Tips/Links To Set Up Google Analytics

I use Google Analytics to collect different data on my websites. It’s free, easy to set up, and makes charts and graphs. I don’t really consider myself a researcher or numbers person but I do love a nice chart and/or graph. I want this information because it shows me how many times people view my websites and gives me a bit of an idea of which posts people view the most.

So, what does this has to do with you? Well, if you have any kind of website, as most people in private practice do, you will want this information. This way you’ll have an overall picture of your online marketing campaign… specifically: if people are accessing your company website, how they found out about it, and which areas of your website they are looking at.

Here are some links and tips to get you started:

‘Product Tour’ for Google Analytics – Here’s a video that tells you about all the great things Google Analytics (GA) does. Google calls GA a product but don’t be confused, it’s free. Even if you already have GA, check out this video anyway… it’s really informative. Also, ‘GA’ is my personal shorthand for Google Analytics that I made up… I don’t think this is a universal abbreviation.
Sign Up for GA – Here’s the link. Follow their instructions.
Don’t forget to include ALL of your websites - I have a blog, a company website, and an Etsy Store. So I have GA tracking ALL of them. (I also have a YouTube Channel, but I don’t believe GA tracks that for free. So, I just go to YouTube Insight for that info.)
Exclude your computer from being counted – I look at my own websites all the time and I don’t want that counted in my GA statistics. You can set up your GA account so that your computer is excluded from your statistics. Here’s the tutorial I used to accomplish this. (Thanks to Andrew Littlefield from MTI in the ATL.)