Google Analytics is a popular and powerful free tool to track and understand website performance. But it's not always completely intuitive, and it includes some features you might not notice at first. Last week Google expanded its Analytics training and certification offerings with a new free three-week online course in digital analytics fundamentals.

This is the first course in Google's newly launched Analytics Academy -- which will feature a variety of self-paced video lessons. The course includes 22 video lessons, each 3-10 minutes long, and provides learning activities. Google estimates this course will take a total of 4-6 hours to complete.

The first three units of this course cover industry trends, analytics concepts and terminology. Unit 4 demonstrates best practices for key Google Analytics features. Units 5 and 6 explore common Google Analytics Reports and show how to conduct useful analysis.

More resources in the Google Analytics YouTube channel.