9 Steps to Becoming an Analytics Emperor

This post is about Google Analytics. If you’re not familiar with it and/or not using it (or at least some some of web statistics analysis), you’re falling behind. It’s actually quite simple to set up and with very little effort, you’ll have some powerful data about your visitors that you can use to optimize your website. But if you’re an explorer like myself, you always want to push the limits of an application and check out all the bells and whistles. Recently I came across the 9 Steps to Becoming an Analytics Emperor post from the Google Analytics Blog. Here’s an excerpt:

You’ll need to have mastered all 9 of the below to call yourself Emperor. If you’re doing less than 3, you’re still a Newbie.

9. Get external context to your performance (benchmarking)
8. Internal site search baby! Rock it!
7. Search, organic, get good at it
6. Landing pages, landing pages, landing pages
5. Goals, goals, goals (& goal values)
4. Enable deep e-commerce tracking and analysis
3. Your only true analytics BFF: bounce rate
2. Powerfully leverage custom reports
1. Give me segmentation or give me death!

The list was created by Avinash Kaushik, self-described ‘Analytics Evangelist’ for Google and author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day. Figure out how many of the 9 steps you are following and read the Deeper Analysis and Insights post from his blog for detailed tips on conquering the rest.