From an article in Search Engine Land Google Analytics Adds New Features:

Following October’s release of Google Analytics new features, Google has just released another set of very cool new features. Among them is “Annotations,” a tremendously useful new feature both to analysts as well as executives, who are usually not up to date on granular details about website activity.

The annotations feature basically allows users to make comments on graphs regarding events that happened on specific days.

I can think of several ways in which this would be handy. I could keep track of when I started an article marketing campaign focused around a certain topic, and see how it affected traffic. I could put in a note about, really, any of the different items I’m using to increase traffic, and have a better idea on how they affected my search results, even IF they affected them or not.

It could also make it easier to look at a snapshot of information across a period of time that Google Analytics doesn’t measure. Let’s say I made 10 sales on Tuesday, and 25 on Thursday, yet traffic was lower on Thursday than Tuesday. If I have those notes in, it can be a cue for me to measure the difference between what results I experienced on Thursday vs. Tuesday.

There’s all kinds of possibilities for this one feature. I’ll have to think about this some more, but in the meantime, I thought it was something you’d want to know about.

If you’re a follower of Google News and an online entrepreneur or small company, you have probably noticed that the Google Blog posts aren’t always directly relevant to you. As we’ve mentioned before, Google has several other blogs that are more narrow in scope and are worth adding to your news reader. Over the next few Google Tuesdays we’ll be highlighting some of them here.

Since we’re talking about Google Analytics today, let’s start with that one, shall we?

The Google Analytics blog has been around about a year (next month), so when you subscribe to their feed, be sure to click through from time to time and visit the archives. Some examples:

• Using Google Analytics with Google Website Optimizer
• A Guide to the Google Analytics Google Group
• Explanations of Various Features

It’s a useful resource for anyone seeking to have a better understanding of their free visitor tracking software, arguably the most sophisticated one available, based on what used to be a commercial package called Urchin.

If you’ve been hanging around the web, you’ve probably already heard the announcement regarding the Google Analytics redesign. But have you seen the demo? You can find the video tour at the Google Analytics site. While you’re there, check out their free help center, the forums at Google Groups, and Conversion University, especially the Driving Traffic section.