Tracking is the fundamental skill that is gong to determine what you need to do with your business.

Remember that repetition is how we learn. Once you have got in to the habit of looking at you stats hundreds of times, it's going to get easier and quicker for you to make the right business decisions.

Here is what I look at:

Visitors
This is great because it is going to tell you were your visitors are coming from. It's going to show you if they are staying on your website or just leaving. Very important as if there leaving straight away, your content quality is low or your not giving them what they want.

Also look at how long they are staying on your website. If it's under 1 minute, it's generally not a good thing.

Traffic Sources
Here you can see what is bringing you the traffic. Which keyword people are typing in to Google to find you. Again it will tell you which pages people like and are working and which ones you need to fix.

Goal/Ecommerce
You want to set up Goals and use Ecommerce if you have it. This is going to tell whats working and what not. Basically you want to do more of whats working and split test and improve what's not.

You want a goal to see how many join your email list and where they came from.

Ecommerce is great because you get the exact Revenue you are making and where it is coming from and your conversion rate also.

Summary
What you can do with GA is HUGE and to much for one blog post.

Just note your metrics are the lifeblood for your business. It shows you whats working and what not and is the basis for all your entire ongoing business strategy.

Hope this helps

Nathan.

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I use GetClicky...

I use GA, so far the best FREE one that I can find =) and yet google is improving it from time to time =)

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