Issuing a press release and want to see if there was a correlation between the release date and your website's visitor traffic? Yes! Interested in knowing which pages of your site generate the most interest on a day-to-day basis? Of course. We all want to know if our marketing efforts are effective. Luckily, it's easy to implement some web analytics!

Google Analytics is a great option and offers a tremendous about of information about site usage—from the number of visitors and the amount of time spent on the site, to which pages were visited most frequently and what was the source of your site's traffic. The list goes on and on. With this valuable information, you'll be able to make more informed choices about the resources you're investing in your website.

The pros? Aside from the extensive reporting, it's FREE! And, it's pretty easy to use. After the initial set up, getting around the Google Analytics interface is a piece of cake.

The cons? You're giving Google data to continue build their empire and maintain their firm grip on the internet. Also, Google Analytics may not be telling you the whole story...

Google Analytics uses a cookie track data—therefore it won't track bots or crawlers, just real visitors (not necessarily a con...). For that same reason, if a visitor has cookies turned off, you're not going to be able to collect any information about them.

There are other limitations, of course, and additional options are available—server-side tools like Awstats or Webalizer—each with its own pros and cons. For more details on web analytics—including a good glossary of terms—check out this Wiki article and start analyzing!

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