Google Analytics: How the heck to you use it?

I have Google analytics on this site, but it took some doing to understand some of the reports. I'm sure I still have something to learn. I just wanted to start with the basics here today.

Lets look at a couple of sections today.

Search Engine Keywords - are the words that drew them to your site. They are clicking on those to read you content.

Referring Sites - those are other sites that have links to your site, and content within your site.

Visitor type - What number of your visitors are NEW, and what number are returning to read your content!

These are important starting points to understanding analytics. One thing that is nice is you don't have to have that counter on the bottom of your page any longer! There is not need for it anymore.

Visits: Number of times somebody came to your site in the week.

Pages/Visit: Measures number of pages read on average to show you how "engaged" your readers are with your content.

Avg. Time on Site: Measures the length of the typical visit to your site. In general, the higher quality your content is, the longer the average visit.

% New Visits: This one is a little confusing. Basically, measures what percent of visits are made by visitors who have never been to your site before. In general, you want to see this number drop as more and more visitors return to your site because they are enjoying your thoughts, concepts and information you provide.

Bounce Rate: NOT what I thought it was! Bounce Rate is the percentage of visits to your site that result in only one page being visited. For most types of sites the lower bounce rates are better.

Here are some basics for you for Google Analytics! Use those reports to realize what content is getting you traffic, what keywords are important for one! Then continue to find ways of writing content that people will enjoy reading, and content that sells YOU and your product!

What has anyone else learned about this program that you use for your site?