Posts Tagged ‘Google Analytics’
Analysing Analytics
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Web Development, Web Technologies
So how do you interpret analytics? What is the business case for analytics and analytics packages? IT Professionals sometimes neglect to think of the business case when using a technology set. Google Analytics looks pretty and shows you some useful stats, but it doesn’t exactly tell you what the business case is for using it is. If your business strategy is not aligned with the use of web analytics then web analytics cannot be utilised properly. Sure it will give you insight into your visitors, but if your business strategy does not embrace it, it will not have the same impact.
The success of any business is determined solely through its profitability. Web analytics on its own cannot make money, therefore you have to understand how web analytics work and how you have to try and use it within a business context.
The first thing to know is that web analytics come in two basic flavours:
- Log File Analysis
- Cookie-based / Javascript-based Analysis
Log-file Analysis
HTTP-Servers create log files, and the log files themselves contain lines and lines of data that gets generated by the HTTP-Server each time a new visitor comes to your website. Various HTTP-Servers generate log files in different formats. Internet Information Services 6, for example, uses a W3C-format.
Cookie-based / Javascript-based Analysis
Cookie-based / Javascript-based Analysis require that you add some JavaScript snippet to all the pages you want to generate web analytics for. My basic understanding is that for each visitor that comes to a page with the JavaScript code-snippet in data is sent to the provider of the analytics. Cookie-based / Javascript-based Analysis require a provider such as StatCounter or Google Analytics.
Which method should I be using?
You should use both and then you have to have your own way built into your website that measures the success of a visitor to your website. In other words if the success within your business determines that you sell 100 goods per month then such a measure has to be in place.
Google, iGoogle, GMail… the whole thing
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Web 2.0
Okay so Googleness is the awesomeness and wholesomely goodnessness of the world and they have a great image of never harming anyone ever. Right. I am a great fan of GMail and all the services you get for “free”, but one thing that has been bothering me for a while is navigating from GMail to say Google Analytics. Getting from GMail to Google Analytics means opening a new tab, going to the Google homepage, clicking on My Account and then clicking on Analytics. Google Analytics is not easily accessible from GMail, but instead from iGoogle. iGoogle is a customizable page that you get when you sign in with your Google Account. You can click on Web in your GMail account and navigate from there as well. I would have liked it if I had access to all my Google accounts from GMail.
