Once upon a time when Google was still offering GMail accounts via invites, they introduced their website statistics application called Google Analytics. If you hadn’t known, this was only after Google purchased the web analytics firm; Urchin. The analytics application was on an invite basis as well and I was one of the lucky ones to get it early.
Ever since I started using Google Analytics to monitor few websites and customer projects, I’ve totally fallen in love with it. The application is not only powerful but it allows me (as a web designer) to track important data. That said, if you only want to get a kick out of the number of daily visitors to your website then Google Analytics will give you a boot later.
I’m sure you’re wondering just how powerful or analytical this application really is. Well, it’s so technical that I myself haven’t found the time to take advantage of its full capabilities. This website statistics tool is very comprehensive and is fitted for not merely the web designer or web developer. Even the business executives or the market managers will find the mined date helpful to their business.
Here’s a short list of features you will get from Google Analytics:
- Track daily visitor numbers (either new or returning)
- Track daily pageviews
- Track visitors by source (which website or webpage are they coming from?)
- Track visitors by country (you can even locate by State)
- Track their depth of visit (how many webpages they visited?)
- Track their length of visit (how much time did they spend on your website?)
- Track users browsers and its versions
- Track users operating systems
- Track Flash versions
- Track screen resolutions
- Track connection speeds
- Track set website goals or campaigns
- Manage statistics by day, month or year
- and other powerful website analytic tools…
As you can see, the whole application is very comprehensive but its been broken down to be simple and easy to use. That is one of the main reasons Google Analytics now is one of the most commonly used analytical tools to track website performance and records. I almost forgot to mention this but Google Analytics users can also export out selected results to save or present as performance data to customers.
An example of how you can use this statistical data in your business strategy is like how David from MyMacBuzz did it to sell advertising to publishers. The pie chart you’re viewing is generated using Google Analytics but cleaned up to make it clearer.
Google Analytics is currently open to anyone who has a Google account and owns a website or a weblog. If you’d like to find out more about Google Analytics, they’ve added a demo tour you can view.
If you feel it’s time to move up a level from simple tools like OneStat, StatsCounter and etc then head on over to Google Analytics to sign up right now. After all, it is free.
What website statistics tool or application are you using at the moment?