I’ve been an intensive user of Google’s free “Analytics” service for some time now.

It’s basically a way of seeing exactly what’s going on inside your website - looking at pages viewed, keywords used to access your pages and so on.

OK, that doesn’t sound like rocket science. After all, web log analysis software has been around since the year dot. Most web hosting companies provide free website stats. And many third party solutions (free and paid-for) have been giving this type of service for many years.

But what I particularly like about Google Analytics is the way that you can easily drill down deeper and deeper into your website’s performance.. and just through pasting a bit of code into all your web pages.

All this information can be baffling. It’s important to be able to interpret this wealth of information. That way, knowledge really is power!

I’m not going to try to show you how to interpret Google Analytics stats. Why should I when Google can do it so much better? Here’s a couple of videos for you watch..

Video 1: Interpreting and acting on your data

Video 2: The Google Analytics Interface

If you’ve not already started to use Google Analytics, then I strongly recommend that you do so. Here’s how to get your free Google Analytics account:

 1) If you haven’t get got a Google Gmail account, then get one at:

http://mail.google.com/

2) When you’ve got one, then go and sign up for Google Analytics here:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Now go and really start to understand what’s happening on your websites

Incidentally, if you are using Analytics, please post your comments below.