Avinash Kaushik on Web Analytics
Avinash Kaushik began blogging on web analytics in 2006. Wiley called him to turn it into a book, Web Analytics an Hour a Day. He wrote it in 7 weekends working 7am to 9pm. Royalties from the project, ~$90K after 2 years, go to his favorite charities. His second book, Web Analytics 2.0, donated $16K to charity in the first week.
Above: Avinash speaks at PoST today
Takeaways:
- On Marketing
- Don’t market your products, just be yourself
- Have faith people will come (e.g. buy your book, if you just teach)
- On Web Design
- Have clear call to action, reason
- Define quantifiable success metrics (count the right thing)
- On Web Analytics
- Top conversion rates for website in US: 1.72%
- Think about success for converted as well as unconverted users
- Quantify impact of “micro-conversions” across pages
- Set goals and NPV estimates for value generated
- On Twitter
- Twitter is not about # followers, it’s about retweets/K followers
- Twitter amplifies your message, expands reach (try GraphEdge)
- Are you shouting at people or having a conversations?
- On Surveys
- Three questions:
- Why are you here?
- Who’s here for the purpose your site is designed for?
- How do you service the rest of the visitors?
- Were you able to complete your task?
- Why not? (why weren’t you able to complete your task?)
- Look for segments of discontent
- On the Web
- The beauty of the Internet is ability to fail fast
- Most websites suck because of HiPPO decisions (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion)
- Test designs with Google Analytics, e.g. website optimizer
- Learn to be wrong quickly
- The problem is no longer budget or tools—it’s the will to get good at it
More on Avinash on his blog, check out his books (Web Analytics an Hour a Day, Web Analytics 2.0), and you can follow him on Twitter.
