Much time and effort goes into the development of an efficient, profitable website, time spent on concerns like Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Though SEO is not the only important factor in good search visibility, having good SEO is very valuable. Bad keywords and bad optimization can cause an optimization plan to backfire and keep a website from being seen more. So being able to keep track of how each part of it is performing is crucial to ensure the right SEO plan is being applied.

Tracking Activity

Another one of the free Webmaster Tools available from Google is their analytics program. It is one of the leading such programs for keeping up-to-date tabs on various websites. Easily activated with the inclusion of a few lines of code from a web page's code, the program will then begin tracking all of the activity happening on it, page by page. When trying to search through different SEO keywords and other means of optimization for the best strategy, this can be a great free way to see how changes to SEO affects a web page. The exciting feature is that Google Analytics can provide much more information than just statistics on whether keywords are getting good results.

Data Report

There are many different data reports that can be run with Google Analytics to interpret how a website is performing, either in part or overall. Understanding who the main visitors are to a page can reveal a lot about whether it is actually being seen by the appropriate audience; that way the SEO effort can be adjusted. Knowing what browsers and types of computers are viewing the website could be especially helpful if it reflects that the speed of the site is slow due to graphics or flash; changes could be made that could result in lower bounce rates and more successful visits, all of which can be monitored through this software.



Visitor Specifics

Some of the most useful functions of this program include the tracking of specific information about visitors to a website, including: what they do on a page; how long they remain; how well they can navigate the site; whether they have visited before; or if they have become frequent visitors. It can also: track the number of files downloaded by visitors; track AdSense advertising statistics; handle email campaigns; track social media pages such as Twitter and Facebook; list the sources of traffic to a site and specific pages; indicate top viewed content; and track newsletter and feed subscriptions. There is so much essential information that can be gathered with Analytics if it is properly used. There is absolutely no reason why any webmaster should not be able to interpret any weak areas on a web page and how well the remedy to any problems actually works.

Although there have been privacy questions raised from time to time concerning Google Analytics further use of collected web page information such as knowing specifically where new customers come from and who they are, it seems that most webmasters with a thorough understanding of this program have not encountered any difficulties. While this is a program where a certain amount of time must be spent to learn about its many functions to ascertain accurate data collection, it can be an invaluable tool to transform a website into its most efficient and profitable state because of such tracking abilities. For anyone who is serious about having great optimization, this is one tool that should not be overlooked to help track what is happening on a website. Note: chances are your competition is using it, too!