Google Analytics is a flexible and useful marketing tool that can provide you with an indepth insight into your website’s performance – by enabling you to monitor and measure information such as how many hits your site receives, how many pages were visited, and even at what point visitors are leaving your site.

It’s also possible to analyse how visitors use the site by setting up “events” and “goals” that will track visitor actions.

The information that Google Analytics provides can be extremely powerful if it is set up and processed correctly.  It’s an ideal way of determining your websites’ strengths and highlights areas of your site that can be improved. Here’s a quick ‘How To’ guide of how to go about setting up Google Analytics for your website.

Step 1

You will need to create a Google Account in order to gain access to Google Analytics; this is free and will give you access to other Google services as well as Analytics. To create your account visit www.google.com/accounts/ and follow the step by step instructions on how to sign up.

Step 2

After you have created your Google account the next step is to visit the Google Analytics web site – www.google.com/analytics – and click on the sign up button at the top right hand side of the screen. You will then be prompted to sign in using your Google account username and password and you’ll be directed to the following webpage where you need to sign up to analytics.

After logging in you will then be prompted to enter details about your website etc, this is all self explanatory if you follow the instructions provided.  See the  illustration below.

The account name will be the name of the report produced for your website. If you leave this section blank, it will default to your website’s web address.

The next steps are simply adding your contact details and accepting Google’s term and conditions.

Step 3

If everything above has been entered correctly, HTML code will be generated and displayed in the box. This is the code which effectively analyses your website and provides you with the information on your visitors. This is the page you should now be on:

Finally click ‘Save and Finish’ at the bottom of the page and you are complete.

If you would like PJ Web to insert this code on your website, please contact us on support@pjweb.co.uk.

We also offer an enhanced service as part of a full SEO campaign or as a standalone service.  This includes:

• Full briefing meeting to discuss your goals
• Advice on events and goals that can be added to your website
• Regular reporting on web traffic, trends and behaviour
• How to use the information to make website improvements

For more information contact Chris on 01204 328580

My thoughts after using my first iPad for a weekend

Just to get it out of the way, I’m not what would be described as an Apple fan boy. I don’t own an iPhone, nor a Mac; I have a first-gen iPod touch which I rarely use. I’m used to Windows products and I’m not particularly big on trying to impress my personal tech preferences onto others. Usually.After queuing in a PC World for an hour on Friday, I came home with the iPad model I’d wanted (a 16gb 3G model). My reasons for wanting it (I could try to convince myself I needed it – but I didn’t think I did, it was pretty much impulsive) were mainly:

• Portable TV
• (iPlayer, ITV, Sky Sports)
• Twitter
• Email
• Newspapers
• Media Centre

Continue reading →

Since the launch of our own in house Email Marketing system ‘Mailman’ PJ Web have helped many clients promote, inform and drive traffic to their customer’s websites. PJ Web believe via feedback from many clients who currently use Mailman as their preferred email marketing tool that it is Mailman’s sheer ease of use and excellent pricing structure which is why it has been such a success. Mailman continues to grow as more and more existing customers are now opting to use Mailman over the larger more generic email marketing systems.

We have some customers who still opt to use the larger email marketing systems as their preferred system due to the fact Mailman does not allow the use of bought in lists. We work with customers of this nature by creating the HTML templates for them to import into their current email marketing system as they find our templates to be personal and represent the brand of the company much better than generic templates offered by the larger email marketing systems.

All in all a very successful launch for PJ Web’s email marketing system ‘Mailman’ and we expect continued growth in this service into 2011. If you would like to enquire about email marketing or would like a branded HTML template created around your business brand then please call 0161 799 8555 and speak to either Sarah or Chris.

I recently spent a week in the Cotswolds to celebrate my sister’s special birthday.  I won’t say what age the special birthday was because Susan works at PJ Web and she wouldn’t thank me for broadcasting!

We found the ideal place for a group of us to stay in Stow on the Wold at the Old Forge Barn, http://www.bookcottages.com/cottages/100-NT8-old-forge-barn.htm – it was just fabulous. It might be a tad cool in the really cold winter months as the windows are a bit rattly but in November the temperature wasn’t too bad (can anyone remember that time?).  As summer accommodation it would be lovely and the owner allows you to take dogs.  It’s a unique place, unusual, quirky and just great for a crowd (sleeps up to 8 people) – good value too.