Web Analytics - An Hour a Day

This is one of those books where my wife told me to keep quiet because I kept blurting out "Yes!" while I was reading it. For example, in the very first pages, Avinish asks "If you run an e-commerce website (or most other types), is it good or bad to have more page views per visitor?". Most people automatically say yes, but Avinash explains that those page views might represent difficult navigation: people aren't finding what they want. On the other hand, low page views might mean that people immediately decide you have nothing to offer and leave. His point (and my first "Yes!") is that page views alone don't tell you much of anything.

That was just page nine. I had at least two more "Yes!" outbursts on that page - my annoyed wife then told me I had to go somewhere else to read the rest.

This book is chock full of practical advice. I had never though of using stat calculators to evaluate my A/B testing - duh! I was also cheering out loud at the advice to start with Google Analytics because it really may be all you need. Speaking of that, I had not noticed the addition of "Site Overlay" to Goggle Analytics. This lets you see where people are clicking on your pages - it unfortunately doesn't include ad clicks, but it still is valuable data. I did not realize I had that ability until I read it here.

I rushed through this because I wanted to get a review done, but I'll be going back to read it again at a more leisurely pace. If your web site is a serious part of your business, you want this book. By the way, Avinash is very approachable: he answers email, and seems genuinely interested in being helpful. All his profits from this book go to charity - this is a great book by a very nice person. Oh, you can check out his site at Occam's Razor - I highly recommend that also.

• Web Analytics - An Hour A Day (Avinash Kaushik)
• Sybex
• 9780470130650

Order (or just read more about) Web Analytics: An Hour a Day  from Amazon.com

Tony Lawrence 2008-03-11 Rating: 4.5