Google Analytics & Social Marketing Go Hand in Hand
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Testing and tracking is a huge component to running a successful business long term. Without it you really have no clear picture as to what your current situation is, what is doing good and what needs improving.
With a blog or website:
- understanding where your traffic is coming from
- what pages they are going to and
- where they are leaving from are crucialThe easiest way to understand this in my opinion is by using the free Google Analytics service.
Yes, there are other free and paid services but none of the free services can even compare to analytics in our opinion and yes many of the paid services are extremely effective but are not realistic (nor necessary in our opinion) for the average person.
When starting a new Web 2.0 (Social Media) promotional campaign, you are going to be testing lots of different sites and you want to understand if these sites are even worth while.
Part of this process is using lots of different sites but filtering out the ones that do not provide good results, eliminating them and then adding in new sites and Google Analytics is a great tool in understanding this.
For any of you that have never used Analytics, do not worry. First of all, the process to implement Analytics is extremely easy and only takes a couple minutes, assuming you already have a Google Adwords account. If you do not have an free AdWords account you really NEED to get one… the extra tools Google gives is very worthwhile.
Once you have the analytics account then translating the data into useful information is very easy once you know what to look for and we will go through that in detail over the next few days and you when we are done you will wish you would have been doing this a long time ago 
All you need to be concerned with right now is implementing it… translating it is not needed until you have a few weeks of data to actually look at.
If you did not already sign up for a Google Adwords account… PLEASE DO SO NOW. I mentioned earlier in some posts that you should to do this for the keyword tools but you also want to gain access to all the other fantastic tools and services that are included such as Analytics and the Website Optimizer.
To add analytics to your blog there are two easy ways you can do this; one is to use a plugin and the other is to enter the code directly into your wordpress template, both are very easy to do… the plugin of course being the easiest
Part 1: Using The Analytics Plugin
Step 1: Download the Google analytics plugin from…
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analyticator/
…and install and activate it on your blog.
Step 2: Log into your Google Adwords account and click on the “Analytics” tab on the top of the page.
Step 3: Click on the “Add Websites Profile” link.
Step 4: Leave the box checked that says “Add a Profile for a new domain” and then enter the URL of your blog. You can leave the box checked for applying adwords data…. it will not hurt anything. Then click “Finish.”
Step 5: Click on “New Tracking Code (ga.js)“ and copy all of the provided code that Google gives you into a .txt file. You only need the Google Analytics UID which is between _uacct = “UA-11111-1″; in the JavaScript.
Step 6: In the drop down menu for “Google Analytics logging is:” click on “Enable”.
TIP –> Not all themes support this but it is better to have your analytics in the footer of the page to allow the page to load much faster and so to enable this scroll down to “Footer tracking code:” and select enabled. You will then need to log out of your admin and then go to the index of your blog and refresh the page (make sure you are logged out). Now view source and you should see the anaytics near the footer of your page. If you can not find it then your theme might not support this function.
Step 7: Go back to your analytics account and click the “Check Status” to verify that your code has been entered correctly.
Part 2 –>Adding Analytics Directly into Your Template
Step 1: Log into your Google Adwords account and click on the “Analytics” tab on the top of the page.
Step 2: Click on the “Add Websites Profile” link.
Step 3: Leave the box checked that says “Add a Profile for a new domain” and then enter the URL of your blog. You can leave the box checked for applying Adwords data…. it won’t upset anything. Then click “Finish.”
Step 4: Click on “New Tracking Code (ga.js)“ and copy all of the provided code that Google gives you.
Step 5: Log into your WordPress admin account and go to Design –> Theme Editor and then click on the footer.php
Note: If under the template code box you do not see the “Update Now” button then you will have to change the permissions for that page. To do that, use your favorite ftp software and go to…
/public_html/wp-content/themes/yourthemename/
…click once on the footer.php file and then right click and depending on what FTP software you’re using, select “properties” or “permissions” and change the permissions to read/write access.
Step 6: In your WordPress admin area, paste the analytics code in the footer.php template directly above the </body>
Step 7: Go back to your analytics account and click the “Check Status” to verify that your code has been entered correct.
Congratulations your Analytics is set up and you will soon start to be gathering some very powerful data!
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Part 1: Google Analytics – Installing
Part 2: Google Analytics – Keywords
Part 3: Google Analytics – Incoming Links
Part 4: Google Analytics – Outgoing Traffic
Part 5: Google Analytics – Content
Part 6: Google Analytics – Tracking with JavaScript Events
Part 7: Google Analytics – Creating Goals
Original post:Google Analytics & Social Marketing Go Hand in Hand For Copywriters Only: A Guaranteed Way To Eliminate Writer?s Block Forever Starting With Your Next Sales Letterby at free google adwords – Google Blog Search Blog tag: Free google adwords Technorati tag: Free google adwords
John Cow dot ComGoogle Analytics & Social Marketing Go Hand in HandPosted: 21 Jul 2008 08:44 AM CDT
Javascript events (create for affiliate marketing) We will cover one topic per day only (trying to keep our posts a little shorter), each lesson will assume that you have already installed Analytics (if not then read yesterdays post on InstallingGoogle Analytics) and will end with a “Purpose” that explains how we use the info. Today we are going to talk first about… Google Analytics for Keywords: One of the first things we like to look at with Google Analytics is what keywords are being used to find
Yeah, I use Analytics on my sites. It’s really great. I just wish it updated in real-time.
Yes, I currently use Google Analytics, but I don’t think that I analyze my blog traffic as much as I should.
a lot of people probably fall into that same category… hopefully after our next few posts you will improve on that
I’ve used Analytics for some time and it is incredibly useful information to test with.
I’ve also saved a lot of money by shutting down adwords campaigns that don’t convert… thanks to the data from Analytics.
It’s so funny. I literally just installed Google Analytics on my blog 2 minutes before reading this post. Purely a coincidence. I was using something called Hittail, but I didn’t like it so I tried to switch to Statcounter but I couldn’t get it to work right. I didn’t realize Google Analytics was free until today….so I signed up. Anyway…JohnCow is the s%$t! Much success to all!
Besido – Novice AffiLiate.coms last blog post.."Add This To Your Social Networking List!"
Yep, I am too using Google Analytics on some of my sites , while on others I prefer Stat Counter to analyze the traffic.
They both are equally effective, it just that Google Analytics has got wonderful graphics but runs a day late whereas Stat Counter has poor graphics ( plus ads) but updates in real time.
Johnys last blog post..Is it just unbelievable or……
If ever there was an article that vindicated my using Google Analytics – this is the one
Looking forward to learning how to get the best out of that bad boy, now.
Cheers, JC,
Scotty
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I am using google analytic. But I dont know how to use it.
kasims last blog post..Add album art to any music folder
I put analytics on my site last week, and so far i love it. Not alot to go on at the moment but with another week or two of data I can start to analyse, prioritise and act on what I find!
The Dudes last blog post..Beginners Guide to Flash – Part 3 – Basic Vector Drawing in Flash
GA is really great tool, but i would like to see some “simple page html based all traffic and data result shown there”
Make Money Talkss last blog post..List of quality webmaster freebies – part 4/5 (Free Templates)
[...] assume that you have already installed Analytics (if not then read yesterdays post on Installing Google Analytics) and will end with a “Purpose” that explains how we use the [...]
I like your co-relation between Google Analytics and Social Media.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, I had used a different plugin…that couldn’t use the new code…I am in the process of switching. Do you think I will need to remove the old code?
JK Swopess last blog post..IMwithJoe weekly report and goals for the week 7-21-08
You do not want to have both the old and new code if that is what you are asking. Personally I like the new code better anyway.. offers more data. Remove all the old code from your blog.
Yeah, that’s sort of what I was asking. Moreso, will the plugin replace all the old code…or just add to it…hmmmm….
JK Swopess last blog post..IMwithJoe weekly report and goals for the week 7-21-08
I assume you were using the semilogic plugin for analytics and when you disable the plugin, it will remove the analytics, so it will nto keep both on your blog.
Yep…I can verify this is correct. I just checked the source for all the sites I installed the plugin on, and the newness shows up. What, if you don’t mind me asking…should I notice differently as far as the data it collects?
Will you be covering that in the series?
JK Swopess last blog post..IMwithJoe weekly report and goals for the week 7-21-08
I swear you type up your question and just wait for me to comment before you hit send lol
I do not plan on covering that, sorry. But you can read about it at…
http://www.google.com/analytics/GATCmigrationguide.pdf
Ahhhh, the joy of email subscriptions lol……
Thanks for the guide.
JK Swopess last blog post..IMwithJoe weekly report and goals for the week 7-21-08
Google Analytics is the best tool i think to monetize many things about your blog and i really love to know and use it…
shawals last blog post..Blog Mastermind Opening Videos by Yaro Starak
My Analytics helps me a lot in finding the right keywords to optimize.
Chips last blog post..Link Of The Day
I miss being able to see spider activity like from urchin. I know there are other ways. Are there any that you recommend to see spidering activity.
Please don’t say “google webmaster tools” What a joke that is. When it is working, there are a few good things in there. But who knows what to believe.
One other question..Do you know if there is a way to filter out robots and such hitting your comments with spam? Or does ganalytics not count those automatically?
Thanks John
[...] assume that you have already installed Analytics (if not then read yesterdays post on Installing Google Analytics) and will end with a “Purpose” that explains how we use the info. Today we are going [...]
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hey John,
regarding PART 1:
when I click on the Analytics tab, I get at the bottom (in italian) something like: “Analytics does already exists for the Adwords account. Contact the administrator of the Adwords account to get access to Analytics.”
BUT I’m the owner of that acoount
What do I have to do ?
TIA
ciao
alex
I missed to add that, due the above message, I’m unable to do the steps required from STEP 2.
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Google analytics, statcounter, and blog stats plugin for wordpress are the preferred weapons of choice for my traffic analysis.
Mootastic
[...] 1: Google Analytics – Installing Part 2: Google Analytics – Keywords Part 3: Google Analytics – Incoming Links Part 4: Google [...]