How do you know after all who's visiting your crafts site? Are they staying long? Looking at multiple projects? Do you have a newsletter or RSS feed you want them to sign up for? What if you're selling your crafts?
Ever notice in Etsy under Shop Set Up-Analytics that you can link a Google Analytics account with your Etsy store?
First off, you should have some sort of analytics. Just something that gives you an idea that people are looking at your site and how they are behaving when they get there. Particularly if you're stumped for a new craft idea, you can go to your analytics, see what people liked and do another project or post similar to that!
Which analytics should you use?
Well if you have a Blogspot, Wordpress, Blogger or Typepad account that's free, you're probably looking for something affordable, perhaps also free. The best free analytics package out there is Google Analytics. If you have the cash and can pay for something like Urchin or Omniture, you can, but keep in mind that if your site is under 10,000 pages, you should go with the free stuff for now and spend your money on glitter.
Setting up Google Analytics
Since I'm a heavy advocate of this program, I'll tell you how to get started. If you want to go with another program, you'll just have to make do with their tutorial (sorry).
First of all, you'll need a Google account. This doesn't have to be a Gmail email address, it can be anything, but you need an email address and to make it a Google Account:
Visit the Google Analytics homepage and click the "Sign Up Now" link under the big blue button.
Click on the link to create a Google account (if you don't have one) if you do, fill in your Google account information.
Once you're logged into your new Google Analytics account, we need to add your website URL. Look on the far right side of the dashboard for a little plus sign that says "+ Add new profile" and click it.
Paste in your URL and click continue. Leave the radio button selected for "add a profile for a new domain."
A block of javascript code will be shown that includes your new Google Analytics account number. This piece of code has to go on every page of your site that you want to track. Easiest thing to do is put it in the footer, that way it's on every page. The javascript block of code will not alter your site's appearance in any way and in a way, is much pretty invisible. Copy all the code (click in the box and hold down CTRL and A keys).
Since I don't have Blogger or Typepad etc; I'm going to use Wordpress for the example.
In Wordpress, go to Appearance and Theme editor in the left sidebar and select your current theme.
On the right side bar all the different pieces of your theme should be listed out: header, footer, stylesheet, right sidebar etc;
Open the footer file. Scroll down and paste in the block of javascript code between the
and tags and save. Be sure that you paste in the code BEFORE the last /body tag and click "update file."
That's it!
Now go back to your Google Analytics site and check that it is receiving data. It may take a little while to start populating with data, 24 hrs is the longest it should take, but for now you can see if it's set up right or not.
Click on blue "edit" next to your domain name. Look at the top right and see the link for "Receiving data" and "Check status" links. Click on "check status" to see if your code was installed properly and that Google Analytics is receiving information.
Now you can take your UA-XXXXX (Google Analytics account number-always start with a UA) and add it to your Etsy shop profile (if applicable)
OK- now you've installed the code. What do you do with the information?
Well first of all, it's going to take a few days to populate with data and statistics. It can't look back and get old data, so let's let that gather for a bit and next time we'll talk about tracking goals and visitors!
Need more information on what to do with your crafts site? Check out other tutorials on:
Naming Your Craft Images for Search Engines
Achieve Your Traffic and Sales Goals with Crafts
How to Get Your Crafts Site Noticed by Search Engines
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