Sams Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes [Paperback]

Michael Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0672333201 | ISBN-13: 978-0672333200 | Edition: 1

Sams Teach Yourself Google Analytics™ in 10 Minutes gives you straightforward, practical answers when you need fast results. By working through its 10-minute lessons, you’ll learn everything you need to use Google Analytics to accurately measure your website’s performance–and improve it!

 

10 minutes is all you need to learn how to…

• Quickly create a Google Analytics account and add Google Analytics to your site
• Define goals and measure how well your site is achieving them
• Track visitors from search engines, pay-per-click advertising, email, and other sources
• Discover the pages your visitors view, how long they stay, and where they exit
• Monitor specific user actions, such as playing embedded video, selecting Flash menu items, or downloading files
• Identify your best and worst content, and fix poorly performing pages
• Improve your site by tracking error pages and broken links
• Measure AdWords traffic, position, and e-commerce performance
• Manage Google Analytics through the Dashboard
• Customize Google Analytics to work more effectively with your site
• Capture more accurate information by filtering out internal traffic
• Choose the right reports and data, understand them, and act on what you learn

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Miller has written more than 100 nonfiction books over the past two decades. His best-selling titles include Sams Teach Yourself YouTube in 10 Minutes, Sams Teach Yourself Wikipedia in 10 Minutes, Windows 7 Your Way, Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource, Using Google AdWords and AdSense, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization, and The Ultimate Web Marketing Guide. He has established a reputation for practical advice, technical accuracy, and an unerring empathy for the needs of his readers. For more information about Mr. Miller and his writing, visit his website at www.molehillgroup.com or email him at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Sams Publishing; 1 edition (July 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672333201
• ISBN-13: 978-0672333200
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #210,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Computers & Technology > Internet & Web Culture > E-Commerce

More About the Author

Michael Miller is the best-selling writer of more than 100 non-fiction books. He writes about a variety of topics, including computers, online selling, business, consumer electronics, and music. From his first book (Ventura Publisher Techniques and Applications, published in 1988) to his latest title, he has established a reputation for practical advice, technical accuracy, and an unerring empathy for the needs of his readers.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Missing Manual to Google Analytics (Well, Almost!) July 21, 2010

By Jason L. Mcdonald

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Google Analytics! An amazing, free powerful metrics platform for search engine optimization (SEO) and AdWords (pay-per-click advertising). But can mere mortals effectively use Google Analytics? Can mere mortals even find effective online or offline assistance to help them learn to decipher its riddles, to ponder its mysteries? Michael Miller has taken on the daunting task of explaining Google Analytics to mere mortals, and - in general - he succeeds. I highly recommend his new book, for both mere mortals and more experienced Google Analytics users as well.

As an instructor in SEO and Adwords both online and in San Francisco (just Google Jason McDonald plus SEO and you'll find me), I am always looking for new insights and new books to recommend to the businesspeople and marketers who take my courses, including my free top ten seo tools webinar. Mr. Miller has made my list, even though his approach is very word heavy and could have benefited from some pictures or diagrams. Analytics, after all, can make Microsoft Vista seem well designed!

Mr. Miller takes the traditional book-as-manual approach to Analytics, and he largely succeeds. The book is part of the in 10 Minutes series, but by 10 minutes he means 10 minutes per day. The book begins with how to set up an Analytics account on Google, and proceeds chapter by chapter with some of the most important concepts in Analytics: using the dashboard, tracking visitors, analyzing top content, and even tracking AdWords and ecommerce. Pretty much every important topic in Analytics is covered.

It's a very useful book for someone who already has an Analytics account and is seeking a good lunchtime read to get tips and techniques to then go online and try out on the Google Analytics platform. (By the way, don't miss Google's Conversion University (just Google 'Conversion University' to find that amazing free resource). The only criticism here would be that, unless you are a good reader / slash / book person, it may be confusing to translate Miller's word-heavy approach to what is really a visual user interface. Pictures and diagrams (not to mention videos and online learning) would have been an easier way to explain Analytics step-by-step.

But, all things considered, the book covers every major topic in Analytics at least briefly. Kudos, kudos, kudos, to brave Mr. Miller! I will be recommending this book to my online and real-world students of SEO - those who want a handy overview to the powerful yet mysterious Google Analytics Platform.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Less is Certainly More! July 3, 2011

By Ted Janusz

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Don Fry once wrote, "Writing Short is a lot harder than long writing. You may remember the famous quip by Mark Twain: 'I apologize for writing you a long letter. I didn't have time to write you a short one.' Writing short effectively takes more thought, knowledge, and design.

How long is short? It has little to do with actual length. A piece can read short or long, regardless of how much space it occupies. By short, we mean it seems short to readers as they read it.

Here's the secret: selection, not compression. You write short by leaving things out, not by mashing things in. So short writing begins with simplifying, adjusting the number of subjects and details for the amount of room."

Don Fry seems to have written this piece after reading "Sams Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes."

Based upon other reviews here in Amazon (without being able to actually page through the books), I ordered this book and three other highly recommended books on Google Analytics.

If one knows little or nothing about the subject, after beginning to read the other books (and getting frustrated), it seems that their authors apparently want to impress you, their colleagues or their clients with their vast technical knowledge and insights, and can eloquently wax on for hundreds of pages with their wisdom. They apparently want you to know that this subject is way too complex for the ordinary Earthling to understand (either that, or they are afflicted with the "curse of knowledge").

This is the ONLY book among the four that I ordered from Amazon that has the DISCIPLINE to tell you just what you need to know about Google Analytics and in a logical sequence, so that you can actually understand it.

This book is a gem! Michael Miller, you are brilliant!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Goes from absolute beginning to some advanced topics December 6, 2010

By Nora Brown

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book won't make you a web statistics guru, but it will get you up and running quickly, and help you to understand how to find and manipulate data in Google Analytics. Some especially helpful lessons include discovering complete referrer URLs (not just the main domain name) and tracking file downloads.

Keep in mind that this book shows you how to find and view data in Analytics, but not necessarily what you should be looking for or what the numbers mean.