Head to Leafy Vermont to Attend the Online Marketing Boot Camp

There is no better time to visit Vermont than during Autumn. If you grew up in New England as I did, you might agree that this time of year stirs up the most exciting nostalgia, for the beauty of the Fall foliage and the feeling of summer ending. So, I couldn't be happier to recommend the second Online Marketing Boot Camp in Burlington, Vermont for a few reasons, including promoting learning about web analytics and marketing, and giving you an excuse to visit Vermont this Fall season!

The Boot Camp, from November 12 through November 16, will sharpen analytics skills and help grow businesses with a curriculum intended to give attendees practical insight and techniques on how to more effectively market, analyze and optimize their websites. It is hosted by EpikOne, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, and Champlain College, at the new Courtyard Burlington Harbor, located on the waterfront of Burlington.

Classes will be taught by some pretty experienced folks with whom we love working, including Kristoffer Ewald, a consultant from The Milk in Denmark, whose class received rave reviews at the first Boot Camp. For this Boot Camp, Kristoffer will focus on discovering industry trends, doing competitive analysis and forecasting online growth. Daily 'Ask the Experts' sessions, a new addition to Boot Camp, will also give attendees the chance to interact one-on-one with the instructors.

Other Boot Camp topics and tools will include: Online Business Strategies, Digital Advertising & Google AdWords, Web Metrics & Google Analytics, Usability, Testing & Website Optimizer & Web Tools, Trends & Social Media.

To learn more, visit www.ombootcamp.com.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

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Upcoming Website Optimizer online seminars

Aside from Google Analytics, one of my favorite marketing tools at Google is Website Optimizer. It is a multivariate testing platform that is both free and pretty easy to use. If you haven't tried Website Optimizer yet, now is a great chance to get your feet wet. Product Manager Tom Leung will be hosting two free online seminars next week. He knows this product inside and out and is a great presenter, so this will be worth your time.

The first online seminar, Introduction to Website Optimizer, will be geared towards those who are unfamiliar with website content testing and optimization. Tom will discuss the importance and benefits of optimizing your website design and content, and he'll provide a detailed introduction to Website Optimizer and review the product's latest features (including A/B Split testing and the ability to delete experiments).

The second online seminar, Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments, builds on the first and is designed for those who have previous experience with Website Optimizer or other site testing tools. Tom will give a step-by-step demonstration of how to successfully launch multivariate and A/B experiments, and he'll also answer your questions.

Other members of the Website Optimizer team will be available during the online seminars to chat individually with attendees and answer questions in real time.

Here is the schedule and registration information:

Introduction to Website Optimizer (New or inexperienced users)
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 10:00 - 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.

Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments (Intermediate and advanced users)
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 10:00 - 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.

Once you've registered, you'll receive an email from WebEx with participation details.

Enjoy and happy testing!

Posted by Brett Crosby, Sr. Manager, Google Analytics Team

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Exciting Announcements at eMetrics Today

Today at the eMetrics Summit in Washington, D.C. Brett Crosby announced several Google Analytics features that will be rolled out over the coming weeks. Here's a rundown.

First, you'll be able to use Google Analytics to track site search activity. Simply edit any of your Google Analytics profiles to enable "Site Search" and you can find out what people search for on your site and where these searches lead. Located in the Content section of your Google Analytics reporting interface, Site Search reports show you the keywords and search refinement keywords people use, the pages from which people begin and end their searches. You can also see how search on your site affects site usage, conversion rates, and e-commerce activity. (BTW, if you don't have a search box on your site, you might want to try the free and newly launched Google Custom Search Engine.)

We'll begin a limited beta test of the new Google Analytics Event Tracking capability. These new reports are designed to help you understand how people use and interact with Ajax, Flash and multimedia on your site without artificially increasing your pageview metrics. In order to provide a way for you to define and track a wide variety of applications and interactions, there will be a new tracking module called ga.js. Using ga.js on your site instead of urchin.js means you can continue to take advantage of the latest advanced tracking enhancements (such as Event Tracking) as we release them. Although we suggest everyone upgrade to the new JavaScript, if you aren't interested in Event Tracking and you're already getting all the information you need from Google Analytics, you don't need to change your tags.

We'll also initiate a limited beta test in the coming weeks of our new Outbound Link Tracking feature. This feature will report on links visitors clicked on your site that direct them to another site. If you have already used the "Urchin Tracker" to track your outbound links, you may want to avoid changing your code twice by waiting to upgrade your JavaScript to ga.js until this feature is fully rolled out.

Finally, Brett announced the Urchin Software from Google limited beta. Urchin is a software product that you run on your own servers. Its reporting interface is similar to the previous Google Analytics interface. If you would like to participate in the limited beta, please contact one of our Authorized Consultants.

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Your next coffee table e-book

Learning about Google Analytics just got easier with the recent release of Justin Cutroni's new e-book, Google Analytics Shortcut published by O'Reilly Media. The downloadable e-book is separated into sections and offers advice for users of all skill levels, starting with "Getting Setup Correct," and moving on to more advanced tips and advice on avoiding configuration mistakes.

Justin is a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant with Epikone. I consider Justin to be a trusted source and have consulted him on a number of complex web analytics issues. He always impresses me with his industry knowledge and how many subtle details he knows about Google Analytics. Justin plans to update his book twice a year and free downloads of updated material will be available to everyone who has purchased the book so that as we continue to roll out new features and capabilities, Google Analytics Shortcut will remain up-to-date.

Posted by Brett Crosby, Sr. Manager, Google Analytics

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