Web analytics is the art of collecting and synthesizing data about your site so that you can optimize your search ranking, increase conversions on your site and more. No doubt, web analytics can be a daunting task, but thankfully there are loads of resources for you to begin or refine your web analytics strategy. In this post, we’ve compiled a list of web analytics articles geared toward beginners to give you a good introduction to strategies you can employ.
Web Analytics 101: Definitions: Goals, Metrics, KPIs, Dimensions, Targets
Beginner’s Guide to Web Data Analysis: Ten Steps to Love and Success
These two posts from Avinash Kaushik are great places to start if you’re just starting out with web analytics. Web Analytics 101 gives a thorough but easy to understand introduction to basic analytics terms and the general structure of how things work in the analytics world. The Beginner’s Guide post offers some great fundamental strategies for using basic analytics using Google and other popular tools. Even if you’re experienced with analytics, these posts are worth a look over – you could discover that you’re overlooking a basic strategy.
11 Google Analytics Tools to Use for Your Website
This post from Eugen Oprea features some fantastic ways to go beyond some of the basics of Google Analytics mentioned in Kaushik’s posts. Some of his points include beyond-the-basics tactics like campaign tracking and syncing Google Analytics with Google Webmaster Tools for enhanced results.
Monitor Which Social Your Visitors are Logged Into with Google Analytics
Tom Anthony’s post on how to track social networking activity offers some user-friendly approaches to tracking the social networking activity of your visitors and how to use that to your advantage.
Google Analytics Certification and How to Pass the GAIQ Test
One of the best ways to validate your own successes as a new Google Analytics user (or one that is just starting to tap into GA’s more complicated tools) is by completing the GAIQ test and becoming a certified Google Analytics professional. This post teaches what to study for, in addition to some valuable test-taking approaches. Along the way, you’ll learn some more complicated tactics to give you and your site an edge when it comes to using Google Analytics to its full potential.
What are some analytics resources you use? We would love to hear about them in the comments!