Using Google Analytics- Filter out Your Visits

Google Analytics can give you a wealth of information concerning your site visitors but you don't really want your views counted in there. That just muddies the water and distorts what data you have.

So one change you should make to get a better grasp of your visitor is filter out your visits from the count. This will remove your views from the data and just show you the data from other visitors. You'll need to go to Google Analytics, I usually just go using My stats.

The page will probably open to a graph, so you'll need to click "Analytic Settings" on the top orange bar, right under the Google logo.You'll need to go to this page as well for the GA upgrade as well. Before you start, go to http://www.lawrencegoetz.com/programs/ipinfo/  and this will give you the ip address of your computer, write it down, we'll use it in a few minutes.

• On the right side, there will be a column called "Actions", under that click edit. (You probably want to go back and do this for all your profiles). 
• On the next page, go down to the third box, labeled Filters Applied to Profile. 
• On the right hand side, click add Filter. 
• Next page, Click on radio button for New Filter.
• Scoll and name the filter- say My Views. 
• Leave it on predefined filter, and left it on exclude in the first box, next box choose traffic from IP address, third leave on equal. Then enter that number you got before. This will block at your traffic. Click save changes.
• If you view Artfire from the workplace and it has a network, company.com. You can block those views by creating a second filter, this time chose exclude views from domain and then just add your companies domain. Click save.

In the next few articles we'll explore more about what you can do with  Google Analytics and work you can find out beyond the number of views. If you have any questions about the steps be sure to let me know and I'll explain further.