Because I have a lot of web properties, I look at Google Analytics almost every day. So I'm not a noob to the idea of analytics by any means.
I keep reading these Google Analytics articles and they all just kind of wash over me. So many thousands of pieces of data. It just never all seems to come together into some kind of useful whole. It just never seems to add up to much.
I look at total traffic and how the traffic is getting there. Then I look at time on site and page views, which show me how engaged they are. Finally I glance at new vs. returning visitors. That's about it. I know I must be missing out on something -- writers keep telling me this -- but somehow I'm just not easily able to move from "here's a zillion pieces of data" to "here is something I can do today for my content to make it better for folks"
On on the positive side, I like the new interface and features. I've been geeking out on watching traffic arrive at the site realtime. But then again, just like all the other stuff, it's cool glossy data, but not a lot of actionable useful stuff.
You might want to follow Avinash Kaushik (hopefully I wrote it right), his blog is quite popular and for very good reasons: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/
His book, Web Analytics 2.0, is an eye opener in terms of defining your own goals and processes, highly suggested.
I keep reading these Google Analytics articles and they all just kind of wash over me. So many thousands of pieces of data. It just never all seems to come together into some kind of useful whole. It just never seems to add up to much.
I look at total traffic and how the traffic is getting there. Then I look at time on site and page views, which show me how engaged they are. Finally I glance at new vs. returning visitors. That's about it. I know I must be missing out on something -- writers keep telling me this -- but somehow I'm just not easily able to move from "here's a zillion pieces of data" to "here is something I can do today for my content to make it better for folks"
On on the positive side, I like the new interface and features. I've been geeking out on watching traffic arrive at the site realtime. But then again, just like all the other stuff, it's cool glossy data, but not a lot of actionable useful stuff.