How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners

 

Step 1: Set Up Your Account

 

• In order to use Google Analytics, you'll need to set up an account with them. This will provide you with a unique identifier to add to your site. You can only access information about your own site; you will not be allowed access to information for other sites unless the site owner explicitly grants it to you. The only people with access to your information will be yourself, and those you give special permissions to.

1. Go to the Google Analytics website (Google.com/Analytics).http://www.google.com/analytics/
2. If you do not have a Google account, click "Sign Up Now," which is located to the left of the sign-in box. This will take you to a page where you can sign up for a Google account.
3. If you have a Google account already, use your email address and password to sign in.
4. Click the Sign Up button to continue.
5. In the next window, provide Google with the URL of the site you wish to analyze.
6. Give the site an account name that is easy to remember. If you will be tracking multiple sites, this is especially important.
7. Select the country your site is based in, or the country it is serving. Then select the appropriate time zone.
   • If your site is based in India but all your users are in the U.S., you can either select a U.S. time zone to figure out when in their day most choose to use your site, or you can set it to your city's time zone to see when you need the most workers on staff.
8. Click Continue.
9. In the next window, provide your contact information.
10. Click Continue.
11. In the next window, read the Google Analytics terms of service. If you agree with them, click the Yes box.
12. Click Create New Account.
13. Google will provide you with a block of code. Copy this - you'll need to insert it into your web site. 

Step 2: Insert Google Analytics JavaScript Into Your Pages

 

• You must insert the code that Google Analytics provides you with into every page you want tracked. If you have a technical person who takes care of your pages, you can have them add the code for you.

Inserting Google Analytics Code for Most Sites
 

• To insert the Google Analytics code, you need to get into the HTML of your page.
• If you are using a service like WordPress, you'll need to open the footer.php file to place this code.

1. Find the </body> tag at the very bottom, just above the </html> page.
2. Do you see the code urchinTracker(), utmLinker(), utmSetTrans(), or utmLinkPost() above the </body> tag? If so, you must paste the Google Analytics Javascript above that code. If not, paste it immediately above the </body> tag.
3. If you have templates, insert the code into them as well.
4. Once you have uploaded the pages back to your site, you can begin tracking information.

Some other websites may allow you to add Google Analytics code to their website. You may have to add the code to each individual page, or you may just be required to insert the number code that starts with UA-. Check with the website to see if adding it is acceptable, as well as the proper way to do it for that specific website.

• Step 3: Get an Overview of Your Site Performance

   

  • The moment you set up your account and insert Google's JavaScript into your pages, Google Analytics will be ready to provide you with charts that will give you an overview of your site's performance, however the service may take up to 24 hours to begin gathering data for your site.

  1. Log in to Google Analytics.
  2. In the center of the page is a section titled Website Profiles. Click on the View Reports link to the right of the name of the site you're interested in. This will bring you to the Dashboard.
  3. At the top of the page is a chart that gives a visual representation of your site traffic over the past month.
     • This chart will only give you data from the time you inserted the tracking code into your pages.
     • If you want to change the span of time the chart displays, click on the dates in the upper right-hand corner. Click on dates in the calendar that is revealed or manually type in the dates you want to view a different span of time.
     • To compare traffic over two different time periods, select one date range you want to use, click Compare to Past, and select the range you wish to compare it against.
     • Just below the dates is a menu that says Visits. Click on it to change the graph to page views, pages per visit, average time on site, bounce rate, or percentage of new visits.
  4. Immediately beneath that chart, you'll see a header that says Site Usage, with six small charts underneath. Under Site Usage, you'll find quick information on various site traffic statistics for the time period shown in the main chart. Each one has an individual chart.
     • Visits tells you how many visits there were to your page. A visit is defined as a page view when that user has viewed no other page on your site in the past half hour.
     • Pageviews tells how many times the pages on your site have been viewed.
     • Pages/visit tells how many pages, on average, users view when they come to your site.
     • Bounce Rate tells what percentage of users left after viewing only one page on your site.
     • Avg. Time on Site shows how long each user spent on your site.
     • New Visits shows what percentage of your users have not visited your site before.
  5. The Visitors Overview graph shows how many visitors have come to your site.
     • This number is usually lower than the Visits statistic, and sometimes it's a lot lower, because some visitors may visit your site over and over again.
     • Click on View Report to view more detailed information about your visitors.
  6. "Map Overlay" displays what countries your visitors are coming from.
     • The darker the green, the more visitors come from that country.
     • Click View Report to get in-depth information on where your visitors come from.
  7. Traffic Sources Overview shows which percentage of users are getting to your site by typing your URL directly into their browser, as well as via search engines, referring sites, and other avenues such as emailed links.
     • Click on View Report to get breakdowns of exactly what places your users are coming from, and what keywords they're looking for.
  8. Content Overview specifies the top five most viewed pages over the time period you're looking at.
     • Click on the name of any page to get extremely detailed information about where the people viewing that page came from, how long they spent on the page, how many of them were new to the page, and a lot more.
     • Click on View Report to get access to information about the performance of all pages on the site.

• Step 4: See How Your Site Is Performing Daily and Hourly

   

  • If you want to find out whether your site has peaks during certain times of the day or on certain days of the week, Google Analytics can tell you.

  1. In the menu to the left, click on the word Visitors.
  2. To the left beneath the main chart, you'll see a number of different statistical breakouts.
  3. Click on any of the words to get a bar-chart breakout of the daily performance for that aspect of site traffic measurement.
  4. If you want to learn hour-by-hour trends, click on the word Hourly above the bar chart to see an hour by hour graph for the time period at hand.
  5. To compare two different time periods, click on the dates above the line graph. Select the first set of dates you want to work with, check the Compare to Past box, click on the second set of dates, and click the Apply Range button. 

  
  
  
  source   :   mahalo.com
  

http://www.edbatista.com/2006/02/google_analytic.html