Expectations

Web Analytics is becoming more and more critical in today's business. Many companies have recently made a large push into this industry including

• Omniture
• Google
• Yahoo
• Microsoft

I am excited about this course (Isys 590R) because of all the new things I will learn this semester. I have experience setting up analytics software on different websites that I have worked on, but I am excited this semester about better learning how to interpret this information. I have been reading about some of the 'rookie mistakes' that are made by beginners like me when trying to interpret data. A couple common problems are the hotel problem and new visitors + repeat visitors being unequal to the total visitors. The reasons behind each of these mistakes are explained in the wiki article.

I expect this semester to learn more technical methods of tracking visitors over webpages. Having only worked with Google Analytics so far, very basic tracking software, I expect to learn about more complex and intensive tools that can be used to better know just what a consumer is looking for.

My last expectation involves this semester's competition. I began participating in the Omniture Web Analytics competition last semester, but my team had to drop out when one member had a pregnancy scare and early birth of his child. This year, and using methods learned in this class, I expect to not only 'participate' but also to 'compete' in the contest.