When you are browsing through your Google Analytics profile, it is hard to visualize what exactly your website visitors are doing on your website.  One tool that makes this visualization a lot easier is the In-Page Analytics option from within Google Analytics.  From this page you can see even more specifics about how people are interacting with your website.

To access the In-Page Analytics option, simply go to Content > In-Page Analytics in the Google Analytics sidebar menu.  From there, you should be taken to your website’s front page and get all kinds of content details in the left side of the screen. 

The bubbles you see above, with the percentages inside, represent the percentage of clicks on that specific link by your website visitors. If you see a dotted border around the bubble, then this means more than one link leads to the same destination page.

This data can help you reach a number of goals.  You can see:

• Is my page layout optimal for what I want users to accomplish on the page?
• Are my users seeing the content I want them to see?
• Are my users finding what they’re looking for on the page?
• Are my calls to action motivating or visible enough?
• Which links are users clicking?

If you find the Google Analytics interface can be a little intimidating, then the In-Page Analytics option might give you a better visual representation of what is really going on with the traffic on your website. 

Did you know that you can easily use Google Webmaster Tools to fix crawl errors on your web site?  This way, you can make sure more of your links go to where they are suppose to so your visitors are not getting the doomed 404 error as much.  I have been going through my old Web Hosting Show posts for the last few weeks fixing a lot of old errors, so figured I would show you how I got things fixed up.

First, you will want to make sure you have set up a Google Webmaster Tools account for your domain.  It is free and easy to do.  Once you have the basic statistics up and running, check under Crawl errors:

As you see, Google has found 36 pages that are pulling the proverbial 404 on visitors.  Next, I want you to click the “Not found” link so we can find out how to fix the problem at hand.

This next page should show you all your crawl errors.

You get the basic information you need to get the problem fixed.  Google will tell you the page address that should be there, the kind of error it is, where this page is being linked from, and the date the error was detected.

Please Note: These changes you make will not be updated live to the list.  So even if you fix all the errors, and you see them still coming up in Google Webmaster Tools, don’t think you did something wrong.  Just wait for Google to crawl though your pages and the links in question again. Might take anywhere from a week to a month.

Now, if you click on one of the “Linked From” links, you should see the specific pages on the web that are causing the 404.

Here you can see three pages are trying to link to a page that does not exist on my web site anymore (due to me changing from Blogware to WordPress many years ago).  I need to go in and edit these three pages if I can and update or remove the link in question.

I hope that helps serve as an introduction to fixing your crawl errors within Google Webmaster Tools.  This service that Google providers all web site owners is one that is often overlooked, and deserves more credit than it gets out there today at helping you troubleshoot common web site problems.

How did you get your start on the Web?

Emory: My path into the web began in the mid 1990′s. I was a fairly uninspired surfer and email user until I discovered online multiplayer gaming. Meeting others and competing with them in a virtual world fascinated me. I spent a lot of time gaming back then when I should have been reserving domains like games.com. Looking back, I guess you could say that playing multiplayer games was my first online social networking experience. But, instead of the polite introductions we have with today’s social networking sites, you broke the ice by joining a game and chasing people around, taunting and blowing each other up.

Soon, I started building my own user maps. The next thing I knew I was learning to create graphics, then my first Web site which was a Duke Nukem fan site that had an address of something like someurl.com/~emory/dukenukem/, then writing PC game reviews for Gamezilla and UGO and just generally enjoying the whole Internet experience.

Who is the bigger star, Emory or Clickfire?

Emory: The best way to answer that question is by comparing the number of people who stop by my place to visit (friends, magazine salesmen, mailmen, etc) with the number of people who stop by Clickfire to visit. Emory might get one visitor per month. Clickfire gets many thousands. Clickfire can serve a lot more people than Emory ever could. It really makes you think about the leveraging power of the Internet. I could be standing on the street outside my home with a sign that said “Free 100 dollar bills” and I’d never get as many visitors, solve as many problems or meet as many cool people as Clickfire allows. Creating and maintaining my own Web site has has been one of the most enriching of life experiences.

Across Clickfire.com you cover lots of different web developer topics and discussions. What is your favorite area of the massive tent of web development and why?

Emory: I am still having a great time playing around with RSS/XML. Every major social site these days has a feed for the mashing. WordPress has individual category, post and comments feeds. I like to pull pieces of them from my own site and present them on a static page. Then, there is the mobile side, which I haven’t even begun to experiment with yet.

I would say you’re one of the longest running webmaster resources, with your roots going all the way back to 1997. What has made you want to stay in the game so long?

Emory: I enjoy it. Why I enjoy it is something I’ve thought about a great deal. I like having my own “place” online where I can do creative stuff like writing reviews and building free tools. Visitors read the reviews and use the tools and comment; that makes me like doing it more. I can earn revenue by adding affiliate marketing into the mix. So I enjoy it even more. I can increase that revenue with SEO. Now my career is in search marketing and I’m having fun and getting in even deeper. So, I meet even more interesting people like yourself who inspire me to be creative–the cycle starts again.

Are you afraid your going to wake up one day and have the sudden urge to quit and sell shoes at the mall?

Emory: I have no talent outside the Web, so I am sure that will never happen. Besides I can’t sell. I’d probably offer the customer an objective review of the shoes and then give him a pair for free. If I had to make money the brick and mortar way, I’d be broke. Being a webmaster is too much fun.

As far as web hosting goes, which two web hosts out there impress you the most and why?

Emory: You saved the toughest question for last . It seems that all the big shared hosts are offering more bandwidth than you can shake a pipe at. As I’m sure you are well aware, webmastering can be a lonely job and often keeps you up late into the night. If your site goes down at 3:00 AM, you can’t scream. Opening a support ticket online doesn’t seem to satisfy the human need to know that someone is listening and just might care. It’s probably no coincidence that the only two web hosts that have ever won 5 out of 5 Clickfire stars both have 24 hour phone support lines, BlueHost and HostGator. I will say that Lunarpages was the highest rated host we reviewed last year and I really like LP’s pro customer attitude. I am also hosting some sites on HostDime, which I like so far. And HostICan seems intriguing, which we are reviewing now. I think that’s more than two so I’ll stop and bid farewell before I get carried away.

Thanks, Mitch, for giving me the opportunity to share with your readers. And thanks for the free therapy because I have learned some new things about myself now. Keep up the great work with the Web Hosting Show and Mitchelaneous.