---

Guest post by: Mark Brimm Become an Author

Tweet

---

---

I came. I saw the flashing lights. I was hooked.

I like them all. The expensive programs and memberships. Click-through "heat maps". How is a boy to contain his glee with all the hyper-real analytical motion and fashionably business-like bleeps going on? Trouble is, for most startups such paid analtical solutions are prohibitively too expensive if there is no one on staff available with the dedicated time to learn how to use one of them--which is most every business owner and marketing department director out there today, with some happy exceptions.

What Google Analytics brings to the table is a hefty serving of what analytics can be most readily used for and a good bit of muscle to boot. They just don't put it into the form of an interactive city or with infrared click-map precision, but with adequate precision for most web-newbie businesses, nonetheless.

If your company is toying with the idea of analytics solutions that come in a box and require memberships and even licensing fees, be sure to get your feet wet with Google Analytics first. It's (trumpets here)...FREE! It gives a rapidly expanding array of metrics, funnel goals and statistics and will prepare you for the real world of high-priced solutions that may otherwise prove unweildy and slow to pay off if you're "fresh off the analytics boat," as no one has ever said until just now.

When you are ready to take the jump, however, compare based on some basic guidelines:

1) Can this solution help us to cover everything we're able and ready to measure?
2) Is this solution too expensive for the ease factor it lends to web analytics tracking?
3) Will someone on staff be available to evolve with this solution as it changes over time?

Compare and try out as many solutions as possible when you're ready to graduate from Google Analytics, but don't expect it to get easy. People have devoted their entire lives to learning how to measure and predict traffic, and buying a packaged software solution is not going to flatten out the learning curve. There are options, however, that come with educating oneself. For one thing, you'll be able to effectively screen and hire a qualified consultant for the task if you roughly understand the tool to be used. Eventually, you may want to offer to either hire the person on, have them train that person for a generous fee, and just continue to outsource it. Hey, if you understand what they're doing and the benefit of doing it, it's fine to keep it outsourced indefinitely. In a pinch, you'll understand how to take over the task if needed. The important thing is to start your journey, Skywalker. It's one thing to know the path. It's quite another to walk the path.

Related Articles

  Article #38 Simple How To Web Analytics
  Google Analytics - How Accurate is it?
  Google Analytics A Free Online Business Tool
  Google Analytics Overview: A Must Tool for Webmasters To Discover The Insights Of Their Website
  Google Analytics - Just the Facts
  What is Google Analytics?
  Follow just few steps and add google analytics tracking code to Joomla
  How to Use Google Analytics to Gain That Needed Edge Over Your Competition
  Free Web Analytics from Google
  Web Analytics that Lie
  Hitslink vs. Google Analytics
  Google Analytics – What is it?
  Potential Clients Hidden in the Data
  Web Analytics For The Uninitiated
  Website Analytics – A Necessity for Growing Your Business
  Pull Prospects with Google AdWords
  3 No-Cost Google Tools Every Small Business Should Be Using In Their Marketing
  How to Tag your Online Marketing Campaigns in Google Analytics
  Integrating Web Analytics into Your Daily Internet Marketing Campaigns
  Effectively Leveraging Google+ Business Pages

Related Forum Posts

Re: What I Enjoyed Reading This Week - June 11
Statcounter / Google Analytics
*Hot Topic: Do you use your website statistics?*
Most Useful SEO Tools For Webmasters
Re: Ranked #1 in just over 7 weeks

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to Increase Your Sales in Insurance

Contain The Complainers!

How should you handle advertising in a recession?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.