How do you know if your web marketing efforts are working? One of the most powerful web tracking applications available is Google Analytics. The good news is it's free. The bad news is it can be a bit intimidating the first time you look at it.

Google Analytics provides a lot of sophistacted tools for tracking and testing various campaigns and at first glance it can seem overwhelming. I recommend you set up an account to start and just use the built in reporting dashboard. By taking a couple of minutes to add a simple code provided by Google you will be able to see the most important information about your site like:

• Number of visitiors


• Number of repeat versus new visitors


• How long they stay


• Where they come from (e.g. your ads, emails, blind searches, etc.)

If you have a website in place you should at least have this basic knowledge about the effectiveness of your site. You can either login to your account or have Google email you a report on a regular basis.

Once you have mastered the basics you might want to take a look at ways to optimize and improve your results and Google Analytics has the tools in place to get you there.

In my role as a web strategist and marketer I have used several expensive web analytics packages and still prefer Google Analytics.

Not sure where to start? Google has a handy checklist that will take you through the process.

How do you currently measure the effecitveness of your website? Let us know in the comments.