Welcome back! I'm excited and honored to announce that I am going to the be author of a new book called 'Website Optimization - An Hour a Day'! Learn More About the Book

Some pretty informative web analytics information was released this week, in particular from the knowledgeable and effervescent Eric Petterson over at WebAnalyticsDemysitified.com. A couple of days ago, Eric presented a great free webcast, all about web analytics, how hard it actually is to do well, and the difficulties companies are having with it. Eric is a prominent member of the Web Analytics Association – I recently just became a member of this too.

It’s a very interesting listen and I particular like his ‘RAMP’ methodology to great web analytics. I also particularly agree with his 3 types of website optimization – and how web analytics alone isn’t enough. You also need quantitative analysis (usability studies, focus groups), and also performance monitoring. I have always been a big advocate of doing surveys in the very least to get some quantitative analytics, rather than just analyzing click streams… the raw numbers alone dont tell you enough.

So thanks again Eric for talking about these fascinating issues – and what a week for web casts! Another interesting ‘webcast’ comes from the insightful Avinash Kuashik – he discusses the differences between the major vendors(tough job to do this unbiased, seeing as is heavily involved with Google Analytics!) and does a great job, in particular he mentions the probable future direction of these companies due to their recent acquisitions. Definitely worth a watch!