My clients ask the best questions. Harriet Linder has a new site. I love working with people like Harriet because she’s not only passionate about helping her client’s feel better and improve their lives, she’s inquisitive and wants to grow her business.
The other day Harriet asked me how to use Google Analytics. Like most people, I, too, installed Google Analytics on my WordPress site when it was brand spank’n new. To learn how to use it I attended webinars, bought a few books, tootled around on the back end of my site, got busy with other things in my business and then …bam! Two years had passed since I paid any attention to my analytics. Guess what my answer was to Harriet’s question? “Ah…I’ll have to get back to you. I forgot how to use it.”
This much I know, Google Analytics is important, but it only goes so far and the results can be misleading. Like all analytics, it’s about asking the right questions to get the right answers.
What Google Analytics measures:
- Who’s coming to your website?
- Where they’re coming from?
- What they are doing on your site?
- What content they’re consuming?
- On what page they leave your website.
The good news is…
Google Analytics is still free. Here’s what you need to do to get started:
- Sign up for Google Analytics
—You don’t have to have a Gmail account, but if you do, use that one, otherwise,
—when prompted, select “I prefer to use my current email address” - Put in your Google Analytics <script> code into the footer Script box of your WordPress website
—TIP: You can put your <script> code into either the header or footer script box. Putting it in your footer will make your site load faster: learned this from Copyblogger‘s VP of Operations, Jessica Commins. - Sign up for Google Web Master tools
Lesson learned the hard way
You can’t be like me and forget about using Google Analytics. If you do, you’ll never know if your content and/or product is of interest to anyone. Oops! Worse yet, your business may die on the vine, or never have a fighting chance to grow at all.
Do you want to learn with me?
I’m going to go back to square one to review everything, and then use this amazing tool. So check back — I’ll keep you posted, right here on my blog. If you want to follow along I’ll be sharing:
- tips from numerous webinars — like the one about the footer scripts,
- pearls of wisdom from the books mentioned above,
- notes from my Google Analytics training on Lynda.com (love this site),
- and even showing you how I’m using Google Analytics in my own business
Welcome aboard!
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