It’s true that a rolling stone gathers no moss, and Google have elevated the old saying into an art form. In the past eighteen months the company has been active in search, mobile phones, a new programming language called Go designed to make web servers run faster, a bevy of free online tools, modifications and improvements to their Gmail and Google Docs accounts, the rolling out of Google wave (albeit still in Beta), modifications and improvements in Google Analytics and, since it’s already so near Christmas, a partridge on a pear tree.

It’s the second last we are really concerned with here. Google Analytics has always been a no-brainer when it comes to deploying it on your site. It’s free, it’s powerful, it helps you track what happens on your website in terms of visitors and it helps you understand what works, what doesn’t and what brings you traffic and Google have just ran some improvements which have made it even better.

The new features allow quicker insights, deeper customizations, more advanced analysis and the ability track more mobile marketing!

According to the recently released Google notes the changes are:

1.    Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts - Using an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine, Analytics Intelligence monitors data patterns over daily, weekly and monthly periods. Significant changes in data trends and insights you may not have noticed are surfaced directly in your account. You can also create your own Custom Alerts that monitor your selection of dimensions and metrics that can be sent by email or displayed in the Intelligence reports.

2.    Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals - You can now track even more conversions by creating up to 20 goals per profile. Measure user engagement and branding success on your site with Time on Site and Pages per Visit goals. Set up your first Engagement goal in minutes.

3.    Expanded Mobile Reporting - Google Analytics has expanded support for mobile websites and tracking for iPhone and Android mobile applications tracking. Adding server side code to your PHP, JSP, PERL, or ASPX mobile websites enables you to track non-Java-Script enabled phones. For mobile application developers, access the SDK and technical implementation details here. You'll also be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section of your Google account.

4.    Unique Visitors Metric - Include the Unique Visitors metric in your Custom Report or Advanced Segments to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) visit your website. You can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics.

5.    Advanced Analysis Features - Dive deeper into your data with Pivoting, Secondary Dimensions, and Advanced Table Filtering. These combined features enable you to perform in-depth, on the fly data analysis within your account.

6.    Share Advanced Segments and Custom Report Templates - Share the URL link for an Advanced Segment or Custom Report with anyone who has an Analytics account. Sharing the link will automatically import the pre-formatted template into the person's account. Also available now is the ability to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports by profile which is useful when it comes to sending data about your Google Analytics account.

7.    Multiple Custom Variables - Custom variables provide the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics to collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. Define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (member vs. non-member), session attributes (signed in or signed out), and by page-level attributes (viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site. Start learning more about them now.

This is probably not the end either. Google Analytics has been quietly getting better ever since it was released and although its reporting may not be as pretty as some paid-for packages, its depth of analysis, quality, stability and the fact that it’s free make it a total no-brainer when it comes to implementing it.

The Web Direct Studio company Blog is penned by a number of our in-house staff from our different areas of activity. They write anonymously in order to free their range of expression, particularly when it comes to criticizing their sector of activity or making observations about their job. They work under a simple edict: What you say must make sense and must fit in with the tone of our online business. Apart from that they are the ones who choose the topic they write about in each Blog post.