Nice idea by my good friend Robbie to start a techie type category. When I saw his posting on amazon I thought I'd contribute by sharing my experience with Google Analytics and the ability to track your web sites performance from a conversion point of view.

Think about it. You have a business. You buy keywords on various search engines (google, yahoo, ask etc etc). You want to know if the money you're shelling out is actually bringing you more money in, ie, a positive ROI. (Return On Investment). Here's a typical and very simple scenario:

• You own an online store selling, say, drum parts.  
• You pay $500 a month in keyword buys on www.joeblogssearchengine.com.
• Is the $500 you are spending on those keywords bringing in more than $500 in sales?

This is a very common question that search engine marketers need to know. Ideally, you should be able to track a sale (or conversion) and identify where the person originally came from. If none of your sales are a result from a click on www.joeblogssearchengine.com then you'd be just as well taking the $500 and subscribing to "search engine marketing for dummies". This is called Conversion tracking and there are a few easy ways to get this information.

There are numerous conversion tracking software companies out there. There is also a free way to do it! (free is good right?) Either way, There are steps common to configuring conversion tracking:

• Get some javascript from the solution provider to put on your web site.
• Change the URL's of your ads on the various search engines you advertise on. 

In my Job, I'm kinda tagged (no pun intended) as the "conversion tracking" expert. An honourable position indeed, so I know a wee bit about this.  If you go with a conversion tracking vendor then they have people on staff to help you set things up. If you go with the free option ("Google Analytics"), they have tonnes of documentation but, in my opinion, it's a bit confusing. Because of this, I wrote a guide on a great site called work.com that explains how to set this up. A direct link to the guide itself is HERE.

Ok, It's Friday afternoon and I'm off to drink beer. While I do that, go set up some conversion tracking and watch that money roll in!

Out!