Google Analytics ~ Wow!

[hermione]

I just thought I'd share something nifty I discovered today. Though it's possible everyone else already knows about it, because I'm sort of behind the times when it comes to blogging and stuff. I've been using StatCounter for my other sites for almost 3 years, and I only just started using Google Analytics last week with my blog, and didn't care for it much at first, maybe just because I'm not used to it.

Anyways, I discovered this really cool thing in GA called Click Patterns, under Content --> Overview. If you click on Site Overlay, it opens up your site in a new window with a bar over the top and it shows you the percentage of clicks each link on your pages has gotten.

If you all know about this already, sorry, but I just thought it was the coolest thing and wanted to share in case some of the newer bloggers didn't know about it.

[The Honest Dollar]

I also have a Google Analytics hack that maybe everyone already knows about. Google Analytics "updates" once a day - so when you go to it now it'll show you stats up to yesterday. But you can get almost real time updates (or maybe they are real time?) by putting in today's date as the end date in the date range. This works for all reports.

[hermione]

Originally Posted by The Honest Dollar

I also have a Google Analytics hack that maybe everyone already knows about. Google Analytics "updates" once a day - so when you go to it now it'll show you stats up to yesterday. But you can get almost real time updates (or maybe they are real time?) by putting in today's date as the end date in the date range. This works for all reports.

For some reason, whenever I go to GA to check my stats the date range is always Jan 18th - Feb 17th and I have to change the date range myself every time to see my actual stats after Feb 17th. It's not a huge thing, but it is kind of annoying because sometimes the little date boxes take a few times to register the start and end dates I want.

Does anyone know how to set it so it always shows at least up to yesterday, if not today?

[GOTO Fashion]

Originally Posted by hermione

I just thought I'd share something nifty I discovered today. Though it's possible everyone else already knows about it, because I'm sort of behind the times when it comes to blogging and stuff.

Hermione,

Thanks for posting this! I was looking for something that would offer tracking information for my blog, and this was exactly what I needed. I can't wait to see my first report.

Oh, and thanks to The Honest Dollar for the hack, too.

[khorrell]

Is GA a download, or what is it? I'm so clueless!

Thanks for your help!

[The Honest Dollar]

Originally Posted by khorrell

Is GA a download, or what is it? I'm so clueless!

Thanks for your help!

No, it's a Google service. http://www.google.com/analytics/

You sign up then claim your blog as you would for Technorati. Add a snippet of code to, say, the header of your blog, and Google will automatically track your blog stats for you. Then you go back to that site to view reports.

[hermione]

If you're using WordPress, you can install this plugin:

Google Analytics for WordPress

After you install it, all you have to do is enter in your GA ID, which you'll get after you sign up at Google, and select the settings you want.

This makes it so you won't have to copy and paste the GA code into your templates files; the plugin takes care of it for you. Then go to the GA website to check your stats.

[USCGamecocks]

I personally like Awstats better. Just cleaner, faster, and like everyone previously mentioned the GA where it updates only daily is sort of annoying.

[The Honest Dollar]

Originally Posted by USCGamecocks

I personally like Awstats better. Just cleaner, faster, and like everyone previously mentioned the GA where it updates only daily is sort of annoying.

Actually, like I mentioned above, GA aggregates daily but you can access the real-time stats for today by simply putting in today's date as the end date for all reports.

AWStats might be a little too powerful for most beginning bloggers. GA is much easier to run from the start for people with little programming, blogging, or analytics experience. Plus I've heard a couple of complaints about AWStats; having never used it, I can't testify as to the accuracy of those claims.