Do you monitor who visits your website? Why not? Jul 30th '10

The golden rule of marketing is to test and measure, allowing you to work out exactly what aspects of your marketing are working effectively. Your website is included in this yet many companies still do not monitor who visits their website. Do you fall into this category? If so this post gives you a step by step guide on how to get started.

Your options

There are many websites out there which can offer this service on your website. Most of them are very easy to setup and produce graphs and detailed statistics. Below is a list of a couple, some you may not recognise but I’m sure you will recognise one.

• Google Analytics
• Mint
• Woopra
• Clicky

Some of the above are free and some are paid. Google Analytics is the big one and is probably the most popular however there are alternatives available. Since Google Analytics is the most widely uses I will outline how to get it setup.

Setting up an account

To use Google Analytics you will need a Google account, most of you will probably already have one, however if you don’t you can simply create one for free. Your Google account can also be used for Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa and any other Google service.

Adding your website

Once logged into your Google Analytics account you will need to create a new profile for your website. This is done by clicking on the link in the top right of the table, as shown in the image to the left.

The whole signup process is well documented, this next stage just requires you to enter in the website address that you want to add Google Analytics to. Be aware, as you will see at the next stage, you will need direct access to the website code—so you can’t add a competitors website and track their statistics!

Pasting the code

This is the stage where you need direct access to your website. If you have access to the code (either through a control panel or FTP) then great! If not then you will need to pass the code shown to your web designer or the person that maintains your website. The code needs to be added towards the bottom of each page, just below the tag. If your site uses “headers” and “footers” then you can place it in the “header” file and let it automatically effect every page on your site.

Complete, sit back and wait

Once all the above steps have been completed, Google will monitor your website and display graphs and tables of your data within your Analytics account.

If you need advice or support in understanding exactly what is displayed in your Google Analytics account, please feel free to get in touch.

Written by Oliver Culverhouse

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