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I recently set up a website and inserted GA code to the website. I am using the GA tool (well, looking at the numbers), but apart from the obvious numbers like #visitors, bounce rate etc, I am a litle bewildered by the sheer volume of data and reports (I have also integrated my Google Adwords account to GA).

Can anyone recommend (preferably) an online resource or book, which explains how to USE the various GA reports/tools to monitor and measure growth metrics of a website?. The Google documentation I have come accross so far are almost useless in this regard, as they seem to focus on telling you how to set things up (i.e. the technical part), for a tech guy like me, what I need is the "business/marketing" side - how do I use this swiss knife to monitor and grow my business - from a practical, no nonsense, day to day point of view?

Does anyone out there have the answer?

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Lynda.com has a good series on Google Analytics Essential Training. I am sure you can find it somewhere on the web or purchase it from them for about $100.

The main reason we use GA is to monitor traffic by different campaigns, cities, and check the popularity of different pages.

There are some features GA does not have. Take a look at CrazyEgg.com for live visitor heatmaps (shows where on the screen users click) Also look into live visitor monitoring if you need to know who is on and when. We use LiveZilla for this (its a free chat software that has visitor monitoring)

Google analytics is a great tool for tracking where your traffic is coming from and how effectively users are interacting with your site and for how long. It gives you dimensions that let you understand your sites audience. If 99% of your users is using Ios then you know that your site's design needs to cater that. GA great for that. Also look into the goals feature, its pretty nifty.

Last, try not to get overwhelmed or put too much time in looking back at the data. Use it to help your marketing plan, and to make tweaks to your site. I have met way too many people that nitpick every record in their GA account, spending upwards of one hour per day.

FB

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Thanks for the link - very useful! – morpheous Nov 11 '10 at 22:37

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