Conclusion

Dear Reader,

Congratulations on wading into the world of analytics. I think it can definitely lead to helpful insights about a website, and help you see what’s going on. If you ultimately see yourself wanting to sell products on your website, then I definitely urge you to investigate online advertising.

When you connect something like Google Adwords (for making advertisements) and Google Analytics, you have a powerful way to measure the performance of ads. You can look and see how much revenue is being generated by the ads, which allows you to allocate your resources in the most efficient way.

Over time, in my own career, I went from working primarily on training material and technical writing to the marketing side of things. There was a time when I was intimidated by the thought of Google Analytics, much less Adwords, or online advertising. In my case, I ended up getting confidence by trying to make a Facebook ad at first. I found it was fun, and I thought, okay, this isn’t so bad. So I learned more about it, eventually wrote the Facebook Advertising Primer, and I’m working on a Google Adwords Primer as well.

I think that one of the most helpful skills you can learn for the development of websites, in a business context, or even a non-profit context, is how analytics work, at the very least (so you can see what’s going on). And then, ideally, you might explore online advertising, to help promote a website. There’s excellent material out there on the Internet to be found, including the help sections of Facebook, Google Adwords Help, and Google Analytics Help. And you’re welcome to check out the primers.

Regardless of where you go, congratulations on checking out a helpful tool— Google Analytics!

Regards,

Todd