If you have a blog or website, and are interested in keeping track of the traffic that visits your site Google has a wonderful FREE (Isn’t there some rule that says that the word “free” must be written all in caps? I’m pretty sure there is, but I’m too lazy to get up and consult Strunk and White.) tool. Google Anayltics tells you who is visiting your site and how long they spend there and which pages they visit. There are all sort of pretty graphs and charts and things, most of which I don’t entirely understand.
But the number one reason you should use Google Analytics is that you can find out what search terms are bringing people to your website. Without Google Analytics, how would I know that one of the top search terms that bring folks to this website is, “poems about making a deal with the devil”. Well, I don’t know about you, but I certainly feel enriched by that bit of random data.
I feel like I should do something with this valuable marketing information, but I have know idea what to do with it. Do you use Google Analytics? What is the weirdest search term that has brought people to your web site?
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This is fabulous! Thank you so much for posting this. I’m going to the link right now!
.-= Heather´s last blog ..Plot Point 1 Of Your Novel =-.
This is interesting! But how do you do it???
Heather: I find statistics sort of interesting, though the most interesting are those oddball search terms.
Kathy: You are probably asking the wrong person for technical advice. I know with blogger.com blogs it’s just a matter of clicking a single button or something, but I had a much more challenging time getting it set up on WordPress. There’s some code on the Google Analytics site that you are supposed to copy and past into your website, but I must have done this wrong. So, then I was able to find a WordPress Widget that did it automatically for me, and that worked great. You’re probably sorry you asked, as I realize this explanation probably makes no sense at all.
We use StatCounter and are quasi obsessed with tracking who’s on our blog and website on a day-to-day basis. Although, we’ve calmed down a bit now that we’re not on sub anymore. We were close to having to go to stat rehab there for a while….
.-= Lisa´s last blog ..Happy (almost) Birthday Laura! =-.
I’m another StatCounter user. I’m happy with it but might take a peek to see what Google offers.
.-= Marty´s last blog ..Don’t judge a book by it’s cover? =-.
Lisa: I’m sure there must be some sort of 12 step program. It can be very addictive!
Marty: Okay, I’ll have to check out stat counter and see what it’s all about.