Yakiji (Yah-key-jee)

There are many ways to become a better Web Analyst, but what I’ve been most interested in lately is examining my actionable intent. Yes, that sounds weird. But the way to look at it is that actionable intent explores the way we look at core standard web metrics and the action we intend to take. As analysts, I believe the actions we need to take are most clear when the metrics fall significantly outside the norm. The problem is that we see the analytics most often inside the norm and we lose sight of opportunities. Analyzing a “spike” in visits is much easier than analyzing a “small bump”.

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Google couldn’t be more generous to SEOs and web marketers when it decided to launch Conversion University. Articles have been posted very infrequently, until just recently when Google released the new and improved Conversion University. By the looks of it, it received quite an overhaul. It looks to provide more information than ever with such topics as Acquisition, Onsite Behavior Analysis, Outcomes, Videos and more.

Thanks Google!

If you’re looking for a web stats counter that’s self hosted, extensible and cheap, then look to Mint Web Stats. This light-weight application is easy to install and simple to use. Mint provides ”cut-and-dry” stats for somebody who just wants to know how many people are coming to their site, but also provides good info for the novice user. With plenty of add-on’s, called Pepper, at only $30 per site you can’t go wrong. Best of all, the data stays with you. All the stats are real-time, so you don’t have to wait in anticipation.

If there are any gripes about Mint, it would be that it’s still a very new application. While the application is relatively stable, some of the add-on’s are buggy. The GeoMint application actually crashed my version of Mint, but re-installing it wasn’t too difficult. Shaun Inman, the creator, does a good job updating and staying active with support. This is truly an up-and-coming web analytics package.