How to become a web analyst?

Who is a web analyst?

A web analyst is a profession that involves the collection and comprehensive analysis of a wide variety of data about visitors to web resources, as well as the elimination of a number of site problems associated with its visitors.

Why do you need a web analyst?

For an ordinary user, it may seem that representatives of this profession are not needed at all – every day millions of people search for the necessary information on the network, opening many sites, who needs to analyze this? But in fact, his task is extremely important. It is he who helps to repeatedly increase the efficiency of the resource, increase the number of its subscribers, and multiply the traffic and popularity of the site many times over.

Do you want to make your Internet resource recognizable and visited? Then you definitely need a specialist who will set up web analytics!

What you need to become a web analyst: basic knowledge

To become one of the representatives of this profession, there is no need to study for several years. It is easy to get the necessary information both on your own and by going to specialized courses.

One of the main nuances that should certainly be taken into account is that when obtaining basic knowledge, it is necessary to practice as much and as often as possible – this will be the key to the most high-quality result.

In addition, all future web analysts are strongly encouraged to:

• Attend specialized conferences and seminars that are more or less related to this specialty.
• “Keep abreast” of the latest news and innovations in this area – read the blogs of leading analysts, all kinds of reviews directly from the systems.
• Be familiar with the work of Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, even better – get their certificates.

What courses exist?

I would recommend remote courses, for example, Web Analytics: Tracking the effectiveness of online advertising from WebPromoExperts

What to read?

• Analytical culture. Carl Anderson
• Marketing analytics. Adele Sweetwood

What qualities and character traits will help you become a web analyst?

It is hard to argue with the fact that every successful representative of his profession is not only a person who has invested tons of work and time in his development. For each specialty, one can single out those human qualities that will contribute to the achievement of goals. For web analytics, this is:

1. Perseverance and attentiveness – this will allow you not to miss anything important when collecting and processing large amounts of information;
2. Responsibility and efficiency – these are the features that contribute to achieving the highest possible result, which is especially important in high competition;
3. Constant striving for self-development.

Web analytics requirements

The responsibility of a representative of this profession is very large, and for the effectiveness of his work, it is necessary to have knowledge from various industries. So, the average web analyst working in an IT company should:

1. Excellent understanding and working with various web analytics tools;
2. Constantly use new tools for analysis, forecasting, modeling;
3. Conduct A/B testing of Internet resources;
4. Have experience with Google Tag Manager;
5. To adjust the website promotion strategy, soberly and rationally evaluate the effectiveness of Internet marketing;
6. Ability to write scripts using Javascript, as well as jQuery and PHP.

And the above list is far from complete. And this, in turn, proves that this field of activity requires the most serious approach and opens up a lot of opportunities.

Work experience: what do employers require?

Often, the required experience of a web analytics varies from 1 to 3 years, although there are demanded specialists with no experience at all, and those working in their specialty for more than 5 years.

To be or not to be a web analyst: the advantages and disadvantages of the profession

Pros:

This profession involves a number of “pluses”, which include:

• Web analysts are among the most sought-after professionals in the labor market;
• Specialists in this field have higher than average salaries;
• Working as a web analyst, you can adjust your work schedule as conveniently as possible, and even work remotely;
• Web analysts, collaborating with various companies, have a significant circle of acquaintances.

Cons:

As for the shortcomings, it is also possible to highlight them:

• Web analysts have to communicate with many clients, who have to explain in detail and patiently important aspects of the work that they may not understand;
• In some companies, there are no clearly divided tasks for each specialist, and then there is a high risk of not understanding the scope of their duties.

Comment from Ivanov Ivan, independent expert, web analyst

Web analyst is a young specialty, which is part of the Internet marketer profession. To solve the tasks that a web analyst faces, you need to know how sites are arranged and work, have at least minimal knowledge about relevant technologies, be able to work with data, interpret them correctly, put forward hypotheses and test them. In addition to working with data, a web analyst must be able to either independently implement and configure the appropriate tools, or have the skills to prepare technical specifications for developers to perform such implementations.