It’s a good idea to install analytics on your sites. Analytics will tell you how many visitors you have to your site, where they came from, the search terms they used, etc. If you run an ad campaign, or try a new marketing method, you can use analytics to see how well it worked, or if it was a waste of time.
If your website has its own cPanel account on your hosting server, you automatically have access to AWStats. It’s not as comprehensive as Google’s Webmaster tools, but it’s already running on most c-Panels already, so it’s easy to use.
Google Webmaster Tools as your analytics is more comprehensive, its relatively easy to install, it has a host of features, and is free. However, many SEO experts believe that one should not give Google access to any more data about your websites and SEO tactics than what they already have. These are often the same experts who believe that your site should be created in HTML and not as a WordPress site, as they feel the day will come when Google penalizes WordPress sites. I state these facts for your general information. You choose as you see fit. I have never noticed a negative affect from having Google analytics on any of my sites; but on some sites, I choose not to take a chance. I would also not want to tie several sites that are linked together for the purpose of ranking, to one single Webmaster Tools account, as that is too much of a footprint.
The rank tracking I’m referring to is the tracking of how well your keywords are doing on Google. This is accomplished with online software from people like RankTracker. It will show you in near real-time where all of your keywords are ranking on Google. By tracking your rankings you can see what needs work and what is ranking well.
