In a move already predicted to boost online marketing in Europe and Asia, Google has made its website analytics tool available in six new languages.

Google Analytics, which monitors website traffic and the effectiveness of marketing strategies, can now be used in Bulgarian, Greek, Lithuanian, Slovak, Catalan and Vietnamese, bringing the total languages available to 31.

In a blog post, Dai Pham and Jeff Gillis from the Google Analytics team cite the "amazing" growth in the global use of website analytics they've witnessed over the past few years, adding: "As usage and the analytics dialogue scales internationally, our product, team and ecosystem are scaling right along with it."

An overview of the benefits Google Analytics presents to businesses is one ingredient of an upcoming masterclass being hosted by the search giant in London's Earls Court.

Google UK product specialist Gilli Goodman will host the session at the Technology For Marketing & Advertising event happening from 23-24 February, revealing how the analytics tool provides the information needed to write better ads, strengthen marketing initiatives and create higher-converting websites.

Another Google session looking at mobile products and advertising will probe smartphone developments and the rapid growth of the popular Android operating system.

After a successful set of masterclasses at last year's Technology For Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A) event, Google has confirmed it will host two sessions at the 2010 show, featuring tips on driving online performance using tools like AdWords, mobile advertising and Google Analytics. The event, targeted at marketing, media and advertising professionals, is happening in London's Earls Court from 23-24 February.

Gilli Goodman, Google UK product specialist, will give an overview of how Google Analytics can help businesses during her masterclass, outlining how the tool provides the information needed to write better ads, strengthen marketing initiatives and create higher-converting websites.

Sarah Speake, mobile sales and technology director at Google UK, will host a session entitled "The future is mobile", looking at the future of mobile products and advertising at Google. Developments in smartphones and the rapid growth of the Android operating system will be covered in the session.

"Find out about Google's mobile advertising products in search, display and local and learn strategies and best practice for developing mobile sites and campaigns," she urges.

YouTube will also be represented at this year's event, with a discussion entitled "Brands on Film: The video explosion is on!"

The developments continue in the world of Google's website analytics tool, Google Analytics, as the new Annotations feature is rolled out. It lets different users add comments to reports, files and charts to make it easier to explain and comprehend technical analytical information.

In a blog post, the Google Analytics team give examples of the type of situation they aim to help people overcome with the development: "Was that dip in traffic because the servers went down? When did the new display ads campaign launch? Who's responsible for the checkout page redesign and when did it go live?"

They point out that they want to end "the wild goose chase" by making it more straightforward to account for everything that happens to a website and online marketing.

With Annotations, any user with access to a Google Analytics profile can leave shared or private notes on over-time graphs. The team state: "Annotations complements existing anomaly detection by capturing the tribal intelligence of your company, which tends to be the most expensive and easily lost resource of all."

Other recent changes to Google Analytics include Multiple Custom Variables, Custom Reports and a new analytics tracking code setup wizard.

Google's so-called website analytics "evangelist" has claimed most marketers need to work on building long-tail keyword campaigns. Audience members at this month's Search Insider Summit in Utah were told by Avinash Kaushik that effective long-tail strategies help businesses grow because they give marketers the ability to capture potential customers first.

Although brand searches typically require an organisation's name, he explained, marketers should remain open to the long tail. He advised availing of Google tools like the Search-Based Keyword Tool, which provides insight into long-tail words – for both organic and paid search.

The tool lets marketers know which keywords they should use and the competition for a given keyword, as well as displaying the current impression share for a campaign from organic and paid search.

Since last month, the Mountain View giant has been tweaking its website analytics tool, Google Analytics, to let webmasters sort through specific sections of their target audiences more easily and accurately.

One change, concerning multiple custom variables, entails as many as 50,000 different variables being definable at one time, with each specified via JavaScript code embedded in page templates. Variables are placed on visitors as individuals, within the session or within the page.

With companies of all sizes – and from across all industries – increasingly incorporating online video into their internet marketing strategies, the role of website analytics has been underlined as a means of finding out if time and money investments are paying off or not.

Experts compare using online video and not tracking its effectiveness to hiring a sales rep and never checking in with them after training and giving them a customer route.

Furthermore, US-based business-to-business collaboration specialist Brian Tervo points out to DM News that website analytics usually work best when integrated into organisations' overall marketing plans, rather than being relied on as a standalone tool.

"Use the analytics as part of a comprehensive programme that addresses what you're trying to achieve with your online video," he advises. "And make sure that those analytics are aligned with your internal sales and marketing processes. Only then will you be able to tell if a campaign is really working."

By tracking website traffic, programmes like Google Analytics let marketers see how many visitors view particular videos, which sites they have come from and what their defining characteristics are. They thereby enable firms to better understand and optimise web usage.

Google's latest additions to its website analytics tool, Google Analytics, will mean webmasters can sort through specific sections of their target audiences more easily and accurately.

Some of the most obvious sites to benefit, industry experts have noted, will be news portals and information outlets which are increasingly progressing towards multimedia-based reporting styles.

One change, concerning multiple custom variables, will entail as many as 50,000 different variables being definable at once, each specified via JavaScript code embedded in page templates. Variables will be placed on visitors at three levels: as an individual visitor, within the session or within the page.

This will aid news websites with improving their understanding of the behaviour of different readership segments, a consideration singled out by analysts at technology blog Poynter Online as "critical" while such outlets continue to strive for fresh online business models.

"At the visitor level, a tag such as 'registered visitor' may be applied to track the behaviour of all of your readers in that cohort," they observe. "At the session level, a tag such as 'commenter' could be applied to any visitor who interacts with your commenting system."

Goal-based traffic tracking is a further change being made to Google Analytics, in addition to an alert system for changes in traffic and expanded reports on mobile phone web browsing.

Investing in website analytics often provides a significant boost to web-based promotional campaigns like email marketing, the latest research confirms.

Digital marketing advisers at Econsultancy probed over 700 marketers for the study, looking at the different types of conversion and measurement used, in addition to tools, strategies and processes employed for building conversion rates.

A major finding was that 80 per cent of organisations which use website analytics agreed it had positively impacted on their conversion rates. The majority also affirmed the benefits of their email platforms, paid search bid management tools and ratings and reviews technologies.

Company respondents who said they were "very satisfied" with their conversion rates carried out over four times as many monthly tests on their web properties as those described as "very dissatisfied" with their conversion rates.

Some of the practices found to be closely correlated with high conversion-rate satisfaction include the alignment of keywords, calls to action and landing pages, the removal of bottlenecks and blockages to conversion and the identification of key performance indicators.

In October, search giant Google announced a range of additions to its website analytics tool, Google Analytics, which will be revealed gradually over the coming weeks.

A webinar taking place this week aims to showcase how global firms are harnessing the power of website analytics to hone their targeted email marketing campaigns.

Scheduled for tomorrow (23rd September) afternoon, the event will see Forrester Research Inc's John Lovett provide "proven tactics" for integrating website analytics into marketing initiatives.

He will be joined by fellow email marketing experts Christopher Parkin and Scott Roth, who commented that personal interests and consumers' needs are some of "the most significant factors" that prompt individuals to open email.

"Web analytics provides one of the greatest opportunities to understand the interests and needs of customers based on the information they look at and the actions they take online," added Roth.

Experts in search engine optimisation note that there can be considerable differences between the data reported by providers of website analytics services.

This is down to the various ways such providers collect and collate their numbers.

For example, Google Analytics uses JavaScript/cookie-based tracking, meaning cookies are placed on visitors' computers every time they visit a page.

Successful tracking using this method depends on the cookies and images being enabled by users' web browsers, otherwise the website analytics service will not count the visit.

Click here to register for the free webinar.

Your website is now getting some traffic and maybe even a few sales so now you can relax, put your feet up and wait for your paycheck, right?

WRONG!

Analysing your visitor behaviour can substantially improve your profitability and conversion rates.

Aloeride aloe vera pills is a good example of this, even though the site already converts well, visitor behaviour is analysed almost daily and changes are made to improve the site based upon this.

So lets look at the main statistics you need to be looking at and what they are telling you about your site. Im going to assume you are using the free Google Analytics software:

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