Fall Teleseminar Series 2006 – Call 4 of 9 – with John Marshall

Episode 4 of FreshBooks “Build Your Business” Fall Teleseminar Series

Introduction to Web Site Analytics (58 minutes, 26 seconds)

Listen using the MP3 player below or download the podcast.

Michael spoke with John Marshall, founder and CEO of ClickTracks, last week. Award-winning web analytics software, ClickTracks was created out of frustration with existing web site analysis tools in the belief that there had to be a better way.

Here are brief notes and timelines from the call with John:

(0.20) Agenda for the call.

(2.27) How and why John started the company, ClickTracks.

(4.07) Why would someone want to analyse traffic on his or her web site?

(4.46) Differences between measuring consumer interests and behaviour in physical world and online world.

(7.42) What are the steps to start tracking your web site?

(9.37) Do certain sites lend themselves towards certain types of goals? The importance of setting goals.

(12:33) Can you have more than one goal for your web site?

(13.10) Are there best practices regarding where to start (with what to do with my web site data)?

(16.05) Data trends, comparisons, and the importance of data segmentation.

(19.50) Why it’s more important to look at your data once a week than every day.

(24.00) Types of log file-based products.

(25.34) Types of JavaScript-based products.

(26.39) Technical differences between these products: what you can measure using log file versus JavaScript products.

(28.57) How search engine robots respond to log file vs. JavaScript data collection.

(32.15) Advantages/disadvantages of log files.

(38.11) Why some companies use JavaScript and log files.

(39.39) There’s so much info included in web analytics software; what information should I concentrate on measuring when I start?

(41.30) Why not to compare these measurements across multiple web sites.

(42.27) Where can one get benchmarking data to understand what a reasonable goal is?

(44.09) Why John cautions against benchmarking of this kind, and what data he recommends using for benchmarking.

(45.19) Using a change log to keep track of web site changes.

(46.20) Most people are coming to my new site through my Yahoo profile; how can I use this information to meet my goals of increasing lead generation and opting in for future newsletters?

(49.20) Can you explain segmentation?

(53.14) Organic vs. paid search segmentation: how people behave differently if they’re arrived at your site from an organic versus paid search link.

(54.51) Any other examples of user segmentation? Visitors from profiles vs. blogs.

(55.42) Your most versatile and powerful tool for online marketing.

(55.55) Another example of segmentation: first time versus returning visitors. Which segment do you cater for when optimizing web site usability?

(59.26) Thanks very much John, and look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Links:

John Marshall’s company: ClickTracks

Sign up for the next teleseminar:

We’re lucky to have John back on Thursday, November 2 at 1pm EST for part two: Advanced Web Site Analytics. You can sign up here.