Are You Wasting Time with Google Analytics

Over the past couple of years, Google Analytics has become the most popular analytics program to measure how your website is performing. Once a website is launched, you need start to understand where you are getting the best traffic from, to learn how the potential client is entering the site or exiting, and what keywords drive the site. The whole point is to have huge amounts of traffic and be making more money, Right?

But before you start reviewing the stats and the performance of the website, you will need to concentrate on how the program will benefit your business. Google Analytics can track all online campaigns, from keywords to emails, search engine traffic and referral sources. Also, if you have an Adwords Campaign, you have direct interface to calculate the ROI metrics and keyword tracking of data. This can improve the campaign and save you money in the end, by ensuring you are targeting the right clients.

In the very beginning, you may not be impressed with initial results and your number of keywords may seem very small. But in time, you will start seeing results -- more keywords listed in organic search due to your expanding optimization of the website. There is opportunity to improve the website and add additional content based on the target keywords in the program. Targeting newer clients and expanding the website's content areas which show interest may improve your readership.

Even though it is completely free of charge, Google Analytics offers more functionality then some of the paying tracking tools on the market. If you're new to the program, you may want request that the web developer review the stats reports for the first year or login at a regular time of the month to review the progress of the website. This gets you more involved and gives you more of an understanding of how to read the reports, target the ad campaigns, or create those special sales that drive the site during certain times of the year.