Google Analytics

Is it (literally) a priceless tool for tracking and scrutinizing online traffic or is it too complex for the average entrepreneur? Two readers offer their own analysis.

Can't Live With It
"When a business uses Google Analytics , at most it's simply tracking the number of page visits that its website has. But very few businesses actually know who these visitors are, where they are coming from and what they are doing once they visit the website. I was working with a business owner whose blog was drawing a decent amount of web traffic, but sales weren't increasing at all and he didn't know why. He thought he was sending his blog traffic over to a landing page that sold his product. It turned out that less than 1 percent of his blog readers actually went to his landing page. He didn't know how to use Google Analytics to tell him that. In everything from wording (bounce rate is a bit vague) to layout (in order to get a detailed analysis of how your marketing is doing, you need to visit multiple screens), it's not very user-friendly."
--Greg Digneo, founder, Cloud Marketing Labs, Northfield, N.J.