So this week was the coveted World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.  And while watching poker finalists Pius Heinz, Martin Staszko, and Ben Lamb battle it out, I thought about Google Analytics of all things!  I was recently at an American Academy of Podiatric Practice Management (AAPPM) meeting in Florida, where I attended a two-hour intensive Google Analytics seminar hosted by Dr. Andrew Schneider and Rem Jackson.  Now, much like poker players analyze their opponents, Google Analytics analyzes your website.  But, what exactly does it analyze?

The short answer is everything, but what does that mean?  For those that are not familiar with website statistics, Google Analytics is not only the place that collects data about your website, but offers great educational and help section to inform it’s users.  Google Analytics will analyze your bounce rate, unique visitors per month, different sources in which people find you, and much, much, much more.  Everything you could ever need to know about your website is contained in this one place.  So lets talk in detail about some of Google Analytics features:

Bounce Rate:  Very simply, your bounce rate is how many people visit your website and decide it is not what they were looking for.  Google Analytics evaluates the bounce rate for every single page of your site, and gives you the figure in a percentage.  So, for example, a web page with a bounce rate of 100% is not good and means all of the people finding that page are not finding content they are looking for and immediately leaving, or “bouncing”.  You might want to consider changing the content and SEO factors on the page to better reflect peoples search terms.

Unique Visitors:  Your website should get many visitors, but it is the unique visitors that makes me excited.  Unique visitors are visitors that are finding your website for the first time. This is important because it means new people are finding your website, which means new potential patients for your practice.

Traffic Sources:  Google has the amazing ability to track every single visitor and how those visitors find your website.  This data is displayed in a pie chart by default but can also be displayed in a number of other charts that highlight different areas.  The most important traffic source by far is the search engine category.  If people are mostly finding you via search engines, it means your site is rich with organic content and you are employing effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.

Like I said earlier, Google Analytics has the ability to spit out loads of information and can pretty much tell you everything you need to know to make informed SEO decisions.  Please take advantage of this feature because it will help you in the fast paced and very competitive SEO game.  And, oh yeah, did I mention its free?