Seven Thoughts to Arm Yourself With in 2006

Good article written by Bryan Eisenberg. It outlines areas of focus for any company that has a web presence.

Enjoy


CD

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Even Michigan is getting into the WiFi game

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Web Analytics Is Out, Web Analysis Is In

This was a paragraph from a clickZ article written by Shane Atchison from ZAAZ. I just really liked and believe what it said.

Web Analytics Is Out, Web Analysis Is In

It's a subtle, but important, terminology change.

"Analytics" is the technology or tool that produces reports that contain data. "Analysis" is the process or action that reveals answers to how well your Web marketing initiatives are performing and identifies where and how to improve them.

Why the terminology lesson? The Web analytics market is maturing into a services-driven business, where support, consulting, and expertise (a.k.a. Web analysis services) are the more valuable assets savvy marketing executives are now investing in to help solve the measurement dilemma that haunts their teams.

Simply put, it's not about the tools anymore. It's about how you use the tools to analyze, and ultimately optimize, your results that really matters. This, too, is a point industry leaders all agree upon. Just ask them.

Is Google using Analytics information to build TrafficRank?

Google is collecting a lot of information about web usage now that Google Analytics is free. Are they going to get something back from their "investment"? This article describes how the web traffic data Google is collecting could be used to build search results that don't rely on links or the content of the web pages being indexed.

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Telling a Story

What sets an analyst apart from the pack? The ability to take the insights or findings from data and weave it into a story. The days of "just the facts" is gone. To get the attention your analysis needs you have to be able to captivate your audience. I don't mean write a novel, just make sure to convey a full, actionable, thought in a properly formed sentence. That will separate you from the "There was a 10% increase in visits" and become "The 10% increase in visitors to the site was caused by the additional media support and buzz surrounding product x".

CMD

Testing Your Hypothesis

Recently I attended a research session. The session was a market research session. One way glass and everything. The purpose was to test a few issues and hypothesizes to quantify our initial analyses. The whole process is very surreal, I mean you are watching the consumers and their session at the same time. All the consumers were sitting in a room all at a laptop browsing the pages we asked them to visit. There were two projectors that were broadcasting the sessions realtime. It was very interesting watching consumers facial expressions while they were browsing. When the behavior was appearing erratic you could see the frustration on their faces.

We learned a ton about some of our perceived problem areas and also learned about some anomalies that we have been observing. It was like "oh, that why we are seeing that data".

So, what this proves is that with every quantitative analytical plan you need a qualitative plan to dig into the why.....

CMD