Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

The great discussion on the last post on Visitors generated a lot of great comments. One of the great side benefits was that Scott (benry.net/blog) shared a great document and a link that IMHO would be quite beneficial to all our readers. Thanks very much Scott.

The first document is Web Analytics Key Metrics and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) by the WAA. Click here to download (14 pages).

Why should you read this document? Guy Creese and Jason Burby have done a fantastic job of:

• Outlining KPI’s by Site Type: Content sites (ad based & subscription based), Customer Service sites, Commerce sites and Lead gen sites.
• Identifying KPI’s by Process: Reach KPI’s, Acquisition KPI’s, Conversion KPI’s and Retention KPI’s.
• Providing specific KPI definitions: Conversion Rate, Hits (! : ), Unique Authenticated Visitors, Unique Browsers, Unique Visitors, Impression and Exits.

What better free source for you to get a friendly easy to read checklist of KPI’s for your business!! You can check to see if you are measuring the KPI’s for your industry / processes. If you are new to web analytics you need this, if you have been doing this for thirty five years you need this. Thanks WAA, Guy and Jason.

Scott also shared a link to the IAB website that has a wonderful and exhaustive glossary of every possible web related term, from A to Z. Click here to go to the website.

I loved it so much that I wanted to have a handy complete version for myself. Since it was not convenient on the website I took the liberty of creating a handy pdf version of it (simply copy / paste / slight formatting fix).

The second document is the Glossary of Interactive Advertising Terms from the IAB. Click here to download (51 pages).

Why should you read this document? Besides the fact that it contains every web related term (not just KPI’s) you’ll ever hear:

• Regardless of if you have been in web analytics for three days or thirty years you need this document, it is simply too good. Z is the only alphabet that does not have a term listed (!).
• It is a perfect source to refamiliarize yourself with existing KPI’s you know (and see your definition matches up with IAB) and lots of new ones you might not.
• Some of my favorites:
• Clicks (p 10)
• CPTM (p 13)
• Daughter Window (p 14)
• Heuristic (p 21)
• Makegoods (p 29)
• Non qualifying page impressions (p 31)
• Pop-up transitional (p 35)
• Total Visitors (!) (p 45)
• Visit (p 48)
• Yield (p 51)

Changing gears a little bit……

Recently I had the privilege of being interviewed by Gradiva Couzin and Jennifer Grappone, the wonderful authors of SEO: An Hour a Day (a book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading, as did others, it has 4.5 stars on amazon.com).

Our interview covered a diverse set of topics in the area of web analytics, some of the questions were:

• What’s the best way to get your feet wet in analytics if you’re not an experienced marketer?
  
• In trying to measure the success of organic SEO efforts, there’s still a lot of guesswork, expense, and a learning curve involved. Do you think Google Analytics will bring the same level of accountability to organic SEO that PPC efforts currently have?
  
• It seems that everyone is looking for a “silver bullet:” one measurement they can look at that will indicate the overall success of their website. We’ve heard a lot of people talking about bounce rate as being this silver bullet.  Can you define bounce rate for our readers, and do you agree that this an important web metric?
  
• How are you enjoying being a blogger?  Is it more work than you expected?  And do you blog “on the clock” as a part of your work efforts, or is this more of a hobby?

There were other interesting questions as well. If the answers might be of some interest to you please check out the interview. I really had fun doing it (and I am my usual verbose self with my answers : )).

Please share your feedback and usefulness of the two documents via your comments. I would also be great to hear your thoughts on Jennifer and Gradiva’s interview.

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