Sad truth. Many entrepreneurs fail to look at their numbers. From financial statements to how many people visit your website and conversion rates, we avoid it.

Perhaps it’s because we’re afraid of what we might see. Ironically, it is only when we see the bad numbers, can we know we need to step things up, or what went wrong. It is only when we see the good numbers, can we know what’s working so we can continue to do more of it.

Just like physical exercise, it can hurt. You don’t want to, but you must. Financial numbers are often brutal, so if you don’t want to start there, that’s understandable. How about starting with your web analytics?

Analytics a good place to start getting comfortable with numbers. The problem is, sometimes, it isn’t easy to interpret and most of us don’t dig deep enough to turn these metrics into actionable items that improve our business. For that, we have to get analytics smart.

Google Analytics Blog

Begin at the Google Analytics blog. It’s really the go-to place for the best information about how to make your business successful.

Insights by Brian Clifton

Brian Clifton is the author of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics and Successful Analytics. His blog is full of information to help you learn about the ins and outs of Google Analytics and how to best use the system to get real results from your data.

Occam’s Razor

Another fabulous source that talks about many aspects of business, metrics and analytics is Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik. Kaushik focuses on digital marketing, has a lot of deep thoughts about analytics and offers new ways to view your numbers. You might also want to check out his books – Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.

Analytics Talk

If you like guides then Analytics Talk is a great place to read up. The author, Justin Cutroni works with Google and often creates guides for you to follow. He writes in a clear manner, making it easy for anyone to follow, understand and put his ideas to work. Some of his books are: Google Analytics and Performance Marketing with Google Analytics.

TechPad

Another amazing source about analytics and website development is at TechPad. The author Matt Clarke, offers hacks and other information to help you make the most of Google Analytics. Here, you can find analytics tools such as the campaign profit calculator, brand engagement calculator and more. It is geared toward the UK but it has such great information that you cannot miss out on it.

KISSMetrics

Finally, my favorite resource, is at KISSMetrics. They offer a really interesting mash-up of 50 resources to help you get the most out of Google Analytics. This is for beginners to advanced level. If you have some available time, they also offer webinars and a library of past webinars you can watch replays of.

A resource list is great, but not much help if you don’t use any of the great content they offer. Yes, even free content can be immensely helpful. So here’s what you need to do.
Get one of the books from the authors mentioned. Here are their books again.

Next, load these blogs in your RSS reader. Put them in a category if you have to. Then put it on your calendar – can be once or a few times a week, all it takes is about 15 – 30 minutes. Read up, and act on them.