If you want to learn about web analytics, start here

books:


	• Web Analytics: An Hour a Day Avinash Kaushik Sybex, 2007 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 56 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Now this is what I call Web Analytics!

I can consider myself as pretty noobish in the field of web analytics. I know SEO and usability, but web analytics has always been just looking at the number of visitors and pageviews. Until I received this book, because this book is a real eye-opener for the new comers to web analytics. It totally change your way of thinking about what web analytics is and how you can pull the best out of it.

I can't wait to finish it, which costs a lot of time by the way.

And students, you can consider this as a good step up to web analytics with theory plus hands on stuff. Like a real school book you learn everything you need from what to why. More than 400 pages long.

P.S. There is also a cd included with some nice stuff like a presentation from the writer, pdf and mp3 files with valuable information.

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A life changing experience

If you find yourself stumped with how to improve your website, or don't know where to begin with looking at web statistics, this book has everything. It begins with going through the foundation of what web analysis really is and definitions and explanations of different metrics and how they can be useful. He then goes into detail with different metrics such as bounce rate, segmentation, and some things you probably never considered. It steps you through knowing what analytics tool to use and how to implement it. It has wonderful examples and sample reports that you can tailor to your own company.

This book is very actionable. I can only speak from a beginner's perspective, but this book is easy to follow and has golden nuggets that even experienced web statisticians can take another look at. The highest recommendation possible from me. I will be waiting for another of Avinash's books.

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What analytics, (web or otherwise), should be

Before I begin I must apologize for the length of this review, I suffer from acute conciseness deficiency.

Avinash's greatest strength is his humility, and it comes through in this book and his blog in spades. All too often the broader analytic community (which I include myself in), is so caught up in its metrics, graphs, charts, esoteric calculations and acronyms that we forget that our fundamental purpose is to inform and assist in change. Even if we do not lose sight of that goal, we get so caught up in our analysis that we begin to think we know better than anyone else, including the people buying our products/consuming our content.

With the risk of sounding terse, Avinash cuts through all of that crap to right the ship as it were, and his resulting material can be summarized in 5 points.

1. Customers know best - should be self evident but really isn't (get over yourself and start trying to figure out what the customers want because you really don't know).

2. Capture data that can assist said customers - in other words, if the data and other pretty charts you are constructing cannot lead to an insight or action that will assist your customers; you're wasting your time. Yes, even that amazingly color coded spreadsheet with pivot tables and charts bursting out of every cell.

3. Quantitative data is limited in what it can tell you - another pitfall of the analytic community is that we're so caught up in numbers that we rarely stop to consider the source or validity of our observations, a particularly fatal flaw in an emerging industry with less than ideal methods of capture.

4. Context is king - When it comes to data, context is everything and a second piece of data, incorporated with the first, can have powerful effects. As a quick example, page hits, combined with bounce rate (a metric that measures how many people left your page within a predetermined interval), can indicate how many people are truly coming to your website to engage in its content). In other words, if you achieve a 100% increase in hits but 90% of them "bounce", you're not doing as well as if the same site achieved an 80% increase in hits with a 40% bounce rate. A very different conclusion would have been drawn if hits alone were observed in this case.

5. Qualitative data is a key piece of the puzzle - as a corollary of #3, a truly effective analysis of a website will utilize qualitative and quantitative data to help inform ones decisions.

Avinish then does an excellent job of showing how one can go about creating, analyzing and acting out ones web analytics strategy within the framework laid out above. If one has even a cursory understanding of how a website is built and therefore how to input a simple tag into the relevant pages, one can utilize this book to get started analyzing their web traffic in a meaningful way, for free, this instant. In addition, and more importantly, you will have formulated the solid framework and understanding necessary to adapt as the industry changes, something it does at an exciting/terrifying pace. An excellent read.

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If you want to learn about web analytics, start here

I have read several web analytics books and Avinash's book is definitely the one I would recommend first.

What you can learn from the book:
- how to think about and how to approach web analytics -- this is where this book excels
- how to deliver actionable results - the mantra of Avinash
- how to start with the basic metrics

What not to expect from this book:
- you will not learn how to use any analytics software
- you will not learn details about the technical aspects, frequent problems with data and measurement, what to avoid etc.

Check out Avinash's blog to get a picture of what you can get from the book.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Written by an in-the-trenches practitioner, this step-by-step guide shows you how to implement a successful Web analytics strategy. Web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik, in his thought-provoking style, debunks leading myths and leads you on a path to gaining actionable insights from your analytics efforts. Discover how to move beyond clickstream analysis, why qualitative data should be your focus, and more insights and techniques that will help you develop a customer-centric mindset without sacrificing your company?s bottom line.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

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