How To Use Google Analytics

Update 2011: I initially published this article back in May 2008, a few months after I first joined HubPages. Since then, I have learned a lot about marketing online and the different tools available. Google Analytics is still a great tool to use and HubPages is still an ok place to post content/write articles, however with the recent changes to the HubPages AdProgram and speculation of HubPages being a Scam, I have decided to move many of my Hubs over to my own personal blogs and prefer to create my content there. I will leave some Hubs active here (like this one) and continue to publish a Hub here and there, but for the most part, I will now be using my own website(s) and not have to share my revenue any longer.

Because I've moved a lot of my content, you may notice some of the links to the content I mention below are not active. All of the information and screen shots are still valid (they were true at one time while my Hubs were active), but some of the links may no longer be active. In addition, Google has made some recent changes to the navigation of their interface so some of the screen shots below are out dated. Rather than re-write this whole page, I chose to create a new article on my website...If you want to see examples of how to use Google Analytics for your blog or website, you can by clicking the link provided. To continue reading this article or Hub, please scroll down past the image...

Questions about Google Analytics seem to be pretty popular here on HubPages. I've seen various questions and discussions on the forums about Google Analytics and it's uses. Apparently, many of you are unsure of how to use the application or are intimidated by it. I was once curious about what it was and wondered myself about it - so, I decided to check it out. Well, needless to say, I learned that it offers a lot of really neat features and I even learned how to use it to boost traffic to my hubs (which has increased my HubScore), landed quite a few hubs on Google's first page for a few keyword phrases (some in the #1 spot), and increased my earnings with AdSense and other affiliate programs.

While I'm definitely no expert on Google Analytics or Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I have learned, through self-teaching, how to use the various tools Google Analytics offers us. And trust me, it's not as hard to use or understand as it looks. I debated on whether or not to share my "secrets" with you all, but decided that if I taught a few serious hubbers a thing or two, it would benefit the whole HubPages community as many of you seem to be in the dark about what Google Analytics can do for you. So, I would like to show you how simple it is for you to do the same things I've done. It does require some work, but overall is a lot easier than you may think.

Before I get started, I just quickly want to note that if you are considering publishing anything on the net (that you want to make some kind of profit from), and if you want your writings to be found by the search engines for specific keywords or keyword phrases (called organic search), I believe you must know somewhat how to successfully do some Bum Marketing strategies; this involves article marketing and keyword research. You can learn more about that by following the links I provide (throughout this article) or in my Learn How to Make Money With HubPages hub.

Important Update: Bum Marketing No Longer works! Some of the techniques are still applicable, but if you really want to learn SEO, learn from an expert who ranks hundreds (if not thousands) of pages in Google... you'll find all you need and more by learning from Court and Mark at The Keyword Academy.

If you haven't already created an account with HubPages, this is where I will invite you to sign up now and do that first. Then follow the instructions on how to set up your Google Analytics account. Once you've successfully set your accounts up with Google Analytics and HubPages you should begin conducting your keyword research and then write your article and publish it. Finally, after that's done and your article is published and receiving data you will now be able to start using the steps I outline below, along with Google Analytics, to optimize your hub. I would recommend giving your Analytics account about, at the least, a week of collecting data before trying to implement any of the following things I will be showing you.

Note: Google Analytics is not just for HubPages and can be used with many other sites or platforms. However, because HubPages makes it so easy for us by building it in to our hubs, and this is the only place I've used Analytics with so far, I will be discussing my use of it with HubPages in this article. Yet, you can substitute "HubPages" for any site and apply the information provided.

Go ahead and log in to your Analytics account. If you have Analytics set up on sites other than HubPages, you will need to click on the hubpages.com View Reports link to view the stats of your hubs. It should have a green check mark near it and say "Receiving Data." Once you've successfully done that, you should be greeted with a screen, called the Dashboard, that looks similar to this:

The first section I am going to direct your attention to is the Traffic Sources. You can do this by clicking on view report in the Traffic Sources Overview box or by clicking on Traffic Sources in the gray box on the right of the screen. (see the images to the right)

For me, this information is just interesting and is not actually a part of the step-by-step guide process. Although I'm sure there's a way you could use this information, I haven't figured out how to just yet. You can see (by looking at the screenshot below) that most of my traffic (82%) is organic - it comes from the search engines. In this Traffic Sources Overview pageyou can see exactly which search engines or sites your traffic is coming from. You can also see this data on your HubPages My Account - Traffic Sources page, but if you notice, the amount of visitors varies between the two. It also varies from the amount of page views displayed by AdSense. However, remember that AdSense only collects 60% of your data, and if you notice my numbers, that seems about right.

You can view the full reports of each of the different areas that the Traffic Sources Overview page in Analytics provides by following the different links. You can also customize the dates by clicking on the dates in the top right corner of the page.

There are also other areas that may interest you in your Analytics account such as the Visitors section. Here you can see things like what browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) your readers are using or what type of internet connection they are using (Cable, DSL, Dial-Up) to view your pages. My favorite part of the Visitors Overview section is the Map Overlay area that shows you what countries your readers are in and how many people from each country have found or read your pages (including how long they stayed on them). This info can be useful if you are targeting a specific area or trend, but so far I haven't.

So, I'm sure by now you are starting to realize (if you didn't already) that HubPages knew what they were doing when they built this tool into our hubs and made it available for us to use. Be sure to play around some more with the Analytics account when you have time and explore it's many amuzing and useful features.

While I hope all of this has been helpful to you up to this point, none of this info I've discussed about Analytics so far is what I used to get more traffic to my hubs and increase my earnings. So, without further ado...

In my opinion, the Entrance Keywords section (which can be found on the Content Overview page) is the most important tool that Analytics offers you to help you out with marketing your hub (especially if you are using Article Marketing) or getting traffic to your hub/having organic readers find your hubs.

Why?

I'll show you...

Note: I am only going to discuss two hubs here in this tutorial:

1. Telecommuting Jobs - How To Find A Real Telecommute Work At Home Position (Update: Article can now be found here:

   Over 15 Legitimate Online Data Entry Jobs From Home & Other Telecommute Positions You Can Apply For Free)

2. Inbound Customer Service Telecommuting Jobs (Update: Article can now be found here: Free List of Inbound Customer Service Telecommuting Jobs You Can Do From Home)

As you should notice from the screenshot image, these are two of my most popular and most visited hubs. What's great about these is they contain Evergreen content, which in short is info that will continue to be searched for or should forever have a presence on the net. It's not a trend (like the Nintendo Wii and many other new "gadgets"). While trends are great and can create a spike in traffic and earnings, you must always remember the old adage - what goes up must come down.

By taking a quick look at the above screenshot, you should be able to notice the dates the two hubs were published. Also, notice the amounts of visitors and scores of the hubs. My Inbound Customer Service hub has gotten more traffic (over a shorter period of time) than the Telecommuting hub I published almost a month before it.

Quick note: The more accurate traffic data regarding visitors is displayed with Google Analytics, not HubPages or AdSense.

What prompted me to create the Inbound hub was:

One day I was playing around in my Analytics account, back at the end of January. I was looking at my Entrance Keywords for my Inbound hub when I noticed that "inbound customer service telecommuting jobs" was one of the top keyword phrases bringing organic traffic to my hub. (You can look at the Entrance Keywords for a specific hub by clicking on that hub title in the Content - Top Content tab. It's located in the gray bar to the right of your screen.)

Even more amazing was that my visitors were staying on my page for an average of 25 minutes! You can see this information in the Time on Page column. So people were actually interested in and reading my work.

Apparently, I used the phrase, or parts of it, once or twice in my hub and it was being picked up by the Google bots. Unfortunately, I don't have a screen shot to show you this, but at the time, if you would have searched for that phrase, it would have allowed you to see my Telecommuting hub in the #4 position on Google's first page for that particular phase.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to check out the competition to see what I was up against. I did this by inserting my key phrase into the google search bar like this: "inbound customer service telecommuting jobs"

I learned I had x number of sites to compete with. Because of HubPages high PR of 6, at the time, I figured I should be able to dominate all the other sites if I did what Bum Marketing suggests and created a hub with this keyword phrase as the title.

So I did my research and checked out my competition to see what kind of information they were including on their websites. I gathered info from these various sites (some of the info I had already from the past) and wrote a 100% unique article with the key phrase as my title. I also wrote a completely different article and published it on ezinearticles to get some back links to my hub as well as pinged it. In a few days my Inbound hub was in the #1 spot!

Since I published my Inbound hub, it's received 1,223 page views, 583 of those unique. And visitors spend an average of 3 minutes, 58 seconds on my page. So, some people are obviously coming back and viewing my hub more than once. That makes me feel good. I know I did my Hub duty and provided a one-stop-shop for someone who was seeking information on inbound customer service telecommuting jobs.

Also, one thing that I am not going to show you in detail, but if you visited my Entrance Paths page for the Telecommuting hubs, you would be able to see that 33% of my Inbound hub visitors then also visit my Telecommuting hub.

In my short time here on Hub Pages (as of writing this - about 4 months), I've watched my income increase gradually each month. I've read that traffic is key in making money online - whether with AdSense, affiliate programs, sales, or whatever. I guess it's true, because my highest earning AdSense channels refelect that my highest performing hubs are earning me more and more each month.

I hope you've learned some and I also look forward to hearing how my tips help you. Be sure to let me know! And if I haven't overwhelmed you enough, you can learn even more from the video below...