What good is all of this information if you can’t put it to use? By now, you know all the lingo to establish a baseline and understand where your site is currently at. A baseline is an essential combination of information – it’s the only way to see meaningful change. There are a lot of tools in Google Analytics for comparing your data – but you are an author, and you just took enought time learning the ropes. Why take more time away from editing, revising, and creative pursuits? Instead, considering recording your data in a spreadsheet. Now, this isn’t the fanciest way – but you don’t need fancy. You just need actionable results. Chances are, you already know how to use a spreadsheet. Instead of getting hung up in new technology stick with what you know. You won’t have any excuses to not check your analytics! Click here to download an Excel (.xls) spreadsheet template for recording your data. It comes complete with all the fields that are most important for quick and effective comparisons. You don’t need to record all of you metrics, especially when you’re first running your own analytics. If you don’t have Excel, click here to visit a Google Doc with the information you need to get started. How often should I record my data? 1-3 months is a good amount of time to take between reviews of your analytics. I recommend every other month – it’s easy to get bogged down in the ‘numbers’ of your blog. Instead of spending…

You’ve heard about the mechanic who never has time to change the oil, bang out the dings, clean out the pop cans or repair the ripped upholstery in her own car? I’m behind the dashboard seven days a week. I drive at high speeds and over rough terrain on the electronic byways of the internet. I keep clients’ motors running smooth and fix them when they’re not. I’ve got topnotch mechanics and superb copy monkeys in our garage dedicated to quality service and customer satisfaction. We advise our clients on proper care, maintenance schedules for tune-ups and replacement of parts, and provide roadside assistance on the internet highway. So, with some embarrassment, I admit we haven’t taken our own advice on the care and maintenance of swensonbookdevelopment.com during the past year. It’s as though I hadn’t changed the oil since I drove the new model off the lot last March. I just kept filling it up with gas and ignored everything but the fuel gauge on the dashboard. “You’ll drive that car right into the ground,” would be a good mechanic’s response to such negligence. This IS like your Daddy’s Cadillac. An author imbues their social status and personal brand with a website. Change your oil every 3 months, once a season, or every 3,000 miles. Such routine maintenance of an automobile is the owner’s responsibility. Likewise, scheduled updates and improvements to one’s website and electronic persona need to be quarterly with an annual review. The link between routine oil…

On 01/16/2013, Google updated their Analytics Interface. The updates changed some navigation interfaces, added new functionality, and made certain areas easier to access. The Swenson Book Development Google Analytics for Author blogs written before this update have been updated to reflect these changes. If anything has been noticeably altered in the blogs, it will be clearly marked to reflect the update. Luckily, many of the changes only affect analytics users with more than one website – if you are only managing your author website, there isn’t a lot that is going to affect you. The New Google Analytics Left-Hand Navigation At first glance, the left-hand navigation looks completely different. However, it is virtually identical to the previous version with the exception of three new tabs under the search box. Dashboards allows you to create a dashboard with all the tools and widgets you regularly use in one easily accessible place Shortcuts creates links to your most-accesed sections if you have Google Web Developer Tools enabled. Intelligence Events lists automatic and custom-created alerts for the entered date range. Intelligence event alerts are triggered when something out of the ordinary happens on your web page. This can be a good event (like a sudden influx of traffic when a blog post goes viral, or bad one (like if your blog goes offline). In addition to this automatic alert system, you can also create custom alerts. For example, you can now get an email if you reach a certain number of visitors in…