I’ve written this post as a resource for clients and non clients alike, to provide the basics of navigating Google Analytics and getting the most out of the software.

This post assumes that you have the necessary analytics code installed on your site and is correctly capturing data. If you do not have the code installed, here’s the Google Analytics installation instructions. If you are unsure, here’s how to do a quick check.

1. Navigate to your website
2. Click “view” from the menu and “view source”
3. With the view source window open, press Ctrl F (windows) to open the find window
4. Type “google-analytics.com”. If you find that in your code, then its likely you have Google Analytics installed. Although this won’t check if its installed correctly

With that said, lets get on with the Guide to Google Analytics…

Accessing Your Website Analytics

Visit Google.com and sign in via the link in the top right hand corner. Enter your login information. Once logged in you will need to click the “Analytics” button to access your website account “Dashboard” and view your stats.

The Google Dashboard is essentially a summary of your web metrics. Look at it as your web metrics homepage. The following sections will explain the main features of the tabs located in the left hand column of your Dashboard page. Topics covered are: Visitors; Traffic Sources; Content and Goals.

Visitors Overview

The first tab covers statistics that relevant to your visitors. It answers questions like, how many people visited my website? etc. Take a look at the date range to the top right of the screen. This can be changed to show stats for a different date range by clicking the gray arrow to the right of the last date. The default is set for the past 30 days. Note: This date range setting is applicable to all metrics from the dashboard.

The Visitor graph display provides a visual look at your traffic trends.

The following information displays numeric figures relating to your website visitors during the time period specified above. Here’s what they mean:

Visits: Total number of all visits to the site

Absolute Visitors: Total number of “unique visitors” to the site, does not include visitors who viewed the site more than once

Pageviews: Total number of pages viewed by all visitors

Average Pageviews: Average number of pages viewed per visitor

Time on Site: Average amount of time spent on the site by all visitors

Bounce Rate: Percentage of web visitors who only viewed one page

New Visits: Percentage of visitors who were visiting the site for the first time

Each of the breakdown figures above are clickable for more detail.

The next section of the Visitors area is “Visitor Segmentation”. This is basically a browsable area of more information based on user location, operating systems, languages etc. Click the links in this section for details.

The bottom of the page features the “Technical Profiles” of the hardware used to access your site, such as browsers used and connection speeds. This particularly important when designing your website for cross browser compatibility. Again, the information is clickable for details.

Traffic Sources

In this section you can learn about where your visitors came from and how they found you.

The first part features numeric metrics and a pie chart to visually show you the sources of your traffic.

Direct Traffic: Visitors to your site who got there directly by entering your url in the browser address bar. These visitors may have got your url from printed literature of clicked a link in an email

Referring Sites: Visitors who clicked a link on another website that sent them to your website

Search Engines: Visitors who found your site after performing a search on a search engine website like Google.

The “Top Traffic Sources” section provides a breakdown of the search engines and other sites that linked visitors to your site and includes the keywords that they used to find you.

The Traffic Sources section is a great tool to use when determining the best methods to optimize your website for search engines (SEO).

Content

Here you learn about which of your web pages were looked at the most and which pages your visitors clicked to within your site after “landing” there.

Pageviews: Total number of pages viewed on your site by all visitors

Unique Views: Total number of pages viewed by unique visitors, i.e., this would not include visitors who have been to your site before and clicked the same pages

Bounce Rate: Percentage of web visitors who only viewed one page

The following sections are clickable and provide details on navigation, optimization and click patterns as follows:

Navigation Summary: How visitors found your content

Entrance Paths: How visitors navigated through your site to get to your content

Entrance Sources: Top sources of traffic for each page

Entrance Keywords: Top keywords used to find each page

Site Overlay: A transparent overlay view of your website that visually shows you which buttons or links were clicked most.

At the bottom of the “Content” page you will find a breakdown of the number of visitors to each page of your site. The most popular being first and working down to the least popular. The top five pages are displayed here but you can click for the complete list.

Use this section to determine where to place or direct visitors to the content that you want them to see. You can also use this area to help determine why these pages are popular and replicate the format or structure for the pages that are most important.

Goals

The last section covered in this reference guide is for “Goals”. The area allows you to set up and record “goals”. Goals are records of conversions from your website. In most cases a goal could be to get your visitor to fill out a contact form, or buy a product. These goals (or conversions) can be recorded automatically by Google Analytics. You can then monitor these goals and tweak, update and restructure your website to “funnel” more conversions.

To set up a goal, follow the instructions on the “Goal Overview” page.

Conclusion

This concludes my “Google Analytics Quick Reference Guide” although, I realize that I have only scratched the surface in this guide on all you can do with Google Analytics.

Do you already use Google Analytics? What do you or don’t you like about it? Tell me about it in the comments below.

I added Google AdSense: I registered and added a Google AdSense block to the lower right column of all blog posts. You can register for this yourself via your Google account. It’s a straight forward process and provides you with the necessary code to implement on your site. Google AdSense is a PPC program where you receive commission on every click that the ad block receives. You can track all of your commissions in your Google Account.

I wrote an eBook: I wrote an eBook based on my knowledge of SEO. You can see details on my SEO eBook here. The reason for writing the eBook is two-fold. 1. It establishes me as an “author”, which yields great recognition in the industry and 2. It enables me to make passive income  on the knowledge that I share, via my landing page and checkout process through PayPal. You’ll see that i’ve added a banner to promote the eBook at the footer of each blog post.

I signed up for the Amazon Affiliate Program: The sign up process is a simple one, simply create an Amazon account and put in your request via  link in the left column from your account area. You will need to supply details of your site and what you plan to do with your partnership. It took me about a week to receive the approval email. Once approved you can log in and create affiliate links to any products found on amazon.com. When a user clicks one of those links and buys that product, you receive a commission on the sale. So far, I have used the program to set up affiliate links for two books, that i’ve posted in recent blog posts here and here. Note, in my current affiliate status, I will only receive commission from Amazon on those specific products that I am promoting on my blog. If someone clicks through to Amazon by one of my links but buys something different, I wont get commission. I believe this restriction is lifted when I reach a certain level (but don’t quote me on that).

I listed my eBook on Kindle store: Since my eBook is electronic, I thought it would make sense to make it available for download on the Kindle store. Again, I had to apply to the Kindle Store Program and go through an approval process. Once I was approved, I simply had to complete an online form, upload my book and a cover image. It took only 24 hours for my book to appear on the Kindle Store site. I had a little trouble with the formatting of the book, since Amazon reformats the book automatically for Kindle. In the end I had to cut out most of the imagery in my book and create a text version in Microsoft Word for it to appear correctly. I found that PDF’s don’t convert well. I know this now for next time. Here’s my book on the Kindle Store:

“Beyond Keywords” is also available for purchase from the Kindle Store.

I added “Share” buttons: You’ve probably noticed the FaceBook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet” buttons at the top and bottom (FaceBook) of my posts. These buttons aren’t going to make me any direct money, but they will encourage readers to share my posts and content, who in turn, may make a purchase or click a revenue generating link.

So there you have it. The monetizing of my blog is certainly a work in progress, but I wanted to share with you a few things that I have done so far.

What are some of the things you have done to monetize your blog or website? Let me know in the comments below.

Ok, so enough ramblings, the first in my “Why I follow” series is Chris Brogan.

I first heard about Chris Brogan in a response someone had written to a Question posted on LinkedIn. I forget the exact question but i believe it was something to do with Social Media. The responder suggested Chris Brogan as an expert in the field. I subsequently clicked over to his site (this was back in about 2003 I believe), browsed a few articles and left. At the time, I remember thinking it would be great to be recommended by someone in a public setting like that. Over subsequent years, Chris’s name appeared periodically in articles and other mentions on websites. As I got more involved in internet marketing and departed from traditional marketing for the most part, the frequency of Chris Brogan mentions increased.

Today I follow Chris on Twitter and subscribe to his blog. Why? Over the past 12 months, I have learned a lot about Chris and could summarize him as an expert in the fields of social media, marketing, (human) business and blogging. I believe Chris to be one of the most transparent professionals in the space. He never try’s to force his products on you, obviously his blog is a revenue source for him, but Chris goes so far as to openly declare when he uses an affiliate link and how he is partnered with some of his advertisers. This gives his readers/users confidence in him, in that he’s not trying to trick or manipulate in any way. Chris does a great job of using his knowledge in the space along with transparency to build trust and recognition, thus a platform for multiple successful businesses. I’ve learned a lot from Chris over the past year in particular. Here’s a few things that Chris is involved in/owns, pulled from the post “The Evolution of Chris Brogan”

Escape Velocity

Human Business Works

CrossTech Ventures

The Pulse Network

New Marketing Labs

Kitchen Table Companies

… and of course ChrisBrogan.com. Click over there today and learn more about Chris Brogan.

He is also co-author of an aptly named book, “Trust Agents”. You can look more and purchase via the AFFILIATE link below

Have you had an experience with Chris, or have something to add about why one might follow him, enter your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks!

I’m sure you are aware by now that Google’s enterprise extends far beyond that of a traditional search engine. The tool that I would like to talk about today is the “Wonder Wheel”. A glamorous name for a fun tool that can be accessed via the search engine. Essentially, the “Wonder Wheel” is a tool for searchers to help them find what they are looking for, by providing a very visual look at search terms relative to the keywords they enter into the search field. To access the Wonder Wheel, click over to Google.com (this link opens a new window), enter a search phrase in the search box. A list of results will be displayed. Look at the left column of settings/options, you’ll see “Wonder Wheel” listed underneath “All results” (you may need to click “more search tools”). Click the Wonder Wheel link, this will display Google’s Wonder Wheel. Note that the regular search results will be pushed to the right of the screen so that they are still accessible. You will notice that the Wonder Wheel is a simple spider diagram showing your search phrase in the center with related terms/keywords at the tip of each “leg”. Clicking these related terms will extend the wheel and place the clicked term at the center. As you continue to click deeper into the wheels’ related terms, the search results to the right will continue to change to provide you with relevant results.

How to Use the Wonder Wheel for SEO and SEM

So now you know what the wheel is, how do you use it to improve SEO and for SEM campaigns? Look at Google’s Wonder Wheel as a visual “keyword selector tool“. Although the wheel does not show traffic or search data for the relative terms, its does provide you with a quick look at which terms are relevant to your main keywords. You can see the types of terms that Google perceives as relevant to your keywords of choice, and use them to focus on when optimizing your site for search engines. Maybe you find that your main keywords are just too competitive to have chance at a good ranking? In these cases you can focus on relative keywords that might be less competitive and provide access to similar customers/traffic.

Same goes for your paid search campaigns, the Google Wonder Wheel can help you hone in on relevant terms that you can then enter into your keyword selector tool to assess the competition and search volume for those terms. I’ve found the Google Wonder Wheel to be a great tool for providing a quick high-level overview of relative keywords and phrases, that I can then use as a basis for more in depth research.

Have a Google Wonder Wheel success story? Or something to add? Tell us about it in the comments below.

By the way, here’s Google’s overview of the Wonder Wheel, although it is more from a “searchers” perspective.

Why Did I Write This eBook?

Over the past several years I have spent a lot of time in the SEO field. During this time I have learned that SEO is commonly misconceived by professionals as “plugging in a few keywords in the appropriate places, and your good”. My new eBook, “Beyond Keywords”, puts SEO into perspective and answers many common questions, as well as providing a few strategic step-by-step “how to’s” for implementation.

Click over to the “Beyond Keywords” download page for complete details, including page samples and testimonials.

Thanks!

Learn about building your personal brand by reading “Crush it” by Gary Vaynerchuk.

See link below:

What do you think about branding in today’s online world?

I usually do most of my reading and learning online, via blogs and other informative sites. Occasionally though, I do take a moment to read something in traditional format. When Crush It was handed to me to take a look, I was quickly drawn in to the writing style an finished it soon after. Gary Vaynerchuks book, Crush It! gives you tips and techniques for building a personal brand and monetizing it. Here’s what I thought.

Read the book already? Let me know what you thought in the comments below.

Buy the Gary Vaynerchuk book, Crush It! today.

How Do I Obtain an SSL Certificate?

GoDaddy is a great and cost effective source for an SSL Certificate. Be warned of the various levels of certificates though. The basic level starts out at about $30/year, more “advanced” levels increase by $ as you go up the ranks. Take note of exactly what you are getting for the additional $’s. In my experience, particularly with GoDaddy.com, you are only paying for a color change in the address bar, ie, not actually more security, but instead more security perception. For example, the basic package will secure your site, if you buy the next package, say for an additional $30/year, your site will be secure plus the address bar will turn GREEN clearly indicating to your customers that the site you are on is secure. The actual level of security though remains the same as the basic package. You’ll have to determine if the green bar is worth double the cost of the base package. For me/my clients, basic is good enough. It all depends on your circumstances.