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Hi ,
Last issue I talked about spies, and getting free publicity. This month I'm going to talk about Google. In particular, Google Analytics. If you know everything you care to know about websites, traffic, and search engines then this issue probably won't interest you.
Newsletter Contents
- Metrics & Your Website
- News From Peter
- Trivia: Where did Google come from?
Metrics & Your Website
Metrics have to be one of my favorite things about business internet presence. Everything can be tracked, analyzed, and optimized. Sadly many small businesses aren't taking advantage of this. Do you know how many visitors your website gets per month? Do you know where those visitors are coming from, and what they look at on your site?
If not, it's okay. You're not alone, and there is help.
There are a variety of analytics solutions for websites. Chances are that your site has some basic statistics available already based on the server logs. Check with your hosting company to learn how to access those. If you want enterprise quality metrics for your site you'll need something more sophisticated than log file analysis. Sounds pricey doesn't it? It's not.
Google Analytics is one of the most powerful and widely used solutions out there, and it's free. Well, there is a limit of 5 million page views per month, but very few small businesses will ever come close to that.
Once you sign up for Google Analytics you get a snippet of javascript code that will need to go at the bottom of every page on your site. If you're using a content management system then there should be a plugin available that will automatically add your tracking code. So, just copy and paste a bit of code, then you can log in and learn...
- how many visitors your site had
- how many pages each visitor viewed
- what geographical areas visitors were in
- what search terms or links visitors used to find you
- which pages get the most traffic
- which pages visitors most often leave the site from
- and much more!
All that data is viewable in fancy graphs and tables anywhere you're connected to the web. Did I mention it's free?
Don't put it off any longer. Go sign up for Google Analytics and get that tracking code onto your site. If you need some help getting going, just get in touch with me.
News From Peter
It's been a slow month on my website. I've been too busy to get a blog post finished. Cranking out content can seem like a chore at times, but it is rewarding.
One of the things that has had me occupied is Google's release of the Google Analytics API public beta test. An API is an Application Programming Interface. In simple terms, it's a way of allowing different computer programs to talk to each other. In this case it allows people to create software that can access and make use of Google Analytics data.
I've coded up a little Proof-Of-Concept using PHP that securely fetches data from my Google Analytics account and displays it. It isn't much to look at, but what's going on behind the scenes is pretty neat. The real coding I'm working on is a system to automatically e-mail key metrics to customers as often as they'd like.
Trivia: Where did Google come from?
Google came from the Computer Science Department of Stanford University of course. Have a look for yourself. Google was a very successful PhD project.
I hope you had a great April, and that May is even better. Enjoy the low humidity while it lasts.
Cheers,
Peter