Measure Traffic Statistics for Your Website

By: Jason Frye Published: Tue, 01/24/2012 - 4:58pm

Did you know you can monitor site traffic for free? The same company that provides you with amazing search results (Google) also offers a free analytics tool called Google Analytics. If you're not monitoring site traffic, then you have little idea how visitors find your site, how long they stick around, and what keywords they use to find your domain. This information is crucial to understanding your online visitors and for measuring your overall online success.  

Google Analytics is not the only site tracking software on the market. There are others, like Open Web Analytics or KissMetrics. But the alternatives often have a price tag (Open Web Analytics does not) and come with less features. So why not free? 

Open a Google Account (so you can then open a Google Analytics account)

  • Visit Google Account Sign up page. 
  • Fill out the account information on the right.
  • Verify that you accept the terms of service with Google.
  • Upon acceptance of the terms and your account information, you will be taken to create your profile. You may choose to have an image with your account, or you can skip to the next step.
  • If you skip, you will be taken to a page where you can click the "Get Started" button. Notice you're logged into Google by looking in the top left for your name that you previously set up.
  • Clicking the "Get Started" button will take you to www.google.com. 

Open a Google Analytics Account

Create Your Website Profile

  • Fill in account information, including your domain address you want to track. 
  • Fill in the next pages -- fill-in and accept, then complete. 
  • At this point you should be taken to a screen that shows your analytics code that needs to be placed on each page of your website. If you have a Content Management System (CMS) you can edit your header area to add the script. Otherwise you'll need to open each HTML page to add the code. You'll want to add the code outside the <body> tags of the page. 

Your Site Statistics

Once you have the code plugged into your site, you will start to see traffic numbers appear in the reporting dashboard of Google Analytics. The service defaults to a monthly view, with the date range ending the previous day. You can change the measured day by clicking on the calendar in the upper right portion of the screen.

Leave a comment with any questions. There'll be a followup post talking about how to create reports from the Analytics service. 

Jason Frye's picture
About Jason Frye
Jason Frye is the Digital Marketing Consultant on the Digital Services team. Jason has been helping small businesses be successful online since 2000. He's the resident expert on search marketing. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @ng_digital or through the Digital Services Facebook Page. He writes about search, social media, and design practices as they affect small businesses.

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