|
| 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Clifton
Publisher: Sybex
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $21.37
You Save: $18.62 (47%)
New (31) Used (10) from $21.37
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 2512
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 364
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0470253126
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.3
EAN: 9780470253120
ASIN: 0470253126
Publication Date: March 31, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Excellent Reference on Google Analytics June 23, 2008
Brian did a fantastic job in his book "Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics". The material was very easy to follow and was very well structured.
Web Analysts who are involved in Google Analytics configuration and implementation will find the book very useful. The book covered basic setup and implementation tips as well as best practices and advanced techniques that will allow you to get the most out of Google Analytics.
If you are on the marketing/analytics consulting side, you'll find the book extremely useful as well. I liked the way Brian "segmented" the stakeholders into categories such as webmaster, marketing manager, etc. and recommended metrics and KPIs to address the concerns and needs for each of the stakeholders.
Whether you are on the marketing side or on the technical you'd definitely have an appreciation for the chapter on "Real-World Tasks".
If you are thinking of using Google Analytics, I highly recommend you read this book prior to any implementation work. Or, if you are using Google Analytics already, you definitely want read this book to get the most bang out of what the tool offers.
In our agency, we have added this book to our "must read" list for our Google Analytics technical Specialists and Analytics Consultants!
The Manual on GA June 23, 2008
This book could be titled the Manual for Google Analytics that should've been released when it was launched.
It has a lot of tips to help you get the most out of GA and has Brians own insight and knowledge on how to use the data in an actionable manner.
I was very impressed with Brians technical knowledge of the tool and some of the things he explains in detail such as how to track outgoing links, page load times and how to customize the javascript will be useful to anyone using GA seriously.
Brian also explains the importance of KPIs and how to make sense of the data from different business perspectives which is key to making website improvements.
Overall, it's technical (it needs to be) and very comprehensive, a great one to keep as a reference when you're stuck with something about implementing or using Google Analytics.
Steve Jackson
International Co-Chair
Web Analytics Association
The Best Book on Web Analytics I Have Ever Read June 15, 2008
I just finished reading Brian's book and want to let you all know that this is by far the best book I have ever read on web analytics. I now have over 10 pages of notes and ideas to apply to my work as a result. No combination of blog posts, speakers or articles can provide this kind of comprehensive, actionable knowledge. I have yet to come across anything even close to as helpful as this book for both Google and general analytics strategy and techniques.
I work in the search marketing / analytics field in a digital-centric agency setting and will be recommending this book to everyone I work with. This is a must read for any person or company involved in digital media, analytics, usability, web design or any other online field.
Bridges the gap between theory and practice June 9, 2008
The book is rightly named Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics-- Advanced because this is about understanding how to manipulate GA and Javascript to achieve a desired result; Web Metrics because this is about analysis, not reporting; Google Analytics because... well that's pretty obvious.
I just completed the UBC-WAA certificate in Web Analytics,and I am starting my first analysis project -- using Google Analytics. This book has been a wonderful assist in helping me understand how to use the software to get what I want. I'm sure that I will go back to it again and again!
Highly Recommended May 18, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I've been running Google Analytics on a number of web sites since it was first released in 2005. I've got a lot of good information out of it, but I've always suspected that I'm not using it to its full potential. Having read this book I now have a much better idea of what I'm missing and, more importantly, how I can put that right.
Brian Clifton has written a really useful guide to getting the most benefit out of Google's free web analytics system. He is, of course, well-placed to do that as he leads the Google Analytics team for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Part one is a good overview of web analytics is. Chapter one explains what web analytics is and what you can get out of it. Chapter two goes into more detail about the method that people use to analyse their web site traffic and chapter three introduces Google Analytics and explains where it fits into the web analytics landscape.
Part two gives an introduction to using Google Analytics. Chapter four looks at the interface to Google Analytics. This chapter gives the reader a good free for the interactivity of the Google Analytics interface. It's this interactivity that makes Google Analytics far easier to use than many of its competitors. Chapter five looks in more depth at ten of the reports that the system generates. By the end of this chapter I was already learning new little tips about the system.
Part three is about implementing Google Analytics on your web site. chapter six shows you how to tag your web pages so they are included in your reports. This is about as far as my Google Analytics knowledge goes. So chapter seven introduces ways to customise the Google Javascript code in order to have more control over what data is recorded, it was all new (and very interesting). For example, the chapter has techniques for measuring page load time and tracking outgoing links. Chapter eight is all about Google Analytics best practices and is full of the kinds of tips that only an expert in using the tool would be able to share with you. Having read this chapter I configured up some of my sites to track search queries and set up more goals on my sites. Chapter nine is called "Google Analytics Hacks" and is a really useful cookbook of tips and techniques for getting even more out of Google Analytics. Top of my list of things to implement from this chapter is to add tracking to all of my error pages.
The sections we've discussed so far have all been about generating as much useful data about your web site traffic as possible. But, of course, huge piles of data don't do you any good at all unless you can make some sense of the data and then act on your findings. This is what part four is about. Chapter ten offers some useful hints on how to make sense of all of the data you have collected. Clifton looks at a web site from a number of points of view (sales, marketing, web content creator and webmaster) and for each of them suggests a number of key performance indicators that will be of interest to them. He then shows how to construct these KPIs out of the data that Google Analytics has captured. Chapter eleven moves on to the next stage and looks a number of real-world examples where data from Google Analytics can be used to identify poor performance from areas of a web site and suggests ways to improve matters.
I'm no web analytics expert and, to be honest, some of the stuff in part four made my eyes glaze over a little. But my company doesn't rely on its web site for income so I've never had to worry about the number of visitors I get or how long they spend on the site. Web analytics has really just been a hobby for me. If I was in a company where those kinds of things were important, then I feel confident that this book would be the right one to turn to in order to learn more. This book certainly goes into more depth when talking about both the technical side of Google Analytics and how to interpret the data than any other book I've read on the subject.
This book has taught me a lot of new and interesting things about Google Analytics and I feel sure that I'll be going back to it in the future when I need to know more. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get the most out of their Google Analytics installation.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
