In a recent post at Search Engine Watch, Rob Chant notes that if you're doing any marketing at all, measuring the performance of your website is still critical to your success. And although your Web server likely has a basic tracking tool already installed, he argues that Google Analytics (GA) has proved to be a good fit for most business sites because it is fast, reliable, powerful—and free.

Chant offers three tips for getting the most out of GA from the start:

Install the tracking code everywhere. Remember to install the GA tracking code on every page of your website, not just on the homepage or a handful of other pages, Chant advises. If you're running a platform like WordPress, a plugin may be available to help you run GA, he notes.

Configure a special profile. Although this step involves mostly obvious settings that you configure only once, you can boost your profile with special considerations, Chant says. You can, for example, link your AdWords and Analytics accounts, track internal site search, track transactions for your e-commerce platform, and filter out traffic from your own or your company's IP address.

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