Web analytics is the process of measuring your web site, analyzing the data, and making changes based on the analysis. Many businesses are just starting to learn how they can increase the performance of their web site by using web analytics. For many people, their first exposure to web analytics is Google Analytics, a free tool available to everyone.Although analysis is vital to web analytics, you can't do analysis without good data. Configuring Google Analytics correctly is the key to collecting good data. This Short Cut provides a thorough description of how the Google Analytics system works, information about many different types of implementations, and ways to avoid common pitfalls. It also shares some best practices to get your setup correct the first time.
If you only have one profile, and no goals in your Analytics account, you're not using Analytics. Great book, admittedly hard to follow at times, mostly b/c it gets into areas very different than what I'm use to. Nevertheless, def a book I'm glad I picked up, and def recommend.
Though the basic is the same, Book needs to be updated with time. Still, a good read to get basic understanding about the capabilities of google analytics. But this book is not surely for very beginners
"The analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your website and the competition, to drive a continual improvement of the online experience that your customers, and potential customers have, which translates into your desired outcomes (online and offline)."
The book is good and well organized from management and business perspectives. But as a software developer, I expected that author will describe the JS code under-the-hood, or at least that he/she will give some insights about API & the JS core. I expected that the author will focus a bit on JS code and will give detailed explanation of well known GA's JS tricks. But simply he doesn't! He/She just keeps encouraging you to copy/paste! So, if you are a developer, this book for sure isn't for you, unless you have a quick task you have to accomplish with GA and you don't want to master the 'technology'. While, if you are working in some business fields and you are not interested in technical discussions, this book is certainly for you, it will make you integrate GA quickly and smoothly (with lot of code copy paste, I know you will love this). Anyway, It's worth reading, but don't expect it to be a technical book where developers are in author's mind-focus, lower your expectations a bit, and skip some chapters, they are there just for completeness, maybe you will not use their info in your whole life dealing with GA!
Others seem annoyed at the code samples because they couldn't follow, but it seems unfair to take off points for that, because it would be easy to skip those sections if they are not relevant to you. I found them very useful, because they contributed to a deeper understanding, for me, of how Google Analytics works behind the scenes.
4 stars because I would have preferred more examples of how Google Analytics has helped solve business needs, unearthed problem and/or opportunities, etc. That's the hard part. Especially some creative or unstandard applications would be useful to see. How do others use it to solve their business problems or needed measurements (as opposed to just the implementation piece once you know exactly what you want).
I think it is good enough to have a copy in your library for reference. I have had it out a couple of times from the library. Although the same information can be found online on the Google site, in the book it is condensed in one location, easy to read.
very well written. this book was understandable and relevant. I recommend it for developers and practitioners. The analytics strategies were very useful.
Google Analytics can finally be unleashed once you've gone through this book- so much more than conversions and traffic- definitely worth reading if you're spending any time with GA at all!