Web Analysts are expected to mesh the goals of a business and that business’ website analytics, product analytics, and/or marketing analytics to find data that informs a decision, direction or optimization. A good Web Analyst is someone who is logical, generally good with numbers, passionate about website and web applications, and has a fundamental understanding of business. Like anyone, web analysts have their strengths and weaknesses, and some organizations require different skillsets but it is often a multifaceted role.  With that comes a challenging and rewarding job. There are 5 great reasons to consider the Web Analyst path.

Lucrative Career

Business Insider ranked Web Analytics Manager 8th on their list of 25 Highest Paying In Demand Jobs. According to Glassdoor, a Web analyst with 1 – 3 years experience has an average salary of $68,000, a Senior Web Analyst with 3 – 5 years experience has an average salary of $84,000. It definitely depends where you live, but these jobs are popping up everywhere as companies of all sizes acknowledge the importance of analytics.

Easy Barriers to Entry

If you have decent Excel skills and basic understanding of digital marketing and/or HTML, all you really need is Google Analytics experience. However, if you work at or would like to work at a larger company, like Fortune 500 sized, Adobe Omniture is the web analytics tool you may want to consider learning. It might be difficult to get access, but it’s well worth it!

Google Analytics makes up more than 2/3 of web analytics tool market share.  It’s even more prominent with small to mid-sized companies (because it’s free), so chances are if you have an uncle who blogs a lot or a friend with an ecommerce site, you can access their account can get to learning. Google also recently released a demo account that serves almost like a learning playground, however it’s recommended to get access to analytics of a real business. After learning what data is available in Google Analytics, you’ll need to practice interpreting what the data means and what should be done about it. Having business context and making sense of data.

There are tons of e-learning materials available, YouTube videos and blogs, and Udemy are all great places to start. You’ll probably want 75-100 hours of experience of Google Analytics before applying to any web analytics jobs.

Demand > Supply

Five years ago, web analysts primarily existed in large companies. The world of web analytics has expanded to include small to medium size businesses, opening up lots of opportunities. Many companies don’t have the budget for own analyst, so they’ve been turning to freelancers, consultants or digital agencies for help. In addition to your typical job posting sites like LinkedIn or Indeed, Web Analytics World is a great resource for web analytics jobs.

More Qualified for Leadership

Web analysts have two primary jobs: use data to find opportunities to improve a website and measuring results of initiatives like A/B tests, marketing campaigns or the impact of an industry event, but it’s by no means an easy task. Data tells you what is happening, but an understanding of the day to day business tells you why.

Getting to the why is often difficult, but that’s what the decision-makers want before moving forward. If you’re good at that, and learn how to lead that decision making, you can find yourself climbing to the top faster. Without web analytics knowledge, managers and executives rely on others to drive those insights, which won’t be nearly as good if they had the understanding themselves. Acquiring the skill set that allows you make sense of data will be a competitive advantage for future digital leaders.

Great Well-Rounded Learning Opportunity

Web Analytics, primarily Google Analytics, contains three primary report types. Audience; which describes who is visiting your site, Acquisition; which describes how people get to your site, Behavior; which describes what they did on your site.

Audience: Business

Being a web analyst will help you understand consumers and identify target markets. What age groups visit this site most? What time of day has high conversion rates? What do mobile sessions do differently than desktop?  What states or countries drive the most traffic to your site? These are all relatively easy questions to answer as a web analyst, which promotes better understanding a business and how it can be optimized to serve their best consumers better.

Acquisition: Digital Marketing

As an analyst you’ll learn a lot about digital marketing. Traffic coming to a website is a different mix for every company, but many analysts work beside SEO Specialists, Paid Search Managers and Social Media teams to help them measure the results of their efforts. Analysts who have a digital marketing background are even more valuable.

Behavior: UX and Psychology

Websites are always looking for ways to better understand what type of experience will best serve their visitors. Some web analysts will support strategy teams and UX design teams to help them validate concepts. A/B testing is great to get involved in because analysts can learn what designs or site layout performed best and formulate ideas as to why. You may find consumer behavior already very interesting but with analytics it can be measured.

Data is also used to come up with testing ideas. For example, if clicking Button A converts significantly better than those who click Button B, a good A/B test would focus on increasing the number of Button A clicks and decreasing the number of Button B clicks.

The Takeaway

Web analysts will naturally master the relationships between understand business goals, consumers, data, web technologies, marketing and comprehensive digital strategy. Our world is looking to produce more data driven decision-making and if you think you’d be a great web analyst, get started today. The skill will pay dividends.

Are you a web analyst with some advice to give? What do you love about having a web analyst at your company? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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