One ‘Google Analytics’ Cappuccino for me please!

Ah…we so belong to the world of instant coffee and the scene at uber Google office was no different. Everyone, from experts in almost every facet of the web, to analysts, to ad execs to the fast growing breed of online business professionals got together this weekend to get a instant flavor of ‘how best I can use GA to do my job better?'

Even before I jump on to talking about GA or rather Web Analytics (WA), I want to go on record to define web analytics landscape where GA is nothing but just a tool.

Web analytics simply put is a data analysis (of the online activity) and aggregation exercise that helps you find out what any visitor is doing on your site. For some smarter analysts it also means picking up indicators on ‘why’ is he (user) doing whatever the hell he is doing. The latter is more probabilistic (and definitely more meaningful) in nature which can be supported by our aka stats models at a certain confidence interval to help an org take action on this data.

Some tools would even run this analysis for you. Some of GA’s brother and sister tools are: Click Tracks, Percent Mobile, TigTags, Urchin, StatCounter, Yahoo! Web Analytics, Xiti, GoingUp, Statsit and CrazyEgg and for gaining competitive intelligence there is Compete, Google Insights for Search, Google’s Ad Planner and so on..

Like they say ‘best things in life come for free’ so do these tools!

Hence, getting started is as simple as that 1..2..3..GO!

1. Find a playground:

If you are a novice then create a blog or any content site, if you already have a website great!; those of you who are lucky to get access to your corporate website even better! (but it is rare unless you have 15 rounds of permission…oh all the corporate hoopla, amusingly this holds true not only for the marketing underdogs but the webmasters too...some consolation for deprived souls:); if, none of the above, then try getting access from anyone who owns the space (freelancing can be another option where you end up gaining so much tacit knowledge…)

2. Install and verify the Tool:

Google Analytics is a script-based analytics service that gathers detailed information on your site and advertising once it has been properly configured.

It’s pretty simple too. Copy paste the GA link on each page of your site (could be any other tool listed above) and hit on verify to test if it is properly installed. If you have more than one domain or an e-commerce site or third party domains then go through this useful resource.

3. List down the questions or rather ‘to dos’:

What you want the data to answer…in a more WA language set goals for your site.

Lets say first probing your data with questions like why do visitors come to my site, which of my site pages are turning visitors away and why, does my site meet their goals, if yes (yeeeaah!) and now what do I finally want (money/more traffic for free ego massage/what?)
If you ask me, I like to set both quantitative and qualitative goals to get the whole picture. So for e.g. my blog has the quantitative goal of getting better ranking in search results and also qualitative goal of receiving comments that have useful content which benefits me and my blog visitors further.

I can talk about goal setting and funnel creation as an entire separate topic in one of my following posts but for now using the drop down menu would come handy once you are on the goal setting page.

There is of course so much exciting stuff to tinker with once your data starts flowing to you – but let’s catch a breath and deal with it another day.

If I can get you started on your own fascinating journey of WA – you've just made my day!

Web analytics hat for all sizes!

"I believe that Web Analytics is complex, but it is also very sexy and hugely rewarding"
Avinash Kaushik author of Web Analytics An Hour a Day.

If you are nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of 'I don't really need it', here is your antidote:

1. Do I belong to www.?

Do yourself a favor - buy a drink and sit down to think really hard about your relationship with this seductive world at your finger tips. Be it starting your day with facebook, getting the news feed via an rss, looking up your favorite rockstar/sportstar/.. to satisfy this urgent hunger for information, booking a movie show for an evening date or posting your blog!
In my case (and I bet for many others) www. is used for all the above in addition to understanding your competition, customers, organisation's future marketing strategy and blah blah...
The 'privacy option' between you and the web in my opinion has almost vanished. These 3 little w's have an amazing ability to capture not only your mood, personal details,preferences, networks but also your customer behaviour (in both B2B and B2C envtt.) and overall market behaviour.

2. OK, I get it - but what is in it for me?

Simply put, if you are not 'tuned in' someone else is, and whoever it is, is making big bucks out of it!!
Including but not restricted to any marketing professional, strategist, entrepreneur, web enthusiast (you name any industry) are spoilt for choice with unlimited information that they can access, to do their job well.
I believe for any analyst the tough part of information is, the 'Information' itself.
To quote a live case, I have spent more than 6 years churning information to come up with meaningful results to positively impact my company's business.
In those days the common slang used was 'Marketing Analyst'(Wow! Am I getting old or what!), but today the market has shifted to the web (if not, they soon will have to, in full or in part) and hence all the action - customer attention, retention, coaxing, interacting is all here and it's the 'Web Analyst' (or someone wearing a hat of a Web Analyst, to understand a piece of the pie) who's job has just got tougher!
I call it interesting..

3. Making sense out of no-sense:

Just so you know...Web Analytics is actually much less complicated as it is generally made out to be.
Infact, in this crazy world of information there is crazy amount of order ...like in a statistical distribution..just need to get your measures right to understand it.
A good starting point could be this post by one of my favorites:
Web Analytics Demystified by Avinash Kaushik.
Also recommended:
Conversion University by Google.
Treat it more like a primer, I would pick up each topic in much detail in my following posts(Google Analytics, Adwords, SEO, SEM).

4. Stay put..how of it?

This part, I think can transform the amount of love that you have for the subject and to keep your soul hungry. It is so easy to get lost in this sea of information and loose focus and I get this a lot for me - 'Oh so what was it that I wanted out of this webinar/training/blog and million other sources)
I personally like to subscribe to selective information.
Blogs such as SearchEngineLand, Search Engine Roundtable, and SEOmoz provide current perspectives and tips, and news Web sites including DMNews.com, ClickZ.com, and WebProNews.com provide breaking news and commentary on search-engine marketing.

Depending on the informational needs of the business/analysis one can dig deeper in any given context. The important thing is to find your niche and start acknowledging your analytical instincts!