I love playing around with numbers. But it is one thing to be creating a 3000 hour project plan (in the middle of what you could call a million other insignificant things) and a totally different thing to be fooling around with the one of the zillion cool tools from Google.
About a month ago, a friend sent me this email (verbatim).
“I’m doing it again! Yes, marketing Google technology… now get your butt here right now and paste the 4 line code in your blog and watch magic happen.
The tool is amazing, belongs to Google and is free… need I say more? :-)”
From that email, as you can see, I understood absolutely nothing! But after reading those words “… watch magic happen…” you’re not left with much choice, are you? I cursed him under my breath for being his usual inexplicit self and tried to focus my peanut-sized brain on what exactly Analytics really was!
In simple words, it’s a site tracking tool! But oh, GoOgLe can’t ever be explained that simply can it?
But when I drilled into the tool, I found that it wasn’t any different from my project schedule, really! Try and average out the number of days to completion, resources, completion percentage, milestones, and a loads of other project-related tasks … to … the number of visitors per day, who visited your site, from where, how long did their visit last, most popular posts, goals (if you’ve set any) and a million other important stuff about your site as opposed to the load of totally trivial data that goes into my project plan (Phew! I pray my boss isn’t reading this!)
Anyway, here’s the summary page (you’re gonna have to click on each of those images to see it a bit more legibly)
With only a little more than 5% of my visitors returning to my page, it appears, my visitor loyalty is pretty low. :-/
See those top three references below? Thanks to Supernova, Mush, and Sunday Scribblings in that order. :)
This one’s interesting: Google actually gives you a list of search terms that led to your site. Apparently, the schnappi song has been the most popular search term. Check out the one highlighted in red. No seriously, what were they looking for? :-/
As you can see, I’m absolutely in love with this number crunching tool, simply because I keep finding newer and newer things about it everyday!
I’m not gonna tell you anymore about what Analytics can do for you on a click of the mouse. Like my friend said, you may want to get your butt there yourself! ;)
20 comments:
Amazing tool thanks to both Prakash and You
all these truly looks impressive G3! Overwhelms me cos i am such an IT goondoo! gd to know i am one of your loyal followers = ) heh heh heh Will ask B to look at it one his day off - thanks for sharing!
One piece of advice...
Set aside 3000 hour project plan and get into Search Engine Optimization as a career.
Obviously, thats where your talents are! :)
When I put Statcounter on my Blog I got addicted. It's so funny to see why people got into your blog. When it comes to mine, people seem to be obsessed about love and pride, so they frequently ask Google: is love stronger than pride?
How is google gonna know? lol ;)
Very nice! I'll try it too...
g3,
if you havent yet used the "personalized" homepage on google, then try adding this analytics add-on/ widget which'd let you view your traffic on an hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly basis.
I have had some pretty strange search terms for my blog, too.. LOL... :D
thank god I am not the only one fascinated with stats of my blog
hehe
CM,
You're most welcome. I'm sure Prakash would be glad that more and more people think Google tools are amazing. :)
MUSH,
Believe me Mush, this thing is child's play, or I wouldn't be working with it :D Really! I'm not a tech person either. I would love to walk you through with it anytime, just let me know when you're free. :)
ORACLE,
Nah! Like I was just telling Mush, I really am not a tech person, but I'm gonna think your advice over and see if I should get away from my current maddening career. Thanks! :)
Oh btw, did I tell you that every time I look at your name, the Matrix movie keeps flashing in front of my eyes?
DevilM,
They look for "is love stronger than pride?"? Really? Then I'm sure stumbling into your blog wouldn't disappoint them. :)
How is Google gonna know you ask? Well, at least Google redirects them to the right answers to their questions, doesn't it? ;)
SuperN,
Glad to know that. Its just waay too simple to not try it! :)
MUTHU,
You surprise me! I'm finally receiving some gyan from the Big Daddy himself? :|
I do have my own personalized Google homepage, but haven't added the Analytics widget yet. Is it different from the dedicated Analytics page itself?
Umm, hourly traffic? Are you kidding me? Do you think I have that much traffic to monitor them on an hourly basis? :-/ I already get the feeling that I'm hyping this traffic thingy waaay too much. In fact, I thought I was the only one obsessed with monitoring my site stats. Looks like I'm not after all ;)
SUNRISE,
What a refreshing name you've got there! I'm assuming the search terms that lead to your blog are as refreshing too. :)
Thank you for stopping by!
ADITI,
You were oh-so-dearly missed Aditi. Glad to know you're back!
isn't it fun to go behind the scenes and see which of your posts are actually being read by most visitors? ehehe. And nope, believe me, you're not alone! :D
G3, thanks so much for literarily holding my hand from that distance and showing me the ABC of putting this new gig into action! Hugs of gratitude from this IT goon!
This is superb!!! so many people going for the tool... lovely!
I need to fine tune my marketing talents more.. maybe someday google will notice and hire me.. lol
//every time I look at your name, the Matrix movie keeps flashing in front of my eyes//
Well I am not a old fat woman, infact the exact opposite! :)
You got it dead right, it was inspired by that character! :)
MUSH,
Anytime. Now you'll know how many times in a day I stumble onto your blog :D
Hugs back to 'ya!
PRAKAZ,
Why am I not surprised? :D
Google may (or may not) hire you, but how long do you think you can hold on there, cos from what I hear, the job that each one is assigned to, is not all that challenging :|
ORACLE,
Aah! Dead on eh? So I wasn't completely wrong ;)
yapaaaaaada...
bayangara vetti ma nee :)
Well Dharma, what can I say. Its like an addiction.
You know, like using a new video game, finding new stuff each time I use it! The excitement is gonna fade away sooner or later, but I'm enjoying every bit of it right now! :)
hey Thanks G3
Me also loving this tool, and actually getting addicted to it...was though surprised that google is tracking so much info about each person...I can even know the resolution and IE version which is being used by the visitors apart from the keyword search and other stats. Pretty interesting I must say.
RIMS,
I'm glad you are loving it Reema. It IS very interesting. Also, Google doesn't really have to do much. Google gets all this information anyways (they are into search engine optimization remember), it just needs to put up this mass of information in an organized way, and Lo! we have Analytics! :)
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