Mission Statement
Applied Analytics has one goal: to help you make better decisions about your site without over complicating things. There tons of websites out there devoted to web analytics, and most of them are aimed at other analytics nerds who love to talk about this stuff.
Applied Analytics is different.
This site is for anyone with a website that wants to make it better. That covers everyone from bloggers to small-business owners to the “data guy” at large companies. And by “better” I mean you want to drive more traffic, more conversions, or you want to learn more about the people using your site.
Ultimately, that’s what’s so cool about looking at all the numbers we call “web analytics”—they let you put together a story about the users coming to your site, what they’re doing, and how to give them more of what they want.
Whether you know a little about about tools like Google Analytics or haven’t even heard of them, the purpose of this site is to help you use these tools to make your site a better experience for your users.
I like to think in terms of questions—without them we’d never find any answers:
- Why did this user go there?
- Where did he come from?
- What makes him come back?
Applied Analytics is about helping you find better ways to answer questions. Once you know the question, you can use web analytics data to help find a good answer. An answer that can be turned into action on your site.
What the Hell is “Web Analytics” Anyway?
“Web Analytics” is just a fancy way of answering one question: what’s happening on my site? There are hundreds of tools to help you answer that question and all those tools comprise “web analytics.” But I’m not going to go through every single one—you don’t need to know them all. What you do need is a basic understanding of how they work, the things you can do with them, and a place to discuss what your goals are.
And here it is. Go.