Google Analytics is the web analytics software for over 70% of websites which clearly makes it the market leader. When Google Analytics originally launched, it lacked much of the functionality that some of the enterprise solutions offered, but the price was hard to beat because it was free. It still remains free today, but the functionality has increased dramatically and in many ways Google Analytics is as robust as most of the other solutions available.
Google Analytics and any other web analytics software really begins to get powerful when you get past the surface level and start to dive into some of the functionality and reports that uncover nuggets of data that can have huge impacts on your user engagement and conversions.
The most comprehensive training program for Google Analytics is Conversion University. This is a self-paced training program that takes you step-by-step through Google Analytics and gives details about each of those element. I had been using Google Analytics for a few years prior to conversion university, but after sitting through the course, there are a number of elements that I am now aware of that I did not know about prior to the university.
Here are three resources that are not owned by Google, but provide great insight and techniques for getting the most out of Google Analytics.
Avinash Kaushik’s Blog (Occam’s Razor) Google Analytics Evangelist
Justin Cutroni’s Blog Google Authorized Consultants
Site Scan GA Analytics Site Scanner
I would also recommend a book by Avinash Kaushik titled “Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.” Which is a great resource for learning Google Analytics. The book can be kind of wordy in parts and Avinash sometimes speaks at a level too high for the topic, but a book that is definitely worth reading if you are serious about improving your ability to dive deep into Google Analytics and truly realize the power of all the functionality.
I would also recommend “Advanced Web Analytics With Google Analytics” by Brian Clifton. This is also a good read, but covers the information in a different way than Avinash. The main difference is this book is written for less techy readers who are more concerned with the metrics than the coding that got you to this point.
Web Analytics will become increasingly more important for most organizations and the better your department can derive actionable data from the web analytics solution, the further in front of your competitor you will become.
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Brian – many thanks for the mention and book review. Its funny, as a number of Amazon reviewers have commented that the content is way to technical for them!
I am in the process of finishing the second edition (practically a complete re-write) and will a point of clarifying who the book is aimed at and what they can get out of it. If you don’t mind, I will send you that introduction as I would appreciate your thoughts.
Best regards, Brian Clifton
Author
I have been used Google Analytics for a couple of years now and recently spent more time analysing the data in Analytics I have used all the resources which you have mentioned above, which all very good.
In addition to this, I have also used the Google Channel on You Tube which has some interesting tutorials.
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