|
By Chris Diede
“What’s the Catch?”
Yes, there is a catch. I’m sure the fine people at Google are nice and all, but this is an awfully valuable tool to be handed out for free (especially considering Urchin used to charge a couple hundred dollars a month for it). Well, let’s think about this for a minute…Google is providing a service that allows you to see in-depth information about your website’s audience, including how they get to your site, the search terms they use, and their buying and browsing habits. Who else gets to see this information? Bingo. Google does.
In the Google Analytics Terms of Service [link: http://www.google.com/analytics/tos.html], it states they will not share information with third parties without your consent or only for legal reasons. Theoretically, they’ll aggregate all this great data about users to help accomplish their mission “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Still, before diving into Google Analytics, you may want to consider how comfortable you are with another company – any company – having access to sensitive information about your business and customer patterns.
Easy to Implement, Harder to Master
If you’re eager to get the kind of information Google Analytics touts (and who wouldn’t be?), and you’re also comfortable with possibly sharing that information with Google, what’s next? The first step is to sign up. [link: http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html] Once your account has been activated, Google will provide a bit of Javascript to include on the pages you wish to track. From there, Google Analytics takes over, and within 24 hours you should be able to view your basic website data. You are now on your way to making your website more usable and relevant.
For advanced configurations and deeper analysis, you may want to consult an interactive agency specializing in search engine optimization and marketing – specifically with Google Analytics experience. An expert in these kinds of tools and the marketplace can provide the technical know-how and monitoring to get the most out of Google Analytics. If you don’t have a statistics tool like Google Analytics in place, you’re losing out on the opportunity to discover more about your customers and what they’re looking for. And chances are if the opportunity is there, your competition is going to take it. Beat them to it.
|
