This is my constantly expanding list of sites to get listed on - based on the fact that they show themselves as IBLs on Google (therefore, increasing rankings in the SERPs):
Not all stats programs are created equal. And you’ll find that not all hosting companies have stats programs readily available for their customers. The bottom line is, however, that at some point, your customer will ask you how the website is performing. If the company sells products, that is always a very good indication of performance, but it doesn’t give you a clear picture of WHY products are selling. That’s why you’ll need stats.
Now, there are a lot of programs out there and many of them are superb. I’m not recommending one program over another, I’m simply going to point out the easiest and cheapest (at no cost except the time it takes to install) stats program available today and that is Google Analytics.
You will need to have a Google account (free and easy to sign up) and then you can create your Google Analytics (GA) account. GA is a nice program for webmasters because it allows you to add multiple sites to your profile, while also giving limited access for reviewing reports to anyone who has a Google account. You can restrict their access to only the website they should have access to, while you can review all the reports in one single location.
To install the program, you’ll need to add a new website profile and get the small piece of tracking code provided. Install that on all the pages you want to track stats for and VOILA! that’s all there is to it. GA will start gathering data immediately.
Now, it does lack some reporting flexibility that I’ve come to enjoy in other programs and you do not have any ability (that I’ve been able to find) to customize reports outside of the minor things GA provides. However, it will show you the main stats and a number of other interesting reports that can assist you and your customer in determining how well the website is performing.
ADWORDS INTEGRATION:
GA has the ability to track your Google Adwords account inside the GA application, giving you one single location to check all of your stats. This is EXTREMELY useful because reviewing what works on PPC vs. organic and vice versa can be very helpful in improving the performance of your website.
Your customers will love the pretty graphs and the fact that the stats are at their fingertips, whenever they want to view them - and let me tell you, I’ve had customers who view their stats daily, if not hourly! People LOVE stats.
Get out there and get Google Analytics on your new site - it takes no time to install and it’s a great way to show how well your SEO campaign is working for your customers!