[silverbax88]

I would like to ask how these recommendations are reached. Meaning, can you show hard data that backs up the assertions on how people buy, etc.?

I am not trying to snipe you or the site. I appreciate the effort. But in my experience Google recommendations (with Adwords or Adsense or which reports I should see) mean almost nothing and I rely entirely on my own data.

For example, the first article on the first page 'Let Users Explore Before They Commit' cites a research study, which I then have to click through a couple more navigation screens to find. Oh, except the page with the research study throws a 404.

https://developers.google.com/web/http://www.google.com/thin...

Other than that, the content is sparse. To be blunt at this point I (personally) would not come back because it looks like you didn't even test the site and you haven't actually read the paper and then on top of that haven't actually analyzed the aforementioned paper to see if it actually says what you're asserting it does.

I know this sounds harsh, but I'm being as truthful and direct as I can be because Google hardly ever actually has a human soliciting feedback.

Good luck.

[kinlan]

Urgh, that is a url encoding error on our site. I have raised a bug (https://github.com/google/WebFundamentals/issues/664).

With regards to the study, that data was ascertained by working with direct user studies and taking feedback from them, I think we can certainly make this a lot clearer in the those set of documents.

re:sparse. Yes it is as we are still building this section out and fleshing out the guidance more, but we have worked with the team that did produce the study (It also turns out I am pretty good at making the bad examples of the sites). I do have one follow up question: Would you like to see code that espouses the principles that we are saying are good.

re: relying on your own data. I am curious, what do you look for?

[silverbax88]

I look for two basic things:

1. Where did people come from and how did I convert them?

2. What is my conversion/impression/sales, etc. for the month/quarter and how does that compare to previous month/quarter or a specific date?

So, what I mean is if I have an event coming up and I am marketing to that event - I have email lists, twitter accounts, FaceBoook, a popular blog, co-op email partners, and I buy ads on multiple platforms...I want to know how many people came from each source, what the conversion rate was, how far they got in the process, and I want to see how this year's event is comparing to last years'. Or last months'. Or last weeks'. Or an event I had three quarters ago.

I need the data to be as accurate as I can get, because if people are coming into the site, and all of the ones coming from, say, Twitter, are not buying and don't even read anything, then I need to know that.

As an example, for a sports event I run in the summer, two years ago I dropped PayPal as an option entirely. I had so many complaints from consumers about PayPal in general I just decided to implement Stripe. A lot of people told me that since PayPal is so ubiquitous, I would be cutting out an ease-of-payment option and I would lose sales.

But my data showed two things: a lot of people DID use PayPal but I lost a ton of conversions when people hit the PayPal page AND my #1 complaint topic was PayPal related. About 60% of the people who signed up used PayPal.

Both of the last two years after implementing Stripe my conversion rate increased dramatically and I have ZERO complaints about the payment process. Literally, zero.

So that's what I'm always looking for. How do I optimize and track turning people who are searching into customers without wasting their time or my time? How do I remove frustration for users? Where do they navigate to? If they hit a specific page and then suddenly jump around looking for a 'contact us' page, I need to figure out what those people are looking for and fix it for them.

With Google analytics or adwords, I get some data but a lot of it other than a few pieces is superficial or the data doesn't match my server logs.

Sorry for the digression.

[Breakbeat_dj]

Financial stability from a legitimate high paying career. Where can I use my current covert knowledge and learn the inner workings of this choose your own adventure online saga. I am considering going the robin Williams route..am ibthe only one who realizes I am going crazy???? Am I really a government employee??? Why doesn't anyone at least pay me enough to live comfortably and pay all my bills on time.....why am I denied a living wage.....why can't I even make enough to pay cathy and Greg baclnforball they have done for me?

[kinlan]

No worries about the digression. This is great!

We are working on getting an analytics section built for this that is just not Google Analytics but also guidance on things that you should be monitoring, why they are important and how to use that information to change your product. I see the analytics and the monetization section actually being quite tightly integrated when we can land it.