Web Analytics India Blog

I stumbled upon this great event which is a must attend if your part of the internet industry. Now everybody knows how google dominates the search market and also it’s extensive tool list to enhance your website from setting it up to reaching millions of people online.

This event is one of it’s kind with some valuable sessions, The event named as “Searchmasters 09” is a must attend. Here’s what it’s all about.The session 3 (Google Custom Search Engine) and (Google Analytics and Website Optimizer) are of great importance if your a web analyst.

1.) Webmasters Central and Best Practices

• Understand why accessibility is important, how it improves the presence of your site in Google.
• Discover the webmaster resources that Google offers and how it can help you.
• Learn about webmaster guidelines and best practices to build websites.

2.) Webmaster Help forum

• Learn about the thriving webmaster community and how it will help you find answers to search related questions.
• Get to know more about the new platform we’ve recently launched for the help forum and its new features.
• Get introduced to our community builders or ‘Bionic Posters’ as we call them.

3.) Google Custom Search Engine

• Provide a better user retention via targeted search.
• Achieve better click-through rates and conversions on your site
• Monetize with relevant ads via Custom Search keywords.
• Use Advanced APIs, customization, branding and support options.

4.) Building Mobile Friendly Websites

• Find out why there is a need for mobile friendly websites.
• What to consider while designing mobile websites.
• Tools that will help in designing such websites.
• Learn a few design tips and tricks.

5.) Google Analytics and Website Optimizer

Google Analytics is the next generation Web Analytics tool from Google that shows you how people find your site and how they navigate through it. It brings new accessibility to enterprise class web analytics, making it possible for all advertisers, publishers and web site owners to improve their online results. Learn the best way to make use of the product.

The Google Website Optimizer  helps in improving the effectiveness of your website in getting a return on your investment. Determine how you can best attract users and lead them to your site.

Registration: It’s by invite only and limited seats, so hurry up to ensure you get in touch with someone who can get you invite to this great event.

Look out for the coverage of the event and if you are attending the event, reach out to me or leave a comment below so we can catch up .

It was a while ago i wrote a post about 7 habits of effective omniture user, so here goes the 7 series again and this time for Google Analytics. These indeed are the best features of google analytics and probably must use in case you deal with google analytics day in and day out.

1.) Do Not Use Google Analytics Alone!

2.) Use Filters and Profiles Extensively

3.) Track Marketing Campaigns by GA

4.) Regular Expressions

5.) Custom Segmentation

6.) Track Outbound Link and Downloads

7.) Create Analytics Plan and Change Log Documents

1.) Do Not Use Google Analytics Alone!

Ok that certainly does not mean you dont use it , But use it with other amazing google tools like  Google Adwords and Google Web Optimizer.

2.) Use Filters and Profiles

Profiles and Filters are the most robust features in Google analytics and a must use, here’s few tips to get started with filters and profiles.

Google Analytics Profiles:

• Create a Master
• Test
• Campaign/Source/Medium

Content Profiles

• Buyers
• Browsers
• Shoppers

Google Analytics Filters

• Acquisition Filters
• Internal traffic vs. External traffic

3.) Track Marketing Campaigns by GA

• Use manual tagging for query parameters and not use “auto tagging”. (or use both)
• Use Google URL tool builder to create URLs.

4.) Trouble Shoot your data

• Check your reports for a line item named “(other).“
• Check goal no. vs. No. of pv for goal page.
• Use Charles to debug
• Ecommerce : Orders in GA Vs. Accounts dept.

5.) Custom Segmentation

• Use of _utmv via _utmSetVar
• Only One custom segment can be build.
• Use Concatenation strategy.
• Tracking of Repeat Buyers.

6.) Link Tracking and Downloads

• Use Onclick functions : urchinTracker() – (pageTracker for ga.js)
  • <img src=”/image.jpg” onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/image.jpg’);” />
  • <a href=”/schedule.pdf” onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/files/pdf/schedule.pdf’);” />PDF</a>
• Caution : These are Pageviews use filter to exclude the traffic.

7.) Analytics Plan

• Analyze the website.– Check for diff Domains,subdomains,dynamic content
• Create and Configure profiles.
• Create filters.
• Create goals and funnels.
• Create recommended profiles.
• Edit the tracking code.
• Modify the web site (if necessary; determined in step 2).
• Add the tracking code to web site pages.
• Tag marketing campaigns.
• Enable e-commerce transaction tracking (optional).
• Implement custom segmentation (optional).
• Configure other administrative features.
• User accounts and report access &Automated email delivery

References

• Google Analytics help section
• Justin Cutroni’s blog
• Robbin Steif’s blog