Joe D’Ambrose

Webmasters: Are you using Google Analytics?

There are a number of ways to keep track of the traffic a website receives. I’ve tried many of them over the years, from Webtrends to Webalizer. Several of these companies charge a monthly fee to use their statistics.

A couple of months ago a friend introduced me to Google Analytics, a free service by Google which generates very detailed stats about a website’s visitors. Allowing a webmaster to review key words, referrers, and optimize their search engine and marketing campaigns by using Google Analytics’ analysis of where visitors came from, how long they stayed on the website, and their geographical position. Another useful feature is the ability to add guest users to view your stats. I installed the Analytics for more than 15 websites and our clients are very happy with all of the new data! I highly recommend.

I could be wrong here, but I have a feeling that using Google Analytics somehow helps your search rankings on Google. This isn’t just a gut feeling, I’ve noticed that since I installed it some of my clients have been coming up higher on the search engines. Maybe I’m trippin’.