From the Editor:

The other day, while I was writing "Pivot Metrics in Google Analytics", I realized that the hardest part of any analytics blog post, and really any analytics at all, is discovering what to look at. Sure, you can pivot two metrics, and I am sure that there's something to look at with it, but what?

So, this month, we take a break from sheer data geekiness to look at not-just ways to use analytics but what kind of metrics you can look at.

Newbie SEO Part 2: Metrics in Action

Following on the heels of my Google Analytics Custom Reports for SEO, this post looks at the type of data you can pull from the monster report created in Part 1.

Newbie SEO: 6 GA advanced segments for SEO

Of course, reports alone are rarely enough. In this post, we list 6 advanced segments for SEO, including visitors coming from image search, language, and more.

Spying on the competition with Google Reader

Sometimes metrics are more fun than useful. Google reader allows you to compare your websites RSS subscribers to your competitor's... kinda. However, the numbers aren't all that useful.

Analytics Fight Night: No Metric is Useless

Brian Katz responds to my comments about the uselessness of ATOP/ATOS, insisting that no metric is useless, and that even on blogs those numbers can give useful insights.

Pivot Metrics in Google Analytics

The Google Analytics Pivot display is an incredibly useful display style, allowing you to quickly compare two sets of metrics. In this post, I go over a few useful ways that you can use pivots to enhance your understanding of your visitors.

From the Net:
A Powerful Analytics Tip Every Website Should Employ

This tip from Rand of SEOMoz is deceptive in its simplicity. The operation is basic: export a series of traffic numbers to Excel, create a spreadsheet, then create a stacked graph that displays them all. But in so doing, you're actually creating a rather complex data comparison, checking segmented areas of your site over time which illustrates not just the rise and fall of pageviews, but how site traffic patterns are changing over time.