Measuring data on your website is essential to understanding what visitors are looking for on your page. Collecting and tracking this data will help you to see how visitors are interacting with the site, where the majority of the traffic is coming from, where visitors are leaving the site from, and much more. Tracking these trends will allow you to make beneficial changes to your website to improve usability and increase sales.

Google Analytics is a free, very useful tool that provides detailed, in depth information. Unfortunately the tool can become overwhelming due to the volume of information it provides causing some of the most important information to be overlooked. There is also a high probability that without a proper understanding of Google Analytics some of the data may be interpreted incorrectly.

To get the most out of your Google Analytics account, consider the following tips to help you cut through the clutter and focus solely on the data most important to your business:

• Filter Traffic. Set up filters to ensure that you are receiving the most accurate information on traffic to your site. The following are some basic traffic filters:

1. Internal IP addresses
2. Employee IP addresses
3. Any outsourced consultants or venders

• Goal Tracking. When creating your small business website, your business goals should be defined and measurable throughout. Using web analytics tools allow you to measure the performance of your site to determine if these goals are met. Website goals can range anywhere from sales to generating leads to increasing comments. Ideally, a business should have their goals set prior to using an analytics program and regularly track and adjust the success of these goals as the business grows.

• Custom Alerts. Constantly checking analytics can become time consuming and stressful. By setting up custom alerts, you will be notified each time there is a major change to the selected site metrics. The following are some alerts that may be useful:

1. Large traffic fluctuations
2. Large fluctuations to conversion rates
3. High bounce rates

• Custom Dashboards. Dashboards allow you to review various combinations of data that relate and can be reviewed in a group. Dashboards help you to view important data quickly and easily, saving you the time of searching around for the information you need.

Setting up and regularly monitoring a Google Analytics account allows you to track the success and shortcomings of your site and adjust it accordingly to better fit the needs of your visitors. Building an easy to use website is the first, and often most difficult step in establishing an online presence. Consider the expertise of the online marketing professionals at Fasturtle. Our small business web design experts can assist you in creating a website that aligns with your business goals, achieving the best possible results. Call us today at (888) 468-8785 or contact us online for more information on small business website design and tracking.