Installing Google Analytics

You just built your website. It has a web 2.0 badge, an email subscription, blog, Paypal payments, and the ability to be "dugg."

That's great, but is it working? Do you have visitors? Are they sticking around? Do they see your carefully crafted copy or put anything in their virtual shopping carts?

You should know. And you can. For free (my econ teacher would argue "free").

Before you sit back and watch the money pile in, take 30 minutes and install Google Analytics, a few lines of cut-and-paste code that will generate loads of useful information about your visitors.

Installation consists of 3 steps

1. Go to Google Analytics and sign up for an account. If you already have a Google Account (GMail, iGoogle, Picasa, anything where you sign into a Google application), just use those login credentials at the Google Analytics page.

2. Once you reach your Google Analytics dashboard, click Add a website profile in the lower left corner. Set up the profile for a new domain, and type in just the base URL for your site, such as exacttarget.com or tailoredwebco.com.

3. Continue to the next page. Cut and paste the New Tracking Code in to every page of your website just before the end body tag. It's easiest place in a common footer that you include on every page.

Wait for your data to roll in

Be patient, wait 24 hours before checking Google Analytics for your reports. Google only updates your reports every morning. To check your reports, log in to your Google Analytics account and click View Reports next to your website profile.