Archive for the ‘Web Analytics’ Category
Best Web Analytics Tools and Tips of 2009
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010There’s a great scene from the original Cannonball Run in which one of drivers hops into his Ferrari convertible, rips the rearview mirror off of the windshield, tosses it out and then says to his startled co-driver, “What is behind us—does not matter.” In the world of analytics, all information is, by its nature, backward looking (you can’t measure what hasn’t happened yet). But it isn’t the historical measures themselves which are of interest to analysts, rather the trends they reveal and path(s) forward they illuminate. In short, to be valuable, analytics must be actionable; they should provide hard data to clarify what you should keep doing, what you should stop doing, and what you should do differently.
Learn more about creating custom reports in Google Analytics, improving site conversion rates, interesting tools that extend the capabilities of Analytics and more here in some of the best articles and blog posts on web analytics from the past year.
Google Analytics 101, Part 1 by Search Engine Watch
Frequent best-of contributor Ron Jones provides an excellent introduction to Google Analytics for newbies, and even intermediate users may learn something new here.
Eyes on the Prize with Custom Reports by Google Analytics Blog
Sebastian Tonkin provides step-by-step instructions for creating custom reports within Google, such as a report showing the conversion rate for visitors from a specific geography or traffic source.
Web Analytics and Segmentation for Better Conversion Optimization by SEOmoz
A detailed tutorial on using the Advanced Segments Tool in Google Analytics to gain insights into measures such as differences in conversion rates based on content viewed: sure, that popular blog post drew a lot of traffic, but was it productive traffic? Advanced Segments can help answer such questions.
6 Tools Every Google Analytics User Should Have by ROI Revolution
For technical analysts, Shawn Purtell reviews six—actually seven—Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey scripts and other tools that enhance the functionality of Google Analytics. One example is Social Media Metrics, a tools which “allows you to see social media and link bait statistics for your specific pages.”
Is Yahoo Analytics Better than Google’s? by ECommerce Guide
David Needle reports results of a CMS Watch study which gave higher marks to Yahoo’s analytics tool in a couple of areas, including higher default pageview limits for larger enterprises, and the ability to access and view raw data, which would “let you continue to maintain a historical record instead of starting over” if you ever move to a more robust paid analytics platform.
Polaris Puts Google Analytics On Your Desktop by I’m Just Sayin’
A brief but helpful review of Polaris, a free Adobe Air application that delivers eight of the most popular Google Analytics reports straight to your desktop without logging in. A slick, quick way to stay current on your web traffic stats.
New AdWords ID Data in Google Analytics API by Google Analytics Blog
Alex Lucas explains how to combine data from Google Analytics and Google AdWords to “get a (more) detailed picture of the performance of…ad creatives and keywords.”
New Google Analytics Features Can Help You Track Your Social Media Success & Failures by Social Conversations
Li Evans showcases several new features recently added or planned for Google Analytics, such as new goal tracking types, custom variables, mobile apps tracking and custom alerts.
100 Ways To Measure Social Media by MediaPost Social Media Insider
What metrics can be tracked in social media? David Berkowitz offers up his list of “100 thought-starters.” Some are easy (e.g. numbers of fans and followers), others are more challenging and may require more sophisticated tools, but it’s a great list for generating ideas.
Best of 2008: Web Analytics
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010Here’s a brief review of some of the best posts written in 2008 about web analytics. The articles here will show you how to use web analytics more strategically as part of your marketing program design, use some of the new advanced features in Google Analytics, and investigate alternatives to GA that provide unique views of website traffic.
Are Your Analytics Reports Breaking News or Listing Facts? by FutureNow
Melissa Burdon advises marketers to act like investigative journalists—ask the tough questions, dig for the story behind the story—rather than beat reporters who just report the who, what, where and when.
What To Expect From Your Web Analytics Tool (Web Analytics Series, Part 2) by NxtERA Marketing Blog
Elana Anderson presents a five-part framework to help companies maximize their investment in web analytics tools to develop integrated, customer-focused marketing programs. Her model outlines a progression of stages from site analysis (available to anyone using free tools) though optimization, targeting, and finally integration—a stage about which she writes “no one has nailed this one and that gives us all something to aspire towards.”
Two Alternative Solutions for Site Analytics by Web Worker Daily
Samuel Dean reviews two alternatives to Google Analytics, opensource web analytics software Piwik and the modestly priced Visitorville. Both are real-time (unlike GA) and both offer unique ways of viewing and analyzing website traffic. What’s more, as Dean points out, “In addition to being useful, these alternative site analytics solutions are fun.”
Google Analytics: Advanced Segments – Beta Feature by limeshot design
Here’s an excellent guide to using the Advanced Segments tool added to Google Analytics last November. While GA still lacks some of the features of high-end analytics packages, it is steadily encroaching further onto their turf with the addition of sophisticated new features. The post details how to use Dimensions and Metrics to set up filters, apply these to default reports, and even perform comparisons. As a real-world example, I recently used Advanced Segments to create lists of the most popular organic search phrases used to find the Spanish language version of a client website (trickier than it sounds, as the Spanish site was a virtual copy of the English site created through MotionPoint rather than a physically separate website), by month.
Using Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation to Get Proper Ad Scheduling Data by SEOptimise
On the topic of the Google Analytics Advanced Segments tool, Richard Fergie provides more detail and walks through an example of how this GA feature could be used to analyze conversions by day part in order to maximize the profitability of AdWords bids.
Review: Google Insights Can Help Merchants Optimize PPC/SEO Campaigns by Practical eCommerce
Armando Roggio reviews another relatively new tool from Google, Google Insights, a free research tool which “provides detailed search data that can help online retailers improve their pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization.” Roggio shows how the tool can be used to help marketers determine the most effective marketing messages and discover new markets, as examples, but he also carefully explains the limitation of the tool.
50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics by KISSmetrics
Derek Collins has compiled an impressive and extremely useful list of tools to help web analysts get more out of Google Analytics. The list is also helpfully divided into different groups of resources including resources for beginners, tips & tricks, plugins & hacks, and new/advanced features.
