As many of you already know, Google Analytics is a powerful tool that provides your business with valuable insight regarding website performance. Google Analytics tracks everything from where visitors are coming from and how long they stay on your website, to which pages they visited and for how long.
However, by default Google tracks information on every visitor to your website – including you and your employees. So in order to get the most accurate representation of your website’s performance and avoid “skewing” the data with your own internal visits/traffic, we recommend that you set up filters to exclude any internal visitors. Here’s how it works.
1. Log into Google Analytics
In order to get started, head over to www.Google.com/Analytics and click Sign In to log into your Google Analytics account.
2. Choose Your Website Account or Property
Once you’re logged in, click on the Admin button in the upper right hand corner.
In the Admin Dashboard, use the account drop-down field to choose the website profile you wish to set a filter on (only applicable if your tracking multiple websites in Google Analytics).
Once you have selected a website profile click All Filters.
3. Create a New Filter
Next, click on + New Filter.
Create a name for your new filter (Home Computer, Employees in Chicago, etc.) and choose Predefined Filter as the filter type.
Then from the drop-down list options, choose Exclude, Traffic from the IP Addresses and That are Equal to. Finally, enter in the IP address for a network or a particular computer.
Note: If you don’t know your IP address, open a new browser and head over to Google search and type “What is My IP Address” into the search field – your IP address will be displayed right at the top of the Google search results.
4. Apply the Filter
Finally, under Apply Filters to Views click on the website profile that you’re adding the filter to and then click the Add button to move it over to the right under Selected Profiles.
Click Save.
Now any visits made to your website from that particular IP address or network will be excluded. Please note that the filter profile only works for the visitors moving forward – it does not go back and exclude past visits from historical reports.
Also instead of entering one IP address at a time, you can enter a range of IP addresses for your office if applicable.
And that’s all there is to it! Go ahead and test it – you’ll notice that your report data is more accurate now that it excludes internal visitors.
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By Mark Badran
Juice Marketing
“Squeezing the Most Out of Your Marketing Dollar”
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