Google Analytics Review for Bloggers

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that integrates seamlessly with other Google products. For people who use Google's Blogger blogging application, it's incredibly easy to track your blog traffic statistics with Google Analytics. For bloggers who use different blogging applications such as WordPress or TypePad, it takes just a few minutes to create the necessary tracking code and paste it into your blog to begin tracking traffic. In fact, many WordPress theme developers include features within their themes so WordPress bloggers can simply paste their Google Analytics code into a specified field in their WordPress dashboards rather than pasting it into their theme CSS files.

Once you register for a free Google account (if you don't already have one), you can create your tracking code by following very easy onscreen instructions. If you can use your blogging application, you can follow the directions to create and add the necessary Google Analytics tracking code to your blog. Once the code is added, Google begins to track traffic to and from your blog. You can access statistics related to the search engines and websites that send traffic to your blog, how much traffic each page and post on your blog receives, how long people stay on your blog when they visit, and much more.

You can view data by custom date ranges and even see an overlay of your actual blog with traffic statistics such as click percentages, so you can get an idea of which links are getting the most attention and clicks. Reports can be downloaded in a variety of formats, too. You can even set up custom reports and goals for tracking.

You're not limited to a single blog when you use Google Analytics. You can track multiple blogs through a single Google account and keep those statistics separate. You can also give other people access to specific blog traffic reports in Google Analytics, which is very useful for people who own team blogs or blogs for their businesses.

What Google Analytics Cannot Do for Bloggers

Google Analytics offers a huge amount of data, information, and reports to bloggers, but there are some negatives you should be aware of. For example, you can't get direct support if you're having problems when you're using Google Analytics. However, you can post questions to the online support forum or browse through the limited online Help documents.

Also, it can be challenging for some people to learn how to use the reports and data available to you through Google Analytics unless they conduct their own educational research online or through a course or book. The Google Analytics tools are powerful and free, but you have to figure out how to use them and analyze the data they provide on your own. Google doesn't teach you or hold your hand through the process.

It's important to understand that the data provided by Google Analytics isn't perfect. However, no analytics tool is perfect. Google Analytics does have a reputation of being more accurate than other free analytics tools and even some paid analytics tools.

Bottom-line

Google Analytics is undoubtedly the best free web analytics tool, and it offers plenty of features for the vast majority of bloggers. Even many power bloggers use Google Analytics.

Specifically, Google Analytics is very easy to set up and to use, and it integrates seamlessly with Google AdSense, Google Webmaster Tools, and other Google products.

While there are other high-priced analytics tools available, try Google Analytics before you invest in any type of paid analytics tool. It's highly likely that you'll be satisfied with Google Analytics and won't need to spend a penny on any other tool to track your blog's performance.