Google Analytics is a fascinating piece of software. Since November 2005 it has dominated the free stats market and has done so with good reason! On the surface, the software is nothing short of excellent, but it’s once you take a little time to delve deeper that the true potential of this blogger’s best friend is revealed.

I found several features within Google Analytics that I never knew existed. It was time to do some research to find out what Analytics really offered. This article is a culmination of that research.

The 5 Google Analytics Secrets

#1 - Track Outbound Clicks - View Google Help Center Info
Whether you need to track how many people click your RSS subscription link, find out how many people click your advertiser banners or track how many times a file has been downloaded, Analytics’ ability to track outbound link clicks can help.

<a href=”http://www.example.com” onClick=”javascript:urchinTracker(’/outgoing/example.com’);”>

Add the onClick event to any link you wish to track. It’s good practice to use “/outgoing” at the start of the name. By doing so, you can easily track your outbound links.

Once you have added the code to your outbound links, how do you view the stats? Simple.

• Login to Analytics and click the “Content” link in the left sidebar
• Click “Content Drilldown”
• If you have had any outbound clicks, you will see a link called “outgoing/” in the URL column. You may need to use the “Find URL:” search feature at the bottom of the table to find the “outgoing/” link
• Click “outgoing/”. You should now see a break down of each outbound link that has been clicked

Click the photo to the right for screenshots of this process.

Click the photo to the right for screenshots of this process.

You can even track clicks of Flash items, such as Flash banners.

I’m hoping somebody will release a WordPress plugin that allows us to easily insert Analytics outbound tracking to links. A simple plugin that generates the code automatically after allowing us to enter the link name in a form would be ideal! If there are any WordPress gurus reading, please consider this as your next plugin!