Top Ten Best Web Analytics Resources

I’m going to share my top analytics resources with you to help you find valuable sources of web analytics information. These relate to both Google Analytics and web analytics in general.

I’m sure everyone has their favourite resources for the areas they work in, but sometimes it’s hard to find new ones that you know you can trust. The lists below are the websites or people I read and use most often. I’ve also included a link to a post on each site so that you can quickly see what they are like and decide whether to bookmark them straight away.

Google Analytics

Google’s own analytics resource is actually quite helpful. The number and regularity of posts seems to vary from month to month but they feature information on updates, how to get more from analytics, videos, extra resources you can use and much more.

Try this post for starters: Mobile-friendly sites turn visitors into customers

Occam’s Razor – Avinash Kaushik

On his blog, titled Occam’s Razor, Avinash Kaushik writes very long and detailed posts about a wide range of web analytics situations which relate to digital marketing. From in-depth multi-channel analysis, to legalities of tracking, to tips for measuring different aspects of marketing. If you can handle a long read I highly recommend keeping up with this blog.

Understanding the mindset that Avinash is coming from is going to benefit you, even if you can’t reach the level of detailed analysis that he explores.

Great place to start: Beginner’s Guide To Web Data Analysis: Ten Steps To Love & Success

SEO Takeaways – Himanshu Sharma

I always make sure I read any post I spot that’s been written by Himanshu Sharma. He goes into a great level of detail and every blog post provides more than just one takeaway that you can start using or considering straight away.

Get started with this blog post: Building Super Advanced Keyword Performance Dashboard in Google Analytics & Excel

Measuring Success – Brian Clifton – Advanced Web Metrics

Brian Clifton is the author of ‘Advanced Web Metrics’, a fantastic book covering (probably) everything within Google Analytics. It’s now on its third edition and given the amount of updates Google have released this year, Brian is likely to be writing a fourth edition very soon.

The blog is updated less regularly than the others, but it will always be a strong source of reliable information and tips about web analtyics.

Here’s a good post to read on this site: What is the future direction of analytics?

Successful Analytics – Brian Clifton

This is Brian’s latest book and for those of you who have read Advanced Web Metrics, this is not the forth version; this is something different. Rather than just focusing on how to analyse and measure data, this book helps you to understand the process from start to finish giving you a much more rounded experience.

Online Behaviour – founded by Daniel Waisberg

There are over 40 authors from around the world listed on Online Behaviour and even more have actually written for this site when you take in to account guest authors. This probably makes it one of the biggest and best collections of analytics expertise on the Internet. Having such a wealth of expertise means that you can get blog posts of every variety on this site and it covers targeting, segmentation, testing and usability in addition to analytics and optimisation. From theories, guides, to new feature reviews and tips and tricks; there are also videos, cartoons and slides, all with top notch content.

It’s hard to pick just one blog post for you to start with on here, but give this one by Daniel a go to see how well explained it is: Google Analytics Content Experiments – A Guide To Creating A/B Tests

Analytics Talk – Justin Cutroni

Like Avinash, Brian and Daniel, Justin Cutroni is one of the world’s most respected web analysts. He is an Analytics Advocate at Google so gets early access to new features to help develop them and then he makes sure knowledge gets shared with the likes of you and I.

The posts are always clear and helpful, usually coming in the form of guides to help you use features within Google Analytics.

Check out the first of his question an answer posts where he takes questions from anyone on Google+ and puts together comprehensive answers: Analytics Questions & Answers: Volume 1

Kiss Metrics

Kiss Metrics is an analytics tool in it’s own right. Their blog is also a good source of information for web analysts looking to get more from their data. They also run webinars focussing on getting more from analytics.

Try not to get stuck in a loop of resources posts, but here’s a good one from 2011 that they put together: 50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics

Annie Cushing

I couldn’t miss Annie off my list, despite there not being just one blog to find all her analytics tips in. She is a wealth of actionable information about analytics and excel, putting the two together to analyse and improve SEO results. I’ve seen fantastic posts from Annie about Regex on BlueGlass (one of my most visited resources), pivot tables on Search Engine Land and more recently excel wizardry on Seer Interactive.

Search Engine Watch

For a wide range of topics and levels of ability, you can’t go wrong by keeping an eye on the Search Engine Watch analytics category. There are lots of authors, meaning you get a wide range of posts to learn from.

Have a look over this post: 4 Google Analytics Features You Probably Haven’t Used

Custom Report Sharing & GA Crowd & Dashboard Junkie

These three sites are all platforms where Google Analytics Dashboards, Custom Reports and other cool things are shared. I don’t think any of them are well known yet and I think they all have great potential. If you want to use dashboards and custom reports but don’t have the knowledge or time to build them then I highly recommend you check these sites out and see what you can use. Your dream dashboard could be just three clicks away!

The extra bonus resources that I like but use less regularly include:

https://www.barker.dj/blog/ – insightful and analytical posts by Dan Barker

So that’s my lot – what else do you read?

This list only has ten items so will never be complete. I’d love to know what other analytics resources you rely on or enjoy, so please put them in the comments section below.

And please don’t be offended if I’ve missed something off, I haven’t managed to read the whole Internet just yet ;)

Image Source

Writing on a white laptop via BigStock

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