Web Design Articles
articles indexGoogle Analytics
23 January 07
Most web hosts will provide you with some statistics about your web site, but if you want detailed information about your visitors and the way they use your site, Google Analytics is a much better option.
It takes only a few minutes to get started using an existing Google account. A small piece of code must be copied and added to the end of all the web pages you want to track.
It may take up to 24 hours before you start getting data through to your account, and then you can view various reports about your visitors.
There are overviews with graphs and pie charts showing the number of new and returning visitors, page views, and geographical locations. You can also see where your visitors are coming to your site from, including search engines or people typing your web address in directly.
To view more specific information there are three categories to choose from : Executive, Marketer and Webmaster, each with summaries and detailed statistics related to the kind of user you are.
For example, webmasters can see what browser and screen resolutions are the most common for your visitors.
Google Analytics is easy to set up and provides a lot of useful information to help you understand your visitors better. You can then take this info and use it to adapt your site to better meet your visitors' needs.
