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Google Analytics :: Branding and Packaging Results
By Jim Hedger (c) 2005
StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.

Google has scored a major coup with the release of Google
Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html). In the
spirit of helping webmasters and search marketers move site
visitors into converted site users, Google is offering its
enormously useful site analytics tool, Urchin, free of charge
under the re-branded name Google Analytics. The software is
designed to help webmasters and marketers understand site
visitors and their behaviours. Last year, it cost almost
$500/mth to subscribe to.

For Google, search is about business and business is about
results. Results are measured in many different ways, depending
on the goals of those gauging the yardstick. For Google, the
yardstick continues to appear infinite, defying common sense,
which logically tells us otherwise. The introduction of Google
Analytics solidifies Google's place as the pinnacle of search
advertising providers and is likely to convert a lot of
webmasters into Google account holders.

"Conversions" is a term used by marketers and webmasters as a
way to measure results. The word itself is rather ambiguous and
can have slightly different meanings for different people but
ultimately means the same thing. Conversion means getting site
visitors to do an intended task while visiting your site. For an
ecommerce site, site-visits that lead to sales are considered
conversions. Sites that primarily provide information might see
an increase in repeat visitors as an indication of successful
conversions. Similarly, sites running ads powered by Google
AdWords might consider ad-clicks as successful conversions as
Google certainly does.

According to the basic information provided on the features
page (http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html), Google
Analytics can help you, "Learn how visitors interact with your
website and identify the navigational bottlenecks that keep them
from completing your conversion goals. Find out how profitable
your keywords are across search engines and campaigns. Pinpoint
where your best customers come from and which markets are most
profitable to you. Google Analytics gives you this and more
through easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports."

Once a user gets into the system, they are rewarded with access
to a remarkable tool. If they are an AdWords advertiser or
AdSense partner, a wide array of tools and assistants are
provided to help convert visitors into billable (or payable)
clicks. Google obviously believes that it can make more money by
helping AdWords advertisers and the owners of the website that
display AdWords. For Google however, the rewards go deeper than
a basic bottom line.

Yesterday, the system ground to a near halt as millions of
webmasters rushed to sign up. Google will be receiving a wealth
of consumer and marketing information from sites using the
software, information that will be incorporated into Google's
understanding of how users travel through sites found in its
index. That kind of information is worth its weight in Google
shares.

Google Analytics is a members-only service. Unless they already
have one, webmasters and advertisers will need to establish an
account through Gmail or AdWords before being granted free
access. Once an account is established, the information provided
is pretty intense.

Separated into three general user types, Executive, Webmaster,
and Marketer, Google Analytics shows up to the minute
information on over seventy essential elements, giving decision
makers a lot of data to work with. The internal system is set up
around a left-hand side dashboard of expanding drop-down menus
for each of the general user overlays, each of which displays a
series of reports. Users can also select a drop down display
that expands to show the full range of elements to analyze.

Having said all that, it isn't really possible to give a full
review of the data generated by Google Analytics as we have just
inserted the tracking-script into documents on our site this
morning. It will take about twelve hours for information to
accumulate.

On the surface, it appears as if Google has taken some of the
best elements of other analytic programs and integrated
AdWords/AdSense conversion support features. The layout is easy
to use and there is a good mix of information and supporting
graphical elements to ease the headaches commonly associated
with statistical analysis. The first overlay provides an
at-a-glance dashboard with gauges indicating site visitors,
unique visitors, top documents, top keywords, and other
user-specific information sets.

Account access can be shared with other Google Account holders,
a feature that will allow SEOs and SEMs to share information
directly with their clients. While it is a violation of the
Terms of Service agreement to charge clients for access to data
generated by Google Analytics, a service helping them interpret
and understand the stats and information seems a natural
evolution for search marketing professionals.

As reported by David Utter in WebProNews
(http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/
wpn-60-20051115AnalyticsFirmsRespondToGoogle.html), Google
Analytics doesn't seem to worry newly minted rivals WebTrends
(http://www.webtrends.com/) and ClickTracks
(http://clicktracks.com/) though its introduction did send
shivers down the spines of shareholders in analytics firm Web
Side Story.

Michael Stebbins, VP Marketing for analytics firm ClickTracks,
said: "Google is the rising tide that raises all the web
analytics ships. The announcement to offer free analytics is a
great validation of our market. We're thrilled they are opening
the market's eyes to what web analytics can do today. At the
same time, we need to put it in perspective: when Google offered
Blogger it did not put other blogger platforms out of business.
When the tide levels out, the web analytics tools that provide
the most value for marketers will be the ones that thrive."
(Source, WebProNews)

Google has made a masterful move in the introduction of Google
Analytics. They have produced a superior analytic package,
branded it under their name, and tied it into the most popular
paid-advertising program on the web. Under other circumstances
it wouldn't take long for one of its competitors to catch up
with their own analytics package however, Google's purchase of
Urchin last year put them far ahead of any rivals.

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Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing
expert based in Victoria BC. Jim writes and edits full-time for
StepForth and is also an editor for the Internet Search Engine
Database. He has worked as an SEO for over 5 years and welcomes
the opportunity to share his experience through interviews,
articles and speaking engagements. He can be reached at
"jimhedger@stepforth.com"
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