Google Analytics

One Google tool I am purticularly fond of is Google Analytics. By inserting a code into the site’s code, this simple tool allows me to track traffic to my site but what it does in detail is of purticular use.

First of is the Visits chart. It gives me a visual representation of my site’s hits over a period of time that can be changed. I can track the interest that my site has generated and how it changes as I post different articles. More important I think would be the Visitors chart. It is one thing to generate many hit but when it is the same person reading many articles, it means that word about the site is not getting out. This is related to the Visitor Loyalty percentage. It is important to retain a core readership that one can rely on.

Analytics also tracks technology. It can tell me what kind of brower, monitor resolution and internet connection my visitors are using. This lets me optimize the site according what seems to the majority. The Map Overlay gives a representation of where the readers are coming from. Some bloggers may be only targeting a specific country and region and this helps to know if this audience is being attracted.  This tracks any country as long as it has an Internet connection, going down to individual towns and counties. It even tracks to places like the South Pole!

Traffic Sources tells me how much of where my readership is being directed from, be it direct, referred or from search engines. By having a large direct traffic count, I can be assured that people check my site on a regular basis by bookmarks or RSS, rather than waiting for new posts to turn up on a blog aggregator. But the most important feature for me is Content Overview. This tracks the amount of hits that each of my articles get over a period of time. By knowing this, I know what is popular with readers and what isn’t. This allows to adjust my content to suit what my readers like.