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Tracking, measuring and optimizing website traffic and performance is integral to online success. As it turns out, it can also be fun, especially when it's free. Google Analytics is the free, online web analytics solution that can be used standalone or in tandem with other advertising and analysis tools such as Google AdWords and Google Website Optimizer.

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Hosted on the same enterprise platform that supports Google's world-class search engine, Google Analytics is safely used by Fortune 500 companies, ecommerce startups, and celebrity bloggers to track, measure and optimize website performance. Friendly to both marketers and webmasters, Google Analytics presents an easy-to-use online interface and a growing collection of features for discovering how users access site content, utilize new features and respond to ecommerce and lead-generation campaigns.

Google Analytics was launched as a free, online tool suite in November 2005. It compares to commercial products such as Coremetrics, VisiStat, and Hitbox.

Website measurement and optimization with Google Analytics

When the Huffington Post required web analytics software to evaluate the success of story formats, news, and other featured content on the site, it turned to Google Analytics. "We needed to continuously isolate our products -- news, editorial, blogs and more -- and see how each one was performing over time," says Chief Technology Officer Paul Berry. Whereas most web analytics tools come at a price, Google Analytics is free.

"Google Analytics gives us all the features of a high-end analytics package and delivers the data we need to continuously optimize site performance. And at no charge, the price is right," says Berry.

Websites using Google Analytics to track visitor activity and monitor site performance include:

Agency.com
ACS
BuildDirect
Carolina Rustica
CKE Restaurants
Discount Tire
RE/MAX
TCHO
Vueling
Weather Bill
WNYC
Yelp
PBS

Google Analytics software is also used by bloggers to track and improve blog content. Commonly measured factors include:

Top referring sites
Most-searched keywords
Where AdSense pays

Using Google Analytics

After http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html creating a Google Analytics account, a user adds a Google Analytics Tracking Code http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/03/back-to-basics-install-your-tracking.html (a snip of JavaScript that can be included in page templates) to pages on the website. The code enables Google Analytics to track visitor activity and sort the information. After 24 hours, a new user can login to Google Analytics and begin using its many features to understand visitor activity.

New users typically start out by using Google Analytics Graph Mode to study statistics such as daily unique, new, and returning visitors; average time on site; keyword conversions; and bounce rate. As users become more sophisticated, they can set up new campaign goals, compare benchmarks with similar sites, generate automated email reports, and even access the Google Analytics API to create new features or customize existing ones.

Technical support is available from the following sources: