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Review of Web Analytics An Hour A Day by Avinash Kaushik

This is one of the first books that I have read on the topic of Web Analytics.  This book is not a deep dive of a particular tool like Google Analytics or Omniture, but rather a comprehensive description of a web analytics framework (Trinity) and a 6 month plan to implement.  The book is targeted more towards medium to large companies.  A small startup like my own couldn’t begin to implement all of the suggested actions.  In some chapters, Avinash clearly notes which strategies (such as the testing chapter) are best for companies with limited resources, but overall he doesn’t always do this.  I would have like to see him make minimum suggestions or short cuts for companies that don’t have even 1 FTE dedicated to web analytics. 

A few key points from the book that I really found beneficial:

• Heuristic Evaluations: An easy way to quickly determine if a web page is designed well by going over a checklist of about 20 basic design rules of thumb
• 10/90 Rule: Spend 10% of your web analytics budget on tools and 90% on people.
• Web Analytics function should align with the business, not IT.
• 10% variability in web tools is not uncommon.
• 2% is standard conversion rate
• In Google, type in “site: <www.yourdomain.com>”.  This will show you how well Google has indexed your site.  If Google shows 50 pages, and you know you have 200, then something is stopping its spider from indexing your entire site.
• http://snipurl.com/poplink.  Great tool to quickly view your website ranking across multiple search engines for a search phrase.
• 80% of the time, company employees are wrong about what customer’s want.
• About 20 search phrases represent the majority of search engine traffic to your website.

I definitely recommend this book, but be ready to pick apart what you can realistically do in the amount of time you can afford to spend on web analytics.

January 14, 2009 - Posted by Keith Forsythe | Marketing, Product Management | analytics, avinash kaushik, kaushik, review, web analytics, web analytics an hour a day