Thalasar Ventures

Google Analytics – You need it.

When I started Brave New Worlds, web analytics was literally in it’s infancy. It was a simple set of log analysis tools such as Webalizer. Google Analytics has changed the analytics marketplace. If you aren’t using it, you should be.


Google Analytics is free and despite being free it provides a far more robust feature set than many paid analytics packages. Google Analytics isn’t a log analysis program. Since it uses a bug for tracking, it can delve far more deeply into user behavior. Previously such packages were run on the server and were a pain in the ass to configure and run. While Analytics itself is pretty easy to install, getting the full use out of the analytics package takes a lot of time and work.
Google provides Analytics as a free tool to gather even more data to improve the search experience. To my mind it’s a pretty good trade off. I get great analytics and Google can get data to improve search – it’s a win/win. The more I look at Google Analytics, the more it’s becoming apparent that there going to be some great market opportunities for a analytics company. This provides a platform where by the previously blackish arts of SEO have a measurable ROI. In other words you can expect the SEO firms to couple their Analytics work with their SEO work and demonstrate real value.
Relying on static log analysis tools isn’t enough, with Google Analytics you get a great deal more insight into user behavior. I have been using it on a number of my projects such as Early Miser and I have found far more illuminating about user behavior than previous tools I have used. The complete integration with my Adwords campaigns means that I get a total picture on my ROI. Google Analytics is simple enough for the basic functionality that even beginning webmasters and site developers can get a great deal of information out of it. Getting the full use out of the program will take more learning and a bit more expertise. I would also recommend picking up Google Analytics 2.0 which can help understand how to get the full value out of Google Analytics.

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