by samGoogle analytics is a free service; a tool which allows marketers, website owners and business enterprises to know how a visitor reached their site, how it was explored and of course the time spend on each section of the website. This information is crucial; it helps increase conversions and allows SEO folks to fine tune the content and other elements of a website to earn larger revenues.
However, for a novice it is just a piece code which provides them with data in the form of numbers, graphs and charts. Analytics tool from Google provides critical information which help plan internet marketing strategies.
Recently, Google announced the new Google Analytics Core Reporting API. This will replace the Data Export API which was used earlier. Solutions or applications built around the new API will provide several advantages over its predecessor. It will support many new client libraries such as PHP, Ruby, Python, JavaScript and Java. Developers now need to register their apps via Google’s API console.
Developers can extend the functionality of this service by customizing the information collected from web and mobile platforms. Developers can also create their own analytic solutions.
Google analytic developer platform provides the opportunity and the resources to develop solutions which can help collect data, and provide reports about the interactions that people have with your online content.
1. The new version of the API is fast and the reason is because it now uses JSON to deliver the data, which is much more efficient than the previous XML format.
2. It reduces the size of the data by almost ten times. Data reporting is become extremely efficient.
3. Saves time by automating complex tasks.
4. Allows easy integration of Google analytics data with business data.
The XML based Data Export reporting will be discontinued in the coming months.
So what does this all mean for SEO experts?
Google analytics has been undergoing several facelifts in terms of new tools and technologies that are being added to provide better data extraction. With new social reporting ready to be rolled out in 2012, the new core reporting feature will add more punch to analytic tool. The core reporting API will also help developers bring out more innovative solutions and applications.
Some of the potential metrics, reporting and innovative onsite data that can help SEO experts are:
1. Advanced segments and custom reporting for in-depth and specific information.
2. Data visualisation. This can help SEO people with information regarding websites that are linking back, the popular content on the website, and keywords that were used to attract visitors to the website. SEO folks can also take advantage from the referral URL’s.
All of the above reports and data help internet advertising people in formulating the right plan for the success of any business website. As the primary means of driving traffic to a website is keyword-based or search-based the latest analytic tool will provide further help in understanding the intricacies of search engine. Google analytics provides easy integration of Ad Word campaigns as well as the ability to tag keyword destination URLs.