Google Analytics - Tools for Manvolution

Looking at google analytics, I kept having to pull my jaw off the desk.  There are sooo many tools, all of them valuable.  The achilles heel of marketing - measuring effectiveness - has been been healed.  Or at least a cure has been found for those who want  the medicine.  Simply put, google has an impressive array of tools, neatly categorized and easily explained.  

My business is currently just an idea, with only a facebook page to drive people to.  As such, some of the google analytics like Bounce Rate would not apply - since I only have a one-page facebook page.  Same for goal conversion.  At this stage, I'm not prompting for any call to action from my customers - the site is theoretical only.  However, if I were to capitalize on google analytics, I would focus on the following three tools:

1.  Traffic Sources.  This tool tells you where your customers came from.  Did they come from an organic SEO search, a social media site, or from a paid advertisement?  Traffic sources helps you find out what path your customers took to get to your site.  This is invaluable, as it let's you know where your customers are, thereby making it easy to focus your content efforts and  advertising vehicles toward the right vehicles.

2.  Campaign Measurement.  Hard to believe that google gives you these tools for free!  Campaign measurement compares your different campaign messages, such as two different google ad words campaigns, so you can measure which one is more effective.  This helps you define what keywords, what offers, what messages, resonate most with your customers and drive traffic to your site, or goal conversions depending on what your goal is.  

3.  Search Engine Optimization.  What keywords are customers using in their search to get to your site?  This helps you refine your keyword strategy, which can help drive your content development.

That's the tip of the iceberg.  As with most social media options, there is no shortage of options.  The key is maintaining focus among all the choices, so you can have a clear idea of what is working and what is not. Thank you google analytics for giving us some excellent tools to improve our social media efforts!