Getting Started With Google Analytics
I recommend Ultimate GA plugin. Easy to set up. Just copy the ID from the code Google Analytics generates for your site, paste in and you are set. Way better that manually editing php files. If you change the theme you had to do again. Not so with the plugin.
Ultimate GA settings page
What is nice about this plugin is the extra features you can enable:
- ignore login in user greater than a user level of 8 will ignore visits by Administrator, a good idea not to skew the data by your visits posting and developing site.
- enable tracking links for external links
- enable tracking links for downloads
SEO and SEM Blues
For a good laugh read Top 21 Signs You Need a Break from SEO
over at Small Business SEM.
OK enough, now back to our regularly scheduled SEM rant.
Craig Danuloff of Commerce360 makes a strong case for not getting swayed by simplistic ROAS metrics. In a series of posts he states that Return on Ad Spend in Pay for Click campaigns is easy to report but very misleading unless you factor in the real ROI not just ROAS. But the reality is that gross profit margins vary by product and promotional offers, so conputing an ROI for every product vs. ad spend is no small task. Worse yet the analystics systems are not yet up to a task of this complexity, so a manual method is required.
It would be great if paid search was a simple little game where the skills you’ve picked up in other endeavors prepared you to easily and consistently win. Once upon a time it might have been.
I recommend reading the series.
Then get Avinash Kaushik’s book Web Analytics-An Hour a Day.
Read up on his concept of the Trinity; experience, behavior and outcomes. When you understand the trinity of your online business you can create actionable metrics that boost ROI.
I just started but already I know this book is a classic akin to A Random Walk Down Wall Street is to portfolio investing.
