You found me HOW?!

Google Analytics is one of my dearest friends. We hang out just about every day. We french braid each other’s hair, paint each other’s toenails candy apple red, and write really corny analogies so we can post it on my blog!

All jokes aside, GA is one flipping incredible tool that those of us with a web presence can use to pinpoint how people find our sites AND how they explore them. My GA account allows me to see visits to both my blog and website, as well as individual pageviews, how many pages are looked at per visit, the average time spent on my site(s), what percentage of visitors are on my site(s) for the first time, and on and on and on. GA also provides a map overlay that pinpoints down to the town any given visitor’s location. I’m not gonna lie, it makes me feel pretty special to see that somewhere in Nouméa, New Caledonia, someone is taking a look-see at my work! (P.S. Am I the only one who didn’t know New Caledonia existed?)

But my favorite aspect of GA is that it provides a traffic sources overview, where you can see what percentages of visitors find you through referring sites as opposed to direct traffic as opposed to search engines. Besides the obvious benefits this knowledge can provide for adjusting your SEO rankings, it also just makes me laugh! Get ready for some of the most recent, CRAZY keyword searches through which people have found my blog. SO weird. :)

I’m pretty sure this one is due to this post.

A mix of this post and this post, perhaps? :)

This one just makes me smile. :)

I know I’m pretty open about my age on my blog.. But this is a little creepy! Haha!! Psst, I’m 22. :)

And I’ll leave you with the most interesting keyword search. I know I’ve written about bulldogs, but butterflies?

Happy Wednesday!