If you’re asking my opinion about the best programs to use for tracking Web
site statistics — go ahead! Ask. — Google Analytics is definitely #1 on my list.
It’s easy to use, it’s free, you don’t need access to your Web server, and you
don’t have to be an ubergeek to use it. Google Analytics also provides all the
statistics that I think you need. (I’ve been known to be wrong a time or two,
but just keep that between you and me.)
Google Analytics started life as Urchin Analytics. Urchin was one of the
premier Web site traffic statistics programs available on the Web — at an
expensive price. Then Google bought Urchin and made the program available
for free. The number of people who adopted it during the first few days of
release was overwhelming. Google actually had to close the program to new
users for a time to catch up with demand.
It’s no surprise that demand for such a powerful stats program was very
high, especially at a cost of exactly nothing. The statistics that are available
through Google Analytics will satisfy almost everyone looking for Web site
stats and are certainly enough to help you understand how your AdSense ads
are performing.
The thing about Google Analytics that’s different from a log analyzer like
AWStats is the way that visitors on your site are tracked. Log analyzers tend
to track visitors by IP address. Google Analytics actually tracks visitors by
placing a cookie — a small snippet of code that acts as a kind of software ID
collar — on the visitor’s hard drive. Then, each time the visitor comes to
your site, that cookie is recognized by Google Analytics.
The more Web-savvy among readers will immediately see the problem with
relying on cookies to get the job done. A cookie is only trackable as long as
it’s on the visitor’s hard drive. So, if a visitor comes to your site, clears out
his Internet history, and then returns to the site in the same day, that user is
tracked as two different users. Numbers can get a little screwy.
Most people don’t clean out Internet histories on a daily basis — some never
clean out them at all — but that’s one of the issues you should be aware of.
Google Analytics also can be fooled by people who set their browsers to
not accept cookies at all. It’s a privacy issue. Some believe that when a company
(any company) is tracking their movements on the Web, their privacy
is invaded. On principle, they edit their browser preferences so that the
browser won’t accept any cookies. (Editing your preferences is a snap to do,
in case you’re wondering.) I don’t necessarily buy into that school of thought,
but I can understand why some people would feel that way.
Regardless of whether you understand the anti-cookie stand of some folks,
the fact still remains that a percentage of your site visitors may have set up
their browsers to reject cookies. If that’s the case, Google Analytics can’t
track those people. It’s a small percentage, but again, enough that you should
be aware it’s a possibility.
Even with these issues, Google Analytics remains my favorite Web site traffic
statistics program. Because it’s free and easy to install, I recommend that
everyone at least try it for a month or two. If you don’t like it, you can always
move on to something else.
Intrinsically, the difference between log analyzers and programs like Google
Analytics mostly involves methodology. Which program you use is determined
by what you’re looking for. I much prefer programs like Google
Analytics over log analyzers because, as far as I’m concerned, the information
that I need is covered by Google Analytics. You may not feel that way,
and that’s okay. Just choose the program that works best to meet your specific
tracking needs.
Installing Google Analytics
Google Analytics, like all Google programs, is easy to install. It requires that
you register for the program and then install the tracking code. Easy-peasy.
Here are the basics for getting started with the program:
1. Point your browser to www.google.com/analytics.
The Google Analytics home page appears.
2. Click the Sign Up Now link.
A sign-up page appears.
3. If you already have a Google account, sign into Google Analytics with
that account. If you don’t have an account, register a new account
with Google.
4. After you sign in, click the Sign Up button
You’re taken to the New Account Signup page.
5. In the New Account Signup page, enter your Web site’s URL, an
account name (this can be any name you choose), your time zone location,
and your actual time zone into the appropriate text fields and
then click Continue.
6. In the new page that appears, enter your contact information (including
name, telephone number, and country) and then click Continue.
The User Agreement page appears.
7. Read through the user agreement, and if you agree with the terms of
service, select the Yes, I Agree to the Above Terms and Conditions
check box and then click Create New Account.
You now have an Analytics account, but you’re still not quite done. A new
page appears, displaying your tracking code, . This
snippet of code is how Google Analytics tracks the visitors to your Web
pages.
8. Copy the code provided and paste it into the HTML of your Web site
immediately before the body tag of the site.
Now, you’re really finished.
After you place the tracking code on your Web site, it could take a couple days
before you begin to see any statistics about the site on Google Analytics —
stuff like number of visitors, where they came from, and how long they stayed
on your site. Even then, the statistics aren’t really valuable beyond telling you
who’s been to your site. There’s nothing historical to compare the statistics
against.
Getting the real value of Google Analytics takes at least 30 days — long
enough to have enough information to compare timeframes and see what a
normal baseline for your site is.
After you allow enough time to establish a baseline, you can really tell what
tweaks are valuable in terms of bringing in more site traffic — and seeing
what may be pushing traffic off your site. For example, if you have a high percentage
of your visitors leaving your site on a specific page, you know that
there’s something about that page that could be turning your visitors off, so
you can tweak the page to try to hold them on the site longer.
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