As of Saturday it was 1/1/11 (or 1/1/11 if you’re European), and with the new year up and running we’re off to think up new and interesting posts about Google Analytics, data, and websites. Looking back on 2010 we posted a lot of good Google Analytics posts, and today I want to say a fond farewell to the old with a recollection of what we’ve done (and what I’ve learned) this year:
We Had Basic and not-so-basic How-To’s
GA Basics: The Structure of Cookie Values
You know that GA works by recording data in user cookies, but have you ever wondered how to read those cookies? In this post I go over the structure of cookie values, and how you can understand the minutiae of GA’s interaction with your users.
Google Analytics Power User Guide Updates
The end of this year brought about a return of an old favourite: The Google Analytics Power User Guide. This time it was three more recent features (I know, it seems like they’ve been around forever) including Annotations, Custom Reports, and Advanced Segments.
Debugging Google Analytics, GWO and other Double-Tracker Woes
It’s a common problem: Google Analytics and GWO can cause cookie havoc by rewriting cookies. In this post, Brian Katz goes over some of the more common problems that can occur, as well as giving you a guideline for troubleshooting.
GA Basics: Regex and Google Analytics
Regex is a useful tool in general, but in GA it allows you to filter data into extra understandable bite sized chunks. This post takes you through the language of regex, as well as some neat tricks you can do to filter your data.
We Had Awesome Reports and Segments:
The Most Basic Must Have Custom Report
One of Ani’s first blog posts, and instantly a success, this provided a quick and easy way to see how your SEO campaigns are performing.
Newbie SEO: 6 GA advanced segments for SEO
Aggregate information is never as useful as segmented information. For this reason I put together 6 advanced segments for SEO from people in the office.
Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics – Interpreting the Data
In 2009 we posted about combining GWO and GA data to get greater insights into the effects of your testing. In this post Andre goes over the how to use this to get real, hard data about your tests outcomes.
Newbie SEO Part 1: Google Analytics Custom Reports for SEO
Data’s great, but knowing what to look for is better. In this post I presented a custom report and series of segments to help you better understand how your non-paid search traffic is improving.
We had Tips, Tricks, and Traps:
Display the Source of a 404 Error in Google Analytics
Tricky, this one. By placing GA code on your error 404 pages, and creating a clever GA filter, you can track what pages people are bouncing on: seeing what’s going wrong on your site.
Prettying up your Google Analytics reports with Adobe Illustrator
Data is great, but indigestible. In this post I step you through how to use Google Analytics in combination with Adobe Illustrator to pretty up your reports.
