How to make sense of analytics?

How do you guys make sense of google analytics? It only seems good for seeing how many page views you got, but nothing to actually analyze, as the traffic source is either "(not provided)" or direct (go figure where it comes from...)

IMO understanding your traffic sources is the most important thing in IM, how else are we supposed to know what is working?

Are there any resources on how to use analytics or free analytics alternatives?

Mr.BL,

You can tell a lot more than how many visits you are receiving (and even more when you learn how to use custom code snippets and the API to make custom reporting). If you want to know traffic sources, you can see it in the traffic sources report under referrals.

You can obviously see a lot of general information about visitors to your site with analytics but you should really come up with some specific goals to track and measure. Just looking at all reports and trying to come up with a reason for looking at them will get you no where. You will just end up with data paralysis (i.e. so much information and no idea what to do with it all).

If you want to learn about analytics, Google has conversion university with tons of videos that show you how to use the platform.

http://www.google.com/analytics/iq.html

Best,

Shawn

That's a pretty strange thing if you are seeing only not provided and direct traffic. There are other things to look for, too, such as the pages that are getting most visits, the flow of visitors (where visitors drop off, especially if it's e-commerce). You can use it to add goals and see how that's working out (measure goal completions, drop offs, etc.).

There are other services that would work well in tandem with GA such as Visual Website Optimizer or Crazyegg? I understand that these aren't exactly understanding your traffic but they extend the scope of analytics.