One of the most excellent tracking and analytics software tool around today, is the Google Analytics. Majority of the leading sites now employ Google Analytics in tracking down their visitors. If you check through the sites that rank high on Google, virtually all of them have the Google Analytics set up. Do not underestimate the utility of this valuable tool, just because the software is obtained and used at no cost. If it is correctly used, Google Analytics can offer you what it takes to transform your website from the ‘usual’ to an ‘unusual’.

The number of reports you gain access to with Google Analytics is quite astonishing. It can be used to optimize your website performance and hence your sales and profits.

How to Set Up Google Analytics

If you look ahead to receive the most desirable website statistics, then it is compulsory to correctly set up Google Analytics. You may follow the below given procedure:

• Sign up for Google Analytics if you haven’t done that yet

• You will be prompted to include your website. Do that and subsequently paste the provided tracking script on your site pages one after another.

• Next, click on Analytics Settings; have the website profile edited and establish goals for your website. Ensure that you add the thank you page – this is where your visitors are taken to following their completion of your online product purchase form; this step is very crucial and makes a better level of reporting detail available.

Now that tracking code is in place on each page of your website and you have set up your conversion goals, just commence with the analysis of your website in order to enhance its performance.

Essential Analytics Reports

The reports outlined here are very essential in understanding the source of your traffic and the manner in which they interact with your website.

• The Top Traffic Sources: you can access this report at Traffic Sources and it will give you information on where your traffic is coming from. The tool generally shows you referring sites, search engines, paid ads and others. When you know the exact source of your traffic, this will help you determine where to target your resources so that you can achieve maximum leverage.

• Keywords: to access this report, go to Traffic Sources, then to keywords. This will display keywords that web visitors are searching for - on Google and other search engines to get to your website. Having a solid knowledge about the keywords that are generating your website conversions will help you refocus your SEO to such result-oriented keywords.

• Search Engines: the search engines report reveals the search engines that are driving traffic to your site. If your website optimization is Google-based, it very possible that most of your traffic comes from Google. The search engine reports help you know which search engine to focus your SEO efforts on.

• Top Content: you can access this report from the Content Menu; it will reveal the most widely sought after pages of your website.

There are other numerous Google Analytics Reports as well, that are quite valuable and helpful.