Seven free resources to get started with Google Web Site Optimizer
I’m sure by now you’ve heard that Google started giving Web Site Optimizer away. But you may not have heard about all the great content that the gang at FutureNow has to help you get started on the platform? Guides, plug-ins, podcasts, presentations, … it’s all there!
It makes sense that Bryan and Jeffery would provide all this information given that they’re Google Authorized Consultants, but still, it’s awfully nice of them.
I’ve been running the platform on my web site for a few months and I love how easy to use it is. It may not provide all the rich features of an Offermatica, but it’s a great place to start if you have been hesitant to try A/B testing because of the price.
Check out Google Web Site Optimizer and check out the free resources from the Eisenberg brothers today!
eric added the following ...
Pelle: Agreed. Thanks for the comment!
Jacques Warren added the following ...
Yeah, sure is great to have free stuff. As an ex-partner of major vendors of behavioral analysis and MVT applications, I can not but wonder if at the end this whole free stuff thing will end up sending the right message. A cardinal rule of business stipulates that if it’s free it can’t be good. True, Google, and several other organizations, are revisiting that model. There IS good and free stuff. Even very good stuff. I mean, if they want to give it and their bankers are OK with it, why the heck not!
However, my present fear is that companies will end up not seriously adopting web analytics because they are not investing anything. How can you treat something very seriously if you didn’t shed a cent for it?
True again, thousands of organizations will finally try web analytics (and now MVT!!), because this free stuff is so readily available. I guess many will “upgrade” to other, paid products, which will be a good thing for the market, right? But I don’t know…
At the end, why do we need to be “independent of vendors”? I mean, let us just apply that to everything, and I can assure you they will close faculties of economics. Would the companies using GA and GO readily give away their own products and services? Why is it that it’s web analytics that should be free?
Anyway, personally, I am OK with it; I’ll be making a living off those applications as a consultant. I’m just asking those questions out loud. Maybe this is the future, at least in IT: you make money with the services attached to the free products you give away.
eric added the following ...
Jacques: You raise a very interesting point about companies not treating something free very seriously. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of the uptick in sites listed in my vendor discovery tool that have BOTH a paid vendor AND Google Analytics (the free tool). I want to reach out to those companies and ask them how much they use each application and whether they’re serious about dropping their investment in [insert paid vendor name here] for G.A.
This is part of the problem I have with the 10/90 rule that Avinash talks about as well. Maybe I’ve just worked in web analytics for too long, or maybe because I’ve worked for the vendors themselves, but I think there is a healthier balance than “10/90″ for web analytics to be done properly in an organization.
But, now that Avinash works for Google, perhaps he’ll generate the case studies that prove me (us) wrong and show that free applications are being used as or more effectively than their paid counterparts.
Who knows, huh?
Anyway, thanks for the comment and congrats on your decision to hit the streets. I wish you all the best!
TrimediaZweiNull » Blog Archive » Must Reads in Search Marketing for This Week added the following ...
[…] - Seven free resources to get started with Google Web Site Optimizer on Web Analytics Demystified […]
Pelle Strid added the following ...
Google’s way to make even expensive and pretty advanced technology available to a broad audience is very appealing. Anyone with basic skills in web analytics can now try it out for free.
It feels good to be independent of vendors and say: Great initiative Google!