Google Analytics is a great tool, but it is greater if you can help it be as smart as possible by tweaking certain things.  The human element is what makes it "Analytics" after all.

Filtering out internal traffic is one of those things.  If you are analyzing a high volume of public traffic on your site and you are trying to make marketing decisions based on the trends you are seeing, and on top of that you and your colleagues are compulsively accessing your own site, your data is probably skewed (that is if what your intern does on your site does not move and shake your business). 

What you want to do is add a sub profile to your main profile.  The main profile will have ALL traffic, so ... Read More

Google Analytics has several types of segmentation options that can all be used to splice data and determine the behavior of specific, high value segments.  Understanding the uses and limitations of each of these segmentation options is a crucial step to ensure you are getting the most of your Google Analytics implementation.

There are multiple segmentation options in Google Analytics:
-    Profile Level Segmentation
-    Advanced Segments
-    Advanced Filters

Profile Level Segmentation
Profile level segmentation is available if you click on the "Edit" link next to your profiles in GA. Profile-level segments allow you to create ... Read More

(Not the kinds of goals you kick, but the kinds of goals you set). 
You know what you want out of your website, you have determined what success means to you, but you are not sure how to track it.  The answer is goal setting in Google Analytics.

Follow these steps to setup your goal:

1.  Determine a name for each of your goals

a. site registration
b. lead form
c. request a quote
d. sale

2. Determine the value of each goal.  This is really a simple math question. For example, if your goal is to get people to register for your site.  You know that on average you get 3 registrations a day worth 30 dollars.  Figure out how much ... Read More

If you own a website or a blog you should be tracking visitors on your website. Even if you do not plan to use this data for business purposes, it will provide visibility on your audience and allow you to monitor traffic on your website.

You may use several tools to track visitors on your website, but the most popular, free tool is Google Analytics.

Follow the below steps to get your feet wet in Web Analytics:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics and click  on the underlined "Sign Up Now" link. To signup, you may use an existing Gmail account or create a unique Google account for this purpose.

2. Click on the Signup Button on the ... Read More

Let's say that you have just redesigned your website and installed GA.  Now, you are brain storming of ways to drive traffic to your site and gain leads.  You have considered various marketing vehicles and your mind has locked in on email marketing.  Now you face the dilemma of how to send emails and how to track their performance in order to determine whether email marketing is a worthwhile investment for your business or not.

Google Analytics tracks campaigns through links and it looks for certain values in those links to differentiate one campaign from another.  If you do not have campaign tracking, you won't be able to attribute visits to particular campaigns, your visitors will show up as direct ... Read More