This week is the last Search Engine Strategies conference (Chicago, IL) for 2006.

Google Analytics' Paul Botto just presented on the highlights of Google Analytics and also snuck in a sound bite about the Google Website Optimizer BETA.

Here's a brief on his talk today from the seroundtable site:

It's (i.e. Google Analytics) a free hosted web analytics service, 80+ reports.

It is for all types of sites, e-commerce, lead generation and brand awareness.

It's more than a technical to now a web marketing tool. You can track all marketing efforts, not just Google stuff.

You can also identify problem areas on your site. Funnel visualization reports and product merchandising.

You can also analyze the results across two data ranges, to see if you improved or not.

Analytics is integrated with AdWords, automatically.

You can compare organic versus paid keywords.

I will be attending the full day training this Friday at SES Chicago on Paid Search Advertising. Please drop me a line if you will be there Friday as well and perhaps we can find Andy and Ben for a free beer!