If you want to learn more about Google Analytics and you enjoy online learning, it couldn’t have gotten any easier! Google has just introduced a new online course in Google Analytics implementation, analysis and administration. The cost is $0 so you don’t need your manager’s approval for this one. 🙂
Google is also offering a Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ) test as a proof of proficiency in the fundamentals of Google Analytics (GA). For this test there is a $50.00 fee.
What will you learn? A lot!
- Installation of Google Analytics tracking code (GATC).
- Familiarity with the GA user interface.
- Canned reports and how to interpret them.
- How to set up profiles, filters, goals, funnels, and more.
- Campaign tracking, eCommerce tracking, and events tracking
- An entire section on recent features, including custom reports, advanced segments, and motion charts.
- Cookies, regular expressions (regex), and all the fun stuff to do with tracking mutiple domains and sub-domains.
- There are also few sections focused purely on analysis of reports.
- And more!
Our consultants here, including myself, have gone through the curriculum; we liked the structure and the thoroughness of the course. If you are serious about analytics, specifically Google Analytics, I highly recommend you invest some time to take the course.
Depending on where you are in your organization, I see a couple of challenges that you’ll need to overcome:
- If you are not technical, say your focus is on reporting and analysis, you are going to need some strong coffee as you go through the technical sections (regex, cookies, etc), but you will have a better understanding of the scope of work involved in implementation.
- If you are technical and focused on implementation challenges, then you’ll probably enjoy getting away from coding for a little bit and seeing how all your hard implementation work is put to use during analysis.
What if you can’t stand staring at a computer screen for hours going through an online course? Othere sources for Google Analytics education and training are available:
- Books: Brian Clifton’s Advanced Web Metrics, Justin Cutroni’s eBook, and a few other books you can find on Amazon.
- Google Analytics help forum
- Your friendly neighborhood Google Analytics Authorized Consultant (no sales pitch here, the link is going to all the GAACs). 🙂
- A good number of blogs focused on Google Analytics.
- Webinars offered by many GAACs.
- In-person Google Analytics workshops (San Francisco Bay Area) and seminars (national)
Happy learning!
