SEO Lion’s Blog

I’m now a Google Analytics Qualified Individual with 100% score!

Google introduced test and certification for Google Analytics last March, since then It was running in my mind to complete it. I was preparing for my Implementation certification in Omniture  SiteCatalyst, so thought going at GAIQ will be something good to start with.

Anyways Google Analytics and Omniture SiteCatalyst are entirely different web analytic tools, but getting certified in both is certainly a value addition to my resume, I have now cleared GAIQ with a maximum score of 100%

You can view my GAIQ test record at the official test site. Well, that shows my real name! (SEOLion is my nickname, please read my about page to know more about me)

Here is my certificate from Google Analytics which is valid for next 18 months!

Well, getting a high score in GAIQ may not be tough, I am sure not many get the magical number of 100%, luckily I have it!

GAIQ Preparation

Google has provided a comprehensive study material to prepare for GAIQ (Google Analytics Individual Qualification) at Google Conversion university. One should have gone through the material completely and understood key points discussed in order to tackle some of the tricky questions at the test.

The primary point to start with is a Google Analytics account. Since its free, you can try implementing on your website / blog. This I would say must to understand how Google Analytics captures data. After implementing GA code on to the site, you should have validated and seen that all pages are being tracked and shown on the report. This is the basic implementation. Now comes cross-domain tracking. This scenario is similar to tracking on a third party shopping cart without breaking the user session. Advanced implementation includes event tracking. I have experimented event tracking my selves, hence tackling questions related to that wasn’t tough for me.

Virtual page views is another important thing to know in Google Analytics, fortunately I had enough hands on on these while setting up goal tracking on an Ajax based site.

Filters, Goal conversion tracking related questions can be tackled if you have some prior experience working with these or you have gone through the material in detail and have done some extra research on these area.

Regular expressions is one of the tough area in the test, but one can make use of the regular expression builder to answer the questions.

I never had hands on on e-commerce tracking, but understanding the study material was sufficient to answer questions related to that.

Profiles in Google analytics was something new for me, but again the tutorial made it very easy to grasp it. I have duplicate profiles already put in action after learning them.

So overall my preparation lasted for a couple of weeks, could have been lesser if full attention was on this.

I would suggest one to take notes while going through the material. Having your account side by side can help you understand better. Since the test isn’t on an exam hall, you are free to have your account open in another browser, along with tools like regex builder. Going through the voice tutorial isn’t a very good option in between your test, your notes can get very handy if you have taken them enough.

Good luck to the ones about to take up GAIQ. Please let me know your queries, I am more happy to assist you.

What next?

Feel free to contact me if you feel I can be consulted for your project involving Google Analytics

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