Web analytics is an important area for online merchants. A greater understanding of how visitors are finding and navigating your site can help you improve the usability, navigation and promotional efforts of your website, thus increasing your sales. So I was eager to review Avinash Kaushik's new book, "Web Analytics: An Hour a Day" (Sybex 2007).

Note: For those unfamiliar with the term "web analytics," I suggest you take the product tour for Google Analytics, a free tool for website owners from Google. That's not to say it's the best analytics program, but the tour gives a nice introduction to the kinds of data and reports you can generate with such tools. (http://www.google.com/analytics)

In skimming the first sections of "Web Analytics," I was overwhelmed - I found it complex, and more geared to the enterprise user than the small online seller. The useful meat for a micro merchant begins with Chapter 5 on p. 99. First, webmasters must decide whether to use web logs or JavaScript tags to collect data, Kaushik says, which sounds like a logical starting point. He then goes on to discuss best practices, because, as he says, Garbage In, Garbage Out.

The premise of the book is to tackle web analytics "an hour a day" (as the title suggests). Chapters 6 through 13 cover 8 months of advice on what you need to look at using your web analytics reports. Chapter 6, for example, is called "Month 1: Diving Deep into Core Web Analytics Concepts." The chapter covers key concepts, including "time on site" and "page views," two metrics that were hotly debated on the AuctionBytes blog in an entry posted in July called "eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site" (http://tinyurl.com/2tjgpf). Kaushik explains website metrics and how best to use them in making judgements about your site's performance.

Kaushik's book goes beyond traffic numbers. Chapter 7's "E-commerce Website Jump-Start Guide" section discusses the importance of measuring Average Selling Price and Conversion Rates, measurements eBay sellers have already become acquainted with in analyzing their sales performance, but may not be tracking as carefully on their own websites. Kaushik also tackles performance goals, measuring the effectiveness of onsite efforts, and measuring customer satisfaction. He even has a section for measuring the performance and ROI of blogs.

In Chapter 8, Kaushik talks about a website's internal search and says you should conduct weekly reports on your site's top internal site search key phrases. "It is extremely beneficial to look at key phrases that are returning no results on your website. This could alert you to spelling mistakes or terms that your users are using that you did not anticipate. For example, perhaps you are selling window coverings but people are searching for curtains and therefore can't find what they want." (The same principle applies to the search engine on eBay Stores, and storeowners can apply this advice when analyzing their eBay Stores sales reports.)

Kaushik discusses Search Engine Optimization in Chapter 8. He points out that press releases and social networking sites have gained importance as tools to improve organic search results and cites press release services from Business Wire, PRWeb and PR Newswire. "Optimizing your press releases to link back to your site and correctly using your most important, and relevant, keywords can be a great way to improve the rankings of your relevant pages."

This book is not for the faint of heart. You must be prepared to study hard, and it requires you take time away from the day-to-day operations of your business. (An hour a day, as the book title suggests, will still take you 8 months to get through, though naturally you can skip around to the parts you most want to explore.) The incentives are that you are applying lessons learned to your own website (and who doesn't like to think about their own business?), and the belief that a greater understanding of your own site can lead to improved sales.

Like eating vegetables, web analytics is good for you (and for some people, actually enjoyable). But others just won't find analytics palatable, and for them, this book may be too jam-packed with information - they may want to start with a more basic how-to guide.

"Web Analytics: An Hour a Day," by Avinash Kaushik (Sybex 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/39k5s5

You can also find Avinash Kaushik's blog at http://www.kaushik.net/avinash