Google Analytics is the perfect tool for small business owners and marketers. This free tool, which takes less than five minutes to set up, will give you details on what pages people are viewing, how long they are on your site and how they got there. You also can see which are your post popular posts, as well as set up and track goals. All you have to do is add a little bit of code to your website and/or blog and activate a Google Account.
It’s such a great tool that it tracks everyone, including you.
Each time you, or someone in your office, looks at your site or blog, Google Analytics tracks it. This skews your numbers. It will take a lot of time to sift through outside traffic and intra-office views. Do you really have the time and/or desire to do this? I didn’t think so.
You can create a filter to block data collection from specific IP addresses. It’s a simple task that will save you tons of time. Here is a step-by-step process to make your Google Analytics data collection more accurate.
1. Determine your IP address. Several websites will give you this information. Try IP-Address.com. Highlight the address and copy the text.
2. Go to your Google Analytics page. Click on “Analytics Settings” in the upper left corner (under the Google logo).
3. Find your account, then click on “edit” (located to the right).
4. Near the bottom of the page, you’ll see the “Filters Applied to Profile” table. Click on “Add Profile”.
5. Click on the “Custom filter” button.
6. Fill in the filter name. For this example, type in “Work Computer”.
7. Select the “exclude” button is selected and ensure that the input for the Filter Field is “Visitor IP Address”.
8. Paste the IP address into the “Filter Pattern” box.
9. Save the changes.
That’s it. It is a good idea to do this with all of your internal computers and your personal computers at home. This filter will give you more accurate details about how your customers are viewing your information.
