I mentioned earlier how I am in love with Google Analytics. The crush continues that’s for sure and if you haven’t got statistics for your website I highly recommend installing it for entertainment value and more importantly to better understand your audience.

I thought that it would be worth explaining what a referrer is, because that’s one of the most exciting parts about looking at your stats. I should probably start with what Google Analytics is first and why you need it.

When you host your website or start a blog, most will come with some sort of visitor reporting already set up – called Stats or Statistics.

Your stats tell you information about the people who have visited your website.

Things like how many visitors you received, what pages they looked at, how long they stayed at your site, what links they clicked on, where in the world they were from and who referred them. Google Analytics is a free, easy to use statistics program that will give you general and specific information about your website visitors.

So, what’s a referrer? A referrer is a website that has a link to your website. It becomes a “referrer” when someone clicks on that link and visits your website.

I.e. if marysmenagerie.com.au links to your website and a visitor clicks on that link and visits your site, marysmenagerie.com.au becomes the referrer to your website.

Referrers can be any type of website including search engines (Google), blogs, news sites etc. etc.

When a search engine is your referrer you can also see what words they used to to find your website. It is really interesting to see what people search for, and what searches your website appears for.

It will give you clues about what your audience is interested in so that you can shape your content to fulfill their needs, tell you if you need to make your website easier to navigate through and show you how well your visitors are fulfilling your goals.

Goals are the very basis of why you have a website. Everyone with a business website has goals.

Check it out, if you have any questions, let me know. It’s a fairly straightforward installation and well worth the time.

P.S. Noosa was brilliant. My poor white office bound skin succumbed to sunburn but it was a great weekend and am inspired to become very fit like the entire population of Noosa who I saw over the w’end.

Related posts:

1. Confessions of a girl nerd
2. How to get Google visitors to your website
3. How to Boost Your Online Sales in a Downturn
4. Google to launch customised search – how it will affect your website
5. Website Marketing Basics – Getting Visitors to Your Website

Filed under: Attract good visitors, Do good business online, Tips