These presentations are now both available for download if anyone wants to see what they were missing out on.  As they are presentations, I was going to talk around the written points but let me know if you have any questions regarding the points I was making.

Why should You care about web analytics?

The idea behind my first presentation was to provide reasons to developers (I had expected the majority of attendees at BarCamp to be developers) why they too should care about web analytics and how it could help them in their jobs and thus why they should spend give implementing the code a high priority.  Unfortunately, all the developers cared more about other topics…

But the key point for web analysts, in order to report on something, it needs to be measured.  And it usually falls to others in the organisation to add the tags that capture these measurements.  So if you want to do your job effectively, you need to persuade others that they get benefits out of it too.

To download file, please click here

A practical application of web analytics

The second presentation that I put together was a case study using a website that I recently reviewed for a friend’s website Human Rights TV.  The case study goes through the process I followed in order to analyse this website and the web analytics data captured on it (using Google Analytics).  I included key findings from the investigation and the recommendations that I made for improving the performance of the website as a result of these findings.

While this is a bit of a plug for myself by showing the work I can do, it should be useful in seeing how to go about analysing a website, what to look for in the data and what kind of recommendations can come out of a website review.

To download file, please click here

My goal is to spend at least a day a week reading other people’s opinions about web analytics, participating in forums and writing new posts for this blog.  I felt that I was missing out in the past and that this will be the best way for me to learn.

Ideally, I will also be able to spend longer with each client than I was able to while working with Nedstat (based on a lower cost).  This should give me the scope to provide a more detailed level of assistance, working with the client on a regular basis to improve their website and online marketing, rather than just being the expert that is involved every couple of months.  I would like to be able to work with multiple websites across a range of industries, giving me practical experience to combine with my online learning.

This website will be updated in the next week to include a list of the services I will be offering initially and other relevant details.  My feelings are a bit mixed as this is all a bit of a step into the unknown but I know it is a risk definitely worth taking and I am looking forward to where ever this path takes me.