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Visit http://www.google.com/analytics and login with your username and password. There will be a list of any website or blog you're tracking as Google allows tracking of multiple sites within an account. Click on "View Reports" next to the site you wish to review and you'll be taken to the dashboard, which contains snapshots of several reports generated by Google Analytics (GA). These reports may include visitors, traffic sources, map overlay and content. You can move them around, add new reports to the dashboard, or remove ones you don't like with the simplicity of drag and drop.

Near the top is a section called Site Usage. It includes the following:

Google shows you the last 30 days of activity by default, however you can change this setting, or even compare two different date ranges, for example May 2009 against August 2008.

You can do this by clicking on the date range box found in the upper right corner and changing the "Comparison" dropdown from "Site" to "Date Range" and entering the appropriate dates. To go back to a singular date range just reverse the process.

On every page there's an About this Report link in the left hand column that will give specific information about the report you're viewing.

There are many reports and many ways to assess them, but these are the five reports recommended for regular review:

Visitors Overview - This is an essential report that tells you how much traffic you have, how many page views, the average length of visit and your bounce rate. You can delve deeper depending on your needs, finding out how much new traffic you're getting, what size monitors your visitors have, whether they use broadband or dial-up, and much more.

Traffic Sources Overview - Where did your visitors come from? Search engines, other websites or did they type your URL into their address bar? This report breaks it down and tells you your best traffic sources. It may also show you where you need to put more energy into developing more traffic.

Referring Sites (under Traffic Sources) - These are the sites visitors were at before they arrived at your site - not including search engines.

Keywords - What words did visitors use at Google and the other search engines to find your site? This report will tell you, and give you detailed info on how valuable each keyword is in terms of how long visitors spend time at your site, how many pages they view, and even whether they "convert" by filling out a contact form, signing up for an email newsletter or buying something from your store.

Top Content - What pages get the most traffic on your site? This report breaks it down for you so you can better see how people are using your site.

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