---

There are two fundamental questions regarding web site design and functionality that every site designer needs to answer: Who is your target audience and what is it that you want them to do at your site? The answers to those two questions go a long way towards driving site design as they affect everything from the colors you choose, the kind of navigation you select, and the services that you offer. During the design process the savvy designer/developer keeps these questions firmly in mind as they make their decisions, making assumptions based on what they think people will do at the site.

But what happens after the site is launched? How do you know if you (or your clients) are accomplishing your goals? That mystery requires an analytical service that allows you to track your visitors to your site and what they're doing when they find you. And beyond simply tracking their basic behaviors, it's also incredibly useful to know the computer platform they're using, the browser version, the version of Flash they have installed, and much more. In fact, the more you can find out about your visitors the better off you'll be as you can make any number of inferences from those statistics.

In times past there were only two viable options available for web masters. You could depend on whatever analytic reporting was offered by your hosting service, or pay to have your site tracked by an outside service. (A third "solution"—free hit counters—rarely offered anything of value in terms of statistical analysis.) Now you have another choice. One that provides a phenomenal wealth of information about your site and best of all, it's completely free and is being offered by one of the most trusted names on the web—Google.

Google acquired the search service formerly known as Urchin in 2005, and until just recently Urchin services were only available to a limited few sites that passed Google's muster. While Urchin was being renamed to Google Analytics and the scalability of the service was being tested you were required to submit your site for approval for a free Analytics account and then wait a bit while your site was evaluated. If you were lucky you received an OK letter from Google within a few weeks after which you could insert the little bit of code required to begin tracking visits to your site.

Now that the beta testing is complete Google is providing instant access to Analytics for the asking. All you'll need to do is head over to the Google Analytics home page, request an account, add a tiny chunk of JavaScript to the pages you want to track, then begin tracking your sites. The biggest problem you may face is tearing yourself away from the statistics that Google provides as you'll likely be as amazed as I have been in just how much you can uncover through the simple process of adding just a tiny bit of code to your pages.

In these articles you'll be given a peak behind the curtain at two of the sites that I maintain. One, my personal blog, attracts a far different audience than the school district web site that I maintain. Along the way you'll learn a few practical tips about employing Google Analytics, how to find and interpret the data you'll have access to, and the kinds of inferences you can make from your data.

In Part 1 of this series you saw just how easy it is to add the tracking code that Google uses to examine visitors to your site. With just a tiny bit of JavaScript inserted into your pages you can find out all sorts of things about your site visitors. What kinds of things? Well, read on and you can see for yourself just how rich and varied the data returned by Google Analytics can be. In this article you'll see how data is organized for your quick review and how you can drill down to get even more information. Be forewarned though. The kinds of data analysis you can do on a site can be somewhat addictive, and you may find yourself spending a considerable amount of time looking at all the information Google Analytics provides on your sites.

Related Articles on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

1. Suggestions for SEO
   
2. 5 Sure Ways to Explode your Adsense Revenue
   
3. Make Your Mark on the Internet using SEO
   
4. SEO Secrets to Efficient Web Design
   
5. Social Media Marketing: The Key to a Strong Internet Presence
   
6. How to Utilize SEO and Article Marketing
   
7. SearchRankPros Provides Full Search Engine Optimization Services by SEO Company
   
8. SEO Factors That You Must Keep In Mind
   
9. SEO marketing –Online Business Development
   
10. Choosing the best Search Engine Optimization service
    
11. Enhance your sales using SEO services
    
12. Web Marketing and Sales Profit
    
13. Why India is best for SEO Services
    
14. Web Directory
    
15. Outsourcing SEO campaign to India for technological and cost benefits
    
16. Common Link Building Myths Debunked
    
17. What a perfect Article Submission Service provider can offer?
    
18. Grow Your Business-search Engine Optimization
    
19. Outsource Seo To Grow Business
    
20. How To Easily Convert An Article Into A Press Release
    

Latest Articles on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

1. Five Most Important Considerations In The Development Of Search Engine Promotion.
   Search Engine Promotio No Strategy Whether you’re planning the launch of your first site, or wondering why your site counter is actually moving backward, stop. You need a strategy to promote your site to search engines and to visitors. A plan of action based on five key factors, all of which should be weighed carefully before you take another step....
2. What The Back Links Are
   As for example if you have a website about ornaments and then you receive another back link from a website containing wedding ring collection then it would be more preferable than getting a link from a site about drug test.Inbound links or back links are important as they are the main building blocks of good SEO and more you get relevant links, more you able to popularize your website....
3. Denver Colorado Search Engine Optimization
   Once you have finished with your web site development you need to find a web server to host your website. There are some ways to go about this task. IT is a simple task provided you have access to internet. If you are accessing internet through your college or work place then it is best that you inquire with our office for allowing you to publish web pages using their web server....
4. Outsource To Seo India
   Content writing is a process of rewriting the content in our own words without any evaluation and interpretation meaning. Content writers should have superior command over language, with this content writers should crisp and short sentences. In order to make your paragraph lengthy do not give wrong information to the readers, giving wrong information will make your article unauthentic....
5. Parameter Of Judging The Relevancy Of The Back Links
   Back links are nothing but an important thing to build a good SEO. Rather it can be said that Back links have become so important to the scope of Search Engine Optimization, that they have become some of the main building blocks to good SEO. At first in this article we will discuss what a back links is....
6. Some Updates Of Google Search Engine
   Search engine optimization is not just to rank in search engines but mainly to achieve a good click through rate from the targeted visitors. This means that your web site should come up in the search results of the search engines with targeted keywords that are related to your content or theme of your site....
7. Seo Packages
   There are various SEO services providing different results, but all of them require to focus on Internet keywords as their leading factor. It's only with this initial step of discovering the Internet keywords that SEO services could lead websites toward the right destinations. Otherwise, the entire SEO efforts will be in vain....
8. Converting Your Visitors With Search Engine Optimization
   Search engine optimization, especially when integrated with aggressive search engine marketing, can send thousands of targeted visitors searching for information on, or seeking to buy products and services from, your website. Getting visitors to your website, however, is only half the battle. As successful as your SEO/SEM efforts may be in driving traffic to your site,...
9. A Brief Discussion On Reciprocal Links
   One of the most vital part of the link building in Search Engine Optimization is the reciprocal link building. To promote the growth in the ranking of the website this is one of the most important things that you need to do. It is somewhat like an agreement that one website would post the link of another website while the other would do the same in return....
10. Seo Your Blog For Better Ranking
    You can optimize your blog for better search engine ranking. It is true that most of the traffic which comes to your blog is from other websites and blogs, not of the same subjects, but the search engines can send you lots of traffic and you can really leverage this potential by optimizing your blog for better search engine rankings....

Related topics in Computers and Internet

Submit Articles © 2009 KeepArticles.com, All Rights Reserved.