Not long ago, I set up a Google Analytics account for RVClub.com. Google Analytics is a pretty darn cool tool for something that is free (well, you do need to have an AdWords account — but that hasn’t cost me much money yet because hardly anyone ever clicks on my ads! I should hasten to add, once I relaunch RVC’s new design, I’ll pay more attention to AdWords and try to improve the ads’ performance.)

I’ve used a bunch of log analyzers and measurement tools before, including Sage and Omniture (two of the bigger names in web analytics). I hated Sage but found much that was good and useful in Omniture. Comparing Google Analytics with Omniture, which is better? Well, much would depend on your needs and your expertise with each application — I’ve gotten to know Omniture pretty well, Google Analytics not so much yet. I could do a lot of stuff with Omniture that I haven’t figured out how to do with Analytics yet. But I can get better information out of Analytics than I could out of something like Webtrends or even Sage.

And, again, Analytics is free.

For a free metrics tool, it’s pretty darn robust.

I think I’ll get even more out of it with the redesigned RVClub site since I’ve improved the structure of the site and am using Title tags better.

Here’s another tool that will help me get the most out of Google Analytics — the Google Analytics blog.

Bottom line, btw, if you can’t afford Omniture or one of the other Javascript-based analytics tools, request a Google Analytics account. It would be even more robust when paired with a log-based tool (something I’ll have when I move RVClub.com to its new server).