the book for sure Danny...
At least that will give me time to finish "The Art of SEO"