On the fateful day of March 11th , Google released an article about the up and coming access update to Google Analytics. This means that now you can grant access based on property level, as well as the previous situation of profile and account level. Also there are now three different three different levels of account access: view, edit and manage users.

This update is definitely one that will be welcomed with open arms. From an agency point of view, Analytics is about to become a lot more convenient. Previously it was often the case where a client would grant access to the whole account and sometimes clients will have multiple domains which are irrelevant to the services you are providing. This means that your profile list in GA becomes colossal; hopefully this update will help to tidy things up. With regards to the access levels, it looks like some of the inspiration for this has been taken from AdWords. This is a useful feature because now agencies can replicate account access structure into their Analytics.

Businesses will also find benefit from these updates. Data can be a very important thing and a lot of people are not so enthusiastic about simply handing over this information. Now businesses have more control over their data and who can access it.

Google has said that the update will be rolled out over the next few weeks, so some people will be getting this sooner rather than later. However, there is no need to panic about account access levels as if you are currently an admin, you will be upgraded to have full rights.

An SEO company and SEO consultant would constantly require its clients to register with Google Analytics. This is because Google Analytics is a free service from Google that functions to track the traffic that is coming in to the targeted website. You would however discover later on when using Google analytics that it does more than to track traffic, it actually gives you valuable insights in about the behavior of your traffic whenever they visit your website. Many SEO Companies and SEO Consultants however, are not able to maximise the functionalities offered by Google analytics which leads to poor site evaluation of a target website. The following are some of the processes that one can do in order to utilise Google analytics to the fullest.

1. Use the Goal and Event Tracking – Google analytics offers a goal and event tracking which function by displaying the conversions made in your website and the number thereof. Google analytics allows you to define or set the goals and events that you want to be tracked, for example, a goal may be the number of sign ups or purchases made in your website, while events may be the number of times users clicked on the purchase form or the sign-up forms.

2. Focus on Customer Segmentation – if you would like Google to track the traffic according to customer type then it would be best to focus on customer segmentation. This will display the behavior of your traffic and the paths that the client or customer took while visiting your website. Among those that are tracked in customer segmentation are the new visitors and returning visitors.

3. Track Categories – not all pages may be tracked or some web pages might have higher importance on being tracked than others, this is why segmenting your web pages in order to track those that are deemed to be more important is considered as an important feature in Google analytics. This will allow you to compare the traffic coming in, say in page A as compared with page B.

These are just some of the basic features that you can utilise with Google analytics in order for you not only to track your pages’ progress but you would also be given a good insight on how your website fare in terms of conversions for your products. One thing that you should always put into consideration before starting to use Google analytics is to effectively plan what you want Google analytics track in your website.

For many SEO companies and SEO consultants websites must be regularly audited or assessed in order to know the “SEO health” of the websites in their custody. Assessment is important for an SEO company to track the progress of their SEO campaign as well as to determine the effects of the different search engine optimisation strategies. The importance of documenting every SEO strategy implemented and the Assessment of the website in terms of its performance via analytics would give you valuable data on what works and what doesn’t, remember that every search engine algorithm is kept a secret and every algorithm have hundreds if not thousands of ranking factors.

Tracking the site’s performance SEO-wise is not going to be a problem since there are several applications that were developed in order to automate such tracking process. However, in assessing the website, such should be done manually as it will give you an idea on what works or what doesn’t work. The following are some areas that should be the areas that should be assessed in your website.

1. Assess your page links – start assessing if your website still have enough “SEO juice” since links created would have the tendency of becoming broken over time, this could be due to site changes, site closure or simply the webmaster have removed the link to your website. Then move on to assessing your sites internal links, you may have changed or removed a website page that may be linking to your homepage thus a reduction in the number of your links.

2. Assess your Keywords – it is a good time to revisit your keyword research and check whether or not you have already ranked in the “strong keywords”. Remember that traffic is the most important target for SEO thus you should assess if your keywords still would yield a high volume of traffic, if not it would be time to move on to another target keyword.

These may just be two of the site assessment that you can do, however doing this may increase the stability of your website in terms of search engine optimisation.

Yes YouTube Analytics have been around for some time now, but they have only recently come to my attention. The YouTube stats that are provided are quite helpful and can actually help those using YouTube to benefit their marketing campaigns.

First off, the video we created was embedded on all the similar sites because they were all relevant and visitors would find use from the video, unfortunately they added no SEO value. On YouTube analytics, it displays when the video was embedded and also on which site. Not only that, the amount of views that are generated from the video being embedded is also listed which helps marketers to decide where their efforts are most fruitful.

Another useful part of the statistics is the audience and location. The charts display your audience, in terms of gender and age, which is vital for marketers because they then know who’s attention they have grabbed and can use this for their next video/campaign. Also location is very useful, this is because the culture of the location where there are most visits can be implemented and created a more personal and targeted video.

Conclusion

YouTubes’ analytics are fairly simple, but they don’t need to be complex, just the right amount of information is provided and this will make the ability to market products and services through videos easier than ever.

Google Analytics is an essential tool that all website owners should at least be aware of, analytics allows you to track a lot of information about your site, it informs you of all the activities that a user carries out, for example, where they directed from and how long they stayed on the site.

How to Create a Google Analytics Account

To create a Google Analytics account, you will need a Google account this doesn’t mean you need to create a Gmail account, simply go to http://www.google.co.uk and on the top right hand side of the screen you will see a sign in button.

After you have clicked on the sign in button you will be taken to a page that looks like this:

Once you have clicked the Create Account Button, you will be sent to a details page, fill out your details that you would like to use, remember creating a Google account and using analytics is completely free. I suggest that you use the same email address and other details that you use for the business or webpage that you are setting up your analytics for, however if you have multiple business’ then you could use any email address or create multiple Google accounts.

After you have filled out the form, it will send you to a page that confirms your account creation. You then need to go back to Google’s home page and again go to the sign in button. Your account should already be in the username section so just add your password and you should then be sent to a page like this:

Click on the verify button then go to your inbox and look for a message from “account-verification-noreply@google.com”. In the email you receive it will say “Welcome to Google Accounts. To activate your account and verify your email address, please click the following link:” if you click the link directly below it will take you to a page that looks similar to this:

So now you have your Google account all set up, we must move to setting up the analytics account.

How to Create Your Analytics Account

Visit the Analytics site: http://www.google.com/analytics/ and click the sign up button which is located on the left hand side:

You will then be taken to a login page, just enter your email address and password for the Google account you just created, then you will be directed to a sign up page, just click the sign up button on the bottom left hand side. Once you have been directed again, you are shown a form for your analytics account, it is essential that you enter all information correctly as any mistakes will affect your analytics results and may even cause it not to work.

You will then have to enter your full name and agree to Google’s Terms and Conditions, after you have done that you will be directed to a page showing the tracking code for your analytics, but the way I will show you how to add analytics to you site, you will not need this code. You will need another code. So click onto the save and finish button.

Adding Analytics to Your Site

Log onto your Content Management System, yours could be a WordPress, Joomla or Create however there are many more. Once logged in look for a an edit site information tab, once on here look for Google analytics and add the UA code, If your CMS does not have this, then there will be a plug in available, make sure to check ratings and so on to see if the plug in is functional and users are satisfied with the plug in. Install your chosen plug in into your CMS, follow the instructions and add your UA number to the plug in.

Checking Your Analytics

Google Analytics should take no longer than 72 hours to register, but the majority of the time it is done quicker, to check your analytics, simply visit: the analytics home page, the account overview page will show very brief information, but clicking the report button will show you much more in-depth information.