Most people have heard of Google Analytics, it's probably the most comprehensive "Free" statistic tool a website owner could use, but does everyone really use it to the benefit of their website visitors?

Today I was working with a gentleman within my down-line and he posed a question, he said, "Mike, I have been watching my website traffic grow everyday, but how come nobody is opting into my newsletter or leaving comments?" What a great question, one that I used to ask myself all the time. You see, he had Google Analytics installed on his blog, and like clock work, every morning, he would open it up and look at the up and down lines on the Dashboard chart and be excited that more new visitors were coming. But that was all he was doing.

I posed a question back to young man, "Bob, tell me what your Top Landing Page was for the last two weeks and what Average Time was spent on that page?" WOW, the silence was deafening. That was when the AH HA moment hit me. Bob knew the right question to ask, he had just never been taught what it all meant.

Are you one of those folks who loves to look at the funny lines on the chart of Google Analytics, and ask the question WHY?

We have all been there before, at some point I was a chart and line watcher myself, not a Trend Analyzer. Funny, it ends with......Analytics, which means to Analyze, go figure. That is why I wrote this Hub, for Bob, and all those folks out there who have been line watchers up till now.

My first blog, actually the Internets first experience of Mike Witt, has shown me a great deal about visitor trending but my real knowledge has come from my training at the Renegade University. Putting up a website or blog, adding unique and valuable content and marketing it through attraction principles is only the beginning. To truly engage your readers and visitors you need to understand what they are telling you, and you do that by analyzing their habits when they come to you.

The first blog I created was a mess, and to be honest, it still is today in some respects. Yes, I made sure that words were spelled correctly and that any link I used worked, but there is only a couple pictures, 7 posts, 4 pages and very little optimized content or monetization. What is fun about this site is that it continues to attract visitors who read more than half of what I have posted, comment like crazy, interact with me via opting in to my newsletter or emailing me directly and all of this has resulted in an increase in retail sales as well as folks joining me in my primary Network Marketing business.

This didn't happen overnight, it took about 4 months, but I truly believe that if it was not for the in depth training I received, I would have never thought about how analyzing statistics could allow me to see trends and use those trends to maximize my visitors experiences and in turn affect my conversions is such a positive way.

I am going to go through just a few of the top things I look at with Analytics, so that you can start to see the power in the numbers. If you have Analytics set up, typically, once you have selected the site, the first page you will see, the one with the cool graph with up and down lines to show the number of visitors for a given time. This is where we will start.

Although it's nice to know that you had 120 visitors yesterday, what you really should be asking yourself is: What pages did they land one? How long were they on those pages? What Keywords drove them to those pages from the search engines? What content pages were read the most that day and what pages did they Exit the most out of?

Those are the types of questions you should be asking, better yet, looking at within Google Analytics, it's all right there. Once I show you how to look at a few of these key items, I will explain how they helped Me generate more traffic, increase Blog readership, increase Opt in rates and ultimately increase sales. I will also show you how CRITICAL it is to compare results after you make minor changes to your site so that you can track those results.

One of the first items of data I look at is Top Landing pages. For my site, it's pretty straight forward, I only have 4 pages and 7 posts. But the reason I want to know this information is two fold. If I see a trend, say over a couple weeks, that Page A, we will call it, is my top landing page, and Page F is my worst, it makes sense to go back and look at what might be causing that trend.

Maybe Page F is not optimized for the right keyword or enough of the right keyword, based on what your content is. The other thing that I like to look at is my internal linking strategies. Maybe I am OK with Page F not being the best landing page, because I can see from other statistics that is has my highest Content Page ranking, meaning people may come into one page but go to others if you are linking to it from your best landing page or maybe it just has the catchiest title so people want to click on it and read.

When it comes to Search Engine traffic, your Top Landing page may be driven by keywords, where your site shows in the search results, a number of reasons that is why my second best piece of information that Google Analytics shares with me, is the Keywords that people used to find me in the search engines.

This is my most favorite statistic, because it has taught me some valuable lessons. As critical as it is to research Keywords before you create your site or blog, or for that matter create content, but the real proof in the pudding is, did they really find you using those keywords?

If you are someone who likes to write but doesn't always have time to research Keywords, this is for you.

As I shared above, my first site was pretty "Ugly". Even so, I had about 4 main keywords in mind when I began developing it. I knew a little bit about my niche, at least I thought I did and believe me, the statistics sure proved me wrong. But that is ok, because the internet marketing training I learned taught me how to see things with a new set of eyes.

When I started to consistently look at the Keywords that were driving traffic, I soon learned that my top keyword was not even part of my original list of 4. In fact, I didn't even have a page title with this keyword in it, only in text and never with a hyper link attached. WoW, did that blow my mind. I also learned that my site was #2 on the first page of Google for this keyword, how crazy is that?

There were several Keywords that I found like this, so what did I do? I created a page with that keyword in it. I created a few articles, posted a few comments on blogs that dealt with this keyword, interlinked on different pages for this keyword and guess what happened? My traffic shot up, my conversions grew and one other little thing that blew my mind. I linked this keyword in the text on my top landing page to my worst content page and guess what happened? My worst content page was not my worst anymore.

Think about that. I found a keyword that was driving traffic, I used that keyword to drive more traffic and I helped to bring up my worst read page to be #3 top read page. That is the power of knowing what your visitors are doing!

The last couple statistics I like to look at with Google Analytics are Length of Visit on each page and what my Top Exit Pages are. Length of Visit is probably the most interesting to look at because sometimes they can be all over the board, but if you have enough history to look at and can compare different months, you can pick out trends that might help tweak a few things to convert more traffic to customers.

The goal with trying to increase the Length of Visits of your traffic is to engage them longer, or direct them to other points on your site to keep their interest longer thus increasing readership and conversions.

The page on your site that is read the least, always has room for improvement.

Another lesson learned early on at Renegade University, and one that I have caught myself doing many times. I post content and then never look at it again. Have you done this before? Getting your content up and running is the right thing to do, but then you need to watch it, cultivate it, market it and look for ways to make it successful. If you are tracking your statistics and looking at the trends, you will be able to easily pick out your worst page and focus on making it better.

Use your best page, if the content can relate, to help direct your readers to the worst page and watch your Analytics to see if that helps bring it up.

What Page on your website is the one most people leave from?

Tracking your Top Exit page gives you a few insights to your visitors. Depending on your site and the flow you have set up, maybe your top exit page should be just that. But maybe you need that page to move up in the ranks of readership because it has the best converting landing page links and you want to keep people on that page longer to help conversion.

Again, figure out how you want to direct your visitor flow and tweak a few things and sit back and watch what happens. It can be trial and error, but after a few times of success, you will be able to better judge what tweaks and enhancements will work.

I hope this information has helped. You truly can engage your visitors better by understanding how they are using your site, you just need to utilize this great tool, Google Analytics.

If you remember from above how this whole Hub started, it revolved around a question asked from a person on my business team, Bob. Bob now understands the full capability of Google Analytics, but this one piece is only part of what you cold learn at Renegade University. If you truly want the tools and training to explode your business and provide value to your customers as well as your team then join me as a Renegade Network Marketer, you won't regret it.