You've got your unique Google Analytics tracking code in every page of your web site, success! However, now you've got access to the multitude of reports it's hard to know where to start. Here's a quick look at a few to get you started but there are plenty I could have chosen from. Each screenshot to the right illustrates the report that I've referred to in each heading.

Real-Time report - pageviews as they happen

This report lets you monitor visitor activity as it happens on your site. Updated continuously, each pageview is reported seconds after it occurs on your web site. You can see:

• how many people are on your site right now
• pageviews per minute and second
• their geographic locations
• the traffic sources that referred them to your web site
• which the pages they're viewing.

You'd want to use Real-Time to:

• verify that the tracking code is working on your site
• monitor whether new and changed content on your site is being viewed
• check the immediate effects on traffic from a blog/social network post or tweet
• see whether a one-day promotion is driving traffic to your site, and see which pages these visitors are viewing
• monitor the effects of new campaigns on your site.

Audience overview

This report gives you an at-a-glance view of of visitor metrics. You can see visits over the last month (in the line graph), new vs returning visitors (pie chart), and a list of values for each of the following metrics:

• Visits (total number of visits to your site)
• Unique Visitors (total number of unique visitors to your site)
• Pageviews (total number of pages viewed on your site)
• Pages per Visit (average number of pages viewed per visit)
• Average Visit Duration (average visit length of all visitors)
• Bounce Rate (percent of single-page visits)
• New Visitors (percent of total visitors who visited your site for the first time)

In the Audience overview screen shot, it shows metrics for the last month. Although there are only 269 unique visitors on average they stay to read 3.25 pages over 3 minutes 39 seconds. It also attracts 61% new visitors and those returning 39%, so in all, it's got content that people want to read and want to return to.

The Audience reports are designed to provide insight into:

• who makes up your audience (demographics)
• how that audience reaches and uses your site (technology, mobile)
• loyalty and engagement (behavior)
• what pages visitors have viewed and exited from (visitors flow)

Traffic sources overview

These reports helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your referrals, direct traffic, organic (unpaid) search keywords, and custom campaigns. In the Traffic sources overview screen shot you can see that 39.44% Search Traffic, 23.16% Referral Traffic and 37.40% Direct Traffic.

There are other reports within 'Traffic sources' that you can find more information relating to each type of traffic source. For example, when you select the 'Sources' -> 'Referrals' you can measure how actively the visitors are engaging with your site (and its content) from other sites. The metrics: Pages/Visit, Avg. Visit Duration, % New Visits and Bounce Rate are displayed. You can quickly note which referral site is successful in bringing the right audience that engages with your site.

Within the 'Sources' -> 'Search' reports, keywords that visitors searched are captured in the case of search engine referrals. This is available for both organic and paid (Adwords) search. Although, do note that when SSL search is used e.g. if the user is signed into a Google account, the keyword will have the value (not provided). Something that Google brought in 2011 and which has brought much agitation!

Traffic sources, Search Engine Optimization

These Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reports provide information about Google web search queries that have returned URL results from your site. These reports are available only when you've added your site and verified it with Webmaster Tools (http://webmaster.google.com/). If you haven't used Webmaster Tools, you will need to login using your Google account and add your site to it to begin collecting search query data for the SEO reports in Analytics.

Once you've verified your web site within Webmaster Tools, all SEO reports are available. In the Search Engine Optimization screen shot you will see the impressions, clicks, average position and click through rate (CTR) of the keywords that have been used to access your web site.

It's worth checking these reports to identify the search queries that drive traffic to your site, you can also learn which keywords make the most sense for your objectives (that you want visitors to achieve on your site). In addition, you can identify how to optimize your website for both content and search quality.

Content In-page analytics

This report lets you make a visual assessment of how users interact with your web pages, and helps you assess:

• if the layout is optimised for what you want users to accomplish on each page
• if users are seeing the content you want them to see
• if users are finding what they're looking for on the page
• if calls to action are motivating or visible enough
• what links are users clicking

So that's a start.

If you aren't careful, it's very easy to waste time and get lost in Google Analytics, so it's important that you take the time to go beyond the surface level of the data. Thinking through what you want your visitors to achieve on your web site will help you make the most of Google Analytics. You can then delve in further and study the dimensions and metrics you are looking for within the reports.

Keep in mind that the data is only as valuable as the person interpreting it, be sure you don't take the numbers at face value without figuring out the whole story.