How to use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that allows you to track and analyze valuable data about how your audience is engaging with your website.

I will explain some of the basics of Google Analytics in the article below.  If you desire, you can access Google's Analytics help directly.

To access Google Analytics, visit: http://www.google.com/analytics/

If you are already logged in to Google, click on the Access Google Analytics button in the top right.  If you are not logged in, click Sign in.

Select the site you want to view analytic reports for.

On the left is the navigation toolbar.  From here, you can access all the reports pertaining to your site.

Dashboards

Dashboards display customized summaries of different reports as widgets on a single page.  You can add new widgets to a dashboard by clicking Add to Dashboard at the top of any report, or by clicking +Add Widget from the dashboard menu.  By default, any dashboards you create are private.  To share them, select Share Dashboard in the Share menu.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts remember your settings so you don't have to reconfigure a report each time you open it. Any setting you apply to a report, like adding an advanced segment or a new metric, stays applied in a shortcut until you manually change the settings. The settings are saved even if you sign out and sign back in to your account. All report customizations and settings are saved in a shortcut except the date range. Check the dates each time you use a shortcut to make sure the time period you need is applied. To create a shortcut, click the Shortcut button that appears at the top of the report.

Each shortcut is only visible to the user who created it but can be shared using the Emailing and Exporting Reports function.