Nate from Syracuse said
This is a dense text. I originally purchased it for a class on Content Management Systems (we focused primarily on the back half of the book).
If you don't have a solid math background and some internet savvy, a lot of this book is dense reading. Even if your understanding of those topic areas is small, there's enough here to help you grow and also give you an appreciation of how brilliant the folks at Google really are.
Alexander Kine said
Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics is the definitive "how-to" book. I have read it twice and gained valuable insights each time. Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics is well worth the investment.
Carley S. Brown said
The author Brian Clifton, an expert in search engine optimization and web analytics, had never written a book before, but published his first piece of work this last year titled `Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics'. His organization throughout the book is phenomenal and he has written a useful guide to turn to again and again for help regarding Google Analytics issues as well as several other useful tips. The book is broken down into four main parts:
Part 1: Measuring Success
Part 2: Using Google Analytics Reports
Part 3: Implementing Google Analytics
Part 4: Using Visitor Data to Drive Website Improvement
Part one provides a good introduction to what web analytics is and why understanding web traffic is vital to your business. He explains in detail the available methods for tracking and comparing data by describing how Google Analytics works and how you can make it work for your particular business.
Part two dives right in on how to properly navigate your way through the Google Analytics interface, and examples are provided of report layouts and how to effectively organize your web traffic information. There are over 80 default reports Google Analytics has that can be used, but Clifton does a great job at highlighting the top 10 reports and explaining their functions and usability.
Part three explains how to get started on your journey towards making Google Analytics work for your website. This section shows how to make an account if you didn't already have one, how to start tagging pages so nothing is left out of your reports, and takes a deeper look at advanced implementation methods for tracking E-commerce, online campaigns, events, and customizing GATC (Google Analytics Tracking Code). Clifton provides several techniques for measuring visitor behavior and the best practices and tools you can use to get the most out of your website.
Part four is all about using the visitor data collected to help your website improve. This sections talks about KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and what they are, how to prepare them, how to present them, and gives tips for benchmark considerations. He finishes the book with real world tasks that can be performed to start effectively measuring the success of your website on, and offline.
This book was well thought out and has a plethora of information showing exactly what you can do, through detailed instructions, on how you can track your websites traffic correctly, present it effectively, and implement your findings properly.
I have little experience in the web analytics field and some of the reading was well over my head and a better background of JavaScript and HTML would have helped greatly. However, this book taught me interesting and useful facts about the technical tools of Google Analytics and also how to interpret the results. I give this book five stars for its excellent organization, and I would recommend it highly for marketers and web masters.
Creative 3 Pro said
In depth look at Google Analytics and how you can track visitors usage of a website.
Craig Scott said
The first half of this book is like a user manual for Google Analytics. It is a rehash of the help topics you find on the Google site. Some appear awfully close to having been lifted directly off the webpage.
However, the other half of the book is filled with some first rate, real world concepts which are followed by a detailed how-to-do-it walk through.
Great details provided on using regular expressions to create filters.
Yes you can get this all free online at Google and elsewhere but this inexpensive package makes the whole concept easy to wrap your mind around.
Highly recommended for anyone responsible for setting up practical web analytics for medium and small size sites.
Comments