Thought & Theory

Might not be the most exciting topic in the world, but analytics are an important piece for any startup. I know that I am constantly checking Google Analytics for small side projects and using Compete.com to evaluate other sites.

Andrew Chen has some great posts on getting started with analytics and why you should use them and understand them.

The first blog post that caught my eye was “omg I’m just a startup, I can’t do those fancy analytics!“. A great excerpt from this post is:

Don’t build metrics that aren’t going to be part of your day-to-day operations or don’t have potential to be incorporated as such. Building reports that no one looks at is just activity without accomplishment, and is a waste of time.

A second blog post that has a bunch of great info for startups is “The first 6 steps to homegrowing basic startup analytics“. He breaks down these 6 (actually 7…) simple steps:

• Step 0: Pre-Product
• Step 1: Prototypes
• Step 2: Traffic comes in, so data must be collected
• Step 3: Identifying your user flows
• Step 4: Trying ad hoc queries
• Step 5: Formal in-house reporting
• Step 6: Too much data! Reports are too slow!

Analytics can tell you a lot about the users of your website and what the trends are for the use of your site. You can have all the great ideas in the world and display a ton of information, but if your users don’t care you are simply wasting time. Sign up for a free Google Analytics account today and try it out!