Analytics/Webmaster tools? (2 Q's in one go! Go me..)

bamme

bamme

Senior Member
Hi again :D

Okay so as you probably noticed im exploring more than just how to make a site look pretty now :) Ive signed up for google analytics and google webmaster tools, really to monitor how effective my keywords/seo stuff is, and who is hitting where on my site.

can anyone in plain english explain the difference between analytics and webmaster tools? (found a lot of articles, mostly a bit over my head im afraid..) and which features are best/most popular? they both seem like so much information at once.. :S

Emma
 
Analytics are just that. They tell you who visited your site, where they came from/how they found you, where in the world they are, what pages are most popular, what browsers ppl are using etc.

Webmaster tools allows you to submit your website to be indexed, submit site maps and test content performance in various layouts - how it is interpreted by google
 
Analytics Best Features (IMO)
Traffic Sources, then keywords for the search engines
Also within traffic sources the time on site & bounce rate stats.

Content - Navigation Summary - a good overview of where users are going on your site.
& then if you get more involved with GA, the goals can be great to track specific tasks on your site.

As for Webmaster Tools, sitemap to check indexed URLs, and crawl data to see if any pages are returning 404's, or any crawl errors. Also they've recently added in the labs section a speed test which I think will become a more important area in the future given that Google have stated that page speed will become a ranking factor in the next year.

As Andy said Analytics is to see what users are viewing, how many there are, where they've come from and where they're going. Webmaster tools is to monitor your site within Google, and to check how the site is performing and any noticeable errors, etc.

HTH
Greg
 
thanks for that input! i made a note of the list of best features :) goals does look good too although i truly wouldnt know what to expect from the site at the mo..

@ Onartis: mint looks good! thanks for the tip.

does anyone use it? how does it compare to analytics?
 
Mint is good, its real time stats, where as google analytics updates overnight but they are two different things. Mint is 'your stats at a glance' they quote something along those lines on their site... basically mint is great for checking real time but analytics is the way to go for reporting - exporting to xls/csv etc
 
Thanks for the insight tbwcf :) One of the main reasons im trying to get into analytics/webmaster tools is because i want something visual and very simple for my client (and me too as im new to this!) to be able to look at and see how the site is doing - its rank over time, where people click, how many people click..etc. Is this hard to do on analytics? Its hard for me to experiment with no data. And mint a paid service because it makes it easier to do this? Or just because its instant rather than overnight
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top