Google Analytics, And A Bit Of A Moan

A feature which I find hugely useful is Google Analytics. Simply copy their tracking code into either your blog or website, and it will automatically track the number of visits per day, where the visitors are in the world, how long they spend on your blog or website, how many are new visits, where visitors are finding your blog or website etc.

What it also lets you do is set goals, so you can improve things like visitor numbers or time spent on the site.

Whats strange is that I have 3 followers from Washington State, USA. Though I think they may have stumbled on my blog accidentally, as I think my 1 visitor from the Philippines, 2 from Belgium, 1 from the Netherlands, the 1 from Australia and the 1 from Sweden may have done!

Of course today was the day the glass cartel decided to inflate their prices once again, I'm intrigued to see whether the manufacturers pass on the price hike this time. We escaped last time, not receiving any sort of increase, whether that was the same for other companies I don't know. But with most types of glass now up 50%, it's hard to see manufacturers taking such a large increase on the chin.

Not wanting to sound too negative in this post, but I'm already envisaging another hurdle for our industry to tackle, and that will be the return to higher VAT at the beginning of the 2010. Personally, I don't think that VAT will go back to 17.5%, it will go higher, possibly to 18 or 20%. If it does go as high as 20%, I can see our industry losing any ground it may make up in the economic recovery for possible the first 6 months of 2010. But that is worst case scenario of course! The positive side to me thinks that we will weather that little storm quite well. Oh, and then there's the changes to document L...