So, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, I do website design on the side. I’ve done a few here and there for various people and companies. And one of my FAVORITE things from google (besides everything), is google analytics for keeping track of web stats. Of course, since it’s Google, it’s a little above average. Let’s use some SAT style analogies to show what I’m talking about:
TYPICAL WEB STATS : ME ::
GOOGLE ANALYTICS : LANCE ARMSTRONG
Bueno?
So I use analytics for this very blog you’re reading, and one of the tools I like is a Keyword Source. AKA, what people searched for before landing on the site. Some of these are pretty funny:
- handy mandy
- bob harper yelling
- but you don’t have to take my word for it
- how to write achievement to my boss
- list of no caffeine
- run after the wind
- nodentures.com
I’m particularly concerned for the person writing achievements to their boss….good luck to you, my friend. BTW, you can also see how long the people stayed on the site from said keywords. Most of these are less than 1 second. Sorry nodentures.com searcher. I’m afraid I cannot help you.
Another tool is the Map Overlay. This is stinkin’ awesome! It shows you all the places people visited your site from. Some of the surprising ones for this blog:
- Sydney, Australia
- Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Putian, China
- Tai-Chung, Taiwan
- Bologna, Italy
- Chennai, India
To my international friends, Hello! and Hola! (that’s all I got). As for the US, so far 19 states have stopped by. Hmm, maybe I can hit up some of the others like Alaska and Hawaii if I use some more keywords like, idk…Sarah Palin runs, or LOST characters who run while on set.
We’ll see.
Oh and btw, you can also see what kind of computer systems visitors used to get to your site. I can see that nearly 10% of my visitors used iPhones to view the site. How tech savvy of you all!
-george