Chapter 8: Working with Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most important tools in the search engine optimization (SEO) world; it helps you obtain information about website traffic, page views, where users click when they visit a website, and where visitors live. Google Analytics enables you to analyze a website to learn more about it. You can then apply this information to optimize your website.
Create a Google Analytics Account
Create a New Analytics Account
Exclude Traffic from a Specific IP
Create a Google Analytics Account
The Google account gives you access to different Google services, including Google Analytics. Each website or group of websites needs to have a Google Analytics account, which you create when you sign up. You can add one or more websites to track and analyze this account. You can also create a separate Analytics account for each website, which is known as a Property. For example, you can create a Google Analytics account for a specific website and its related sub-domains for better management. You can manage Analytics accounts and Properties from the Admin page.
Create a Google Analytics Account
Type www.google.com/analytics in your web browser and press 
.
Click Create an account.
The Google Analytics sign up page appears.
Click Sign up to create a new Analytics account.
Note: If you are signing in with an existing account, you will be transferred to the Google Analytics home page.
The Account Administration page appears.
Click Web Site.
Type the website name to set up the name of the initial property in the account.
Type the website URL.
Click the Industry Category pop-up menu and select a website niche.
Click the Reporting Time Zone pop-up menus and select a country of origin and a time zone.
Scroll down the page.
The rest of the form fields appear.
Type the account name in the Account Name field.
Click the Data Sharing Settings option (
changes to 
).
Click Get Tracking ID.
The Google Analytics Terms of Service page appears.
Click I accept to receive a Tracking ID.
Install Google Analytics Code
Google Analytics tracking code is a snippet of code that Google assigns to each property or website to track its traffic and visitor information, such as the links visitors click, their web browser versions, their countries, and more. You can get the tracking code by clicking the Get Tracking ID button when you create a new account or property, or you can get it by accessing each account property’s information page in Analytics Admin. Then, you can copy the code and paste it into your HTML page before the </head> closing tag.
Install Google Analytics Code
Click Sign in on Google Analytics.
The Google Analytics Account Home page appears.
Click Admin.
The Account Administration page appears.
Click the account; for example, Online Business.
The All Accounts page appears.
Click the property name; for example, the Online Business Monster property.
The Google Analytics code provides a trusted way to track your website traffic and visitor information. This information is essential for the SEO process because it allows you to monitor website traffic, the high SERP (search engine results page) content, and other information. You can use this information to refine the SEO process for your website and track the progress of each optimization task to determine the best SEO techniques for your website. For example, you can use the Analytics data to figure out the SERP keywords that bring the most traffic to your website and other keywords that you can optimize to get better SERP rankings.
The Accounts Properties page appears
Click the Tracking Info tab.
The Tracking tab is active.
Scroll down to the tracking code section.
Click and drag to select and then press 
+
(
+) to copy the tracking code.
In the HTML document, position the mouse pointer before the </head> closing tag.
Press .
Press +
(+) to paste the tracking code.
Press +
(+) to save the document.
After the code is inserted, it takes around few days to display the website statistics.
Create a New Analytics Account
Google Analytics allows you to create multiple accounts on your dashboard and each account can include one or more properties. You can use this option to organize your Analytics dashboard, especially when you have large list of websites to track. For example, you can create an account for a specific website and its sub-domains. The sub-domains are websites hosted under the main website server and domain name. For example, you can have the website www.sitename.com with the sub-domains http://faq.sitename.com and http://help.sitename.com. Arranging the websites help you to get better tracking for the sites and share it with your teamwork.
Create a New Analytics Account
Click Admin on the Google Analytics home page.
The Accounts Administration page appears.
Click New Account.
The New Account page appears.
Click Web Site.
Type the website name to set up the name of the initial property in the account.
Type the website URL.
Click the Industry Category pop-up menu and select a website niche; for example, Healthcare.
Scroll down the page.
Click the Reporting Time Zone pop-up menus and select a country or origin and a time zone.
Type the account name in the Account Name field.
Click Get Tracking ID.
The Google Analytics Terms of Service page appears.
Click I accept to receive a Tracking ID.
Add a New Property Website
Under each site account in Google Analytics, you can add one or more websites, which are known as Properties. These Properties appear under the main site account in the Admin page. Each website has its own tracking code, which you will need to install in the website in order to track the website statistics and analyze them in Google Analytics. You can use this Accounts and Properties structure to organize your sites and their related domains and sub-domains. Also, you can use it to organize related websites under the main site account.
Add a New Property Website
Click Admin on the Google Analytics home page.
The Account Administration page appears.
Click an account; for example, Online Business.
The Account page appears.
Click + New Property (web or app).
The new property page appears.
Click Web Site.
Type the website name to set up the name of the initial property in the account.
Type the website URL.
Click the Industry Category pop-up menu and select a website niche.
Click the Reporting Time Zone pop-up menus and select a country or origin and a time zone.
Click Get Tracking ID.
After receiving the tracking code, you can install it on your website.
View Website Analytics
Standard Reporting appears on the Analytics page. It includes information on Unique Visitors, counted once during their visits, and New Visitors, visiting for the first time.
Page views indicates how many pages visitors view. Page/Visit shows the number of pages each user visits. Avg. Visit Duration shows how long users browse the website, and Bounce Rate indicates the percentage of users visiting the page and then leaving without viewing other pages.
View Website Analytics
Click All Web Site Data or your own profile name from the Analytics Account Home page.
The Standard Reporting page appears.
Click the Data Range down arrow (
).
The Data Range timeline appears.
Click a starting date to set the start of the data range.
Click an ending date to set the end date for data range.
Click Apply.
The website statistics for the period chosen appear.
Add Multiple Users
Google Analytics allows you to add multiple users to specific accounts and allow them to view Account Properties statistics. Newly created users can be the User or Administrator. You can set the specific website Profile to display for the User. The Profile shows property data in a custom way; for example, it can show only the traffic from Google organic search. The Administrator account can view all the available properties for the account. The multiple users feature is very useful when you are part of a team that would like to share website statistics.
Add Multiple Users
Click an account on the Account Administration page.
The Account page appears.
Click the Users tab.
The Users page appears.
Click the + New User tab.
The new user form appears.
Type the user’s e-mail address.
Click the User role option (
changes to 
).
Click the Notify this user by email check box ( changes to ).
Click your profile name.
Click Add.
Click Add User.
The user will receive a notification and then be able to see the website reports.
View Real-Time Statistics
Real-time statistics show you live updates for website analytics. When you click the Property analytics, you get gathered information and statistics about the website. By clicking the Real-Time option on the Analytics web page, you can view live information about the website’s current number of visitors, the locations of those visitors, the traffic sources these visitors come use, and the currently visited content. You can also click the Overview link to view a summary of all live data.
View Real-Time Statistics
Click All Web Site Data or your own profile name on the Google Analytics Account Home page.
The Website Analytics page appears.
Click Real-Time under Standard Reports.
The Real-Time submenu expands.
Click Overview.
A The Real-Time Overview statistics expand, showing live information about the website visitors.
Exclude Traffic from a Specific IP
Every Google Analytics profile allows you to add Filters, which allow you to exclude specific data from appearing in the profile. For example, you can use them to hide traffic information from your IP. The Internet Protocol (IP) address is a set of numbers assigned to each website. Usually, you need to check the website frequently while testing and developing content from your own browser setting. The analytics information about your own website visits is not important and may be misleading. Using Filters to exclude your IP data can help you to get more accurate traffic data.
Exclude Traffic from a Specific IP
Click the account name in the Account Admin page.
The account admin page appears.
Click Filters.
The Filters page appears.
Click +New Filter.
The New Filter page appears.
Type your filter name.
Click the Predefined filter option ( changes to ).
Click the Filter type pop-up menu and select Exclude.
Click the pop-up menu and select traffic from the IP addresses.
Click the pop-up menu and select that are equal to.
Type the IP address in the fields.
Click All Web Site Data.
Click Add.
Click Save.
The filter is added and will apply to all the web site data.
Set a Conversion Goal
Google Analytics’ Conversion Goals enable you to measure if you are achieving your objectives. It tracks actions giving you ideas about your progress in achieving a specific result. This goal can be the time users spend on your website or the number of page views. You set goals at the profile level and are limited to four sets of goals. Each set is limited to five goals, which means that each profile has a maximum of 20 goals. The four types of goals are URL Destination, Visit Duration, Page/View, and Event.
Set a Conversion Goal
Click Goals or your own profile name on the All Web Site Data page.
The Goals section appears.
Click +Goal under the Goals (set 1).
The Goal setting appears.
Type your goal in the Goal Name field.
Click the Visit Duration option under the Goal Type section ( changes to ).
The Visit Duration setting appears.
Click the Condition pop-up menu and select Greater than.
Type the hours and/or minutes in the Hours and Minutes fields; for example, type 10 in the Minutes field.
Click Save.
The goal appears in the Goals tab as one of the goals of your account and also on the Analytics home page under the Conversions section.
Find Website Keywords
One of the advantages of using Google Analytics is it allows you to find the keywords that give you the best ranking in different search engines. Once you identify these keywords, you can build new content that targets them to increase search engine traffic. You can also monitor new keywords to see if they increase traffic to your website. This feature is very helpful and an essential part of the SEO process, because it shows you the direct impact of keyword optimization on the website traffic.
Find Website Keywords
Click All Web Site Data, or your own profile name on the Analytics Account Home page.
The Standard Reporting page appears.
Click Traffic Sources to expand the menu.
Click Sources.
The Sources link expands.
Click Search.
The Search link expands.
Click Organic.
The organic traffic appears in the statistics.