Data analysts are becoming increasingly desirable profiles in fields related to web technologies. With the emergence of big data and data collection of all kinds, it has become essential for teams to integrate an expert capable of receiving, processing and exploiting the accumulated information in order to optimize or develop their product.
What precisely are data analysis and data analyst?
Climate information, online transactions, professional profiles or even GPS signals… Data movement through the Internet is today more significant than ever, and is continuing to grow. According to an IBM article about big data, the quantity of data produced every day represents about 2.5 trillion bytes. Huge companies such as Google or Facebook are no longer the only ones to understand the crucial challenge this mine of information represents.
In this context, data analysts are essential. Their main role is to collect data, whether it be internal or external, private or public. We call this “data mining” or “data exploration”. Then, this data has to be edited and the non-relevant information removed so it can be analyzed. Thanks to the interpretation of the results of the analysis, the analyst extracts trends, models or correlations. And these can be exploited later.
These are just a few examples of a rich and ever-changing profession. On a more advanced level, we can also talk about “data scientist”. These tend to undertake more complex tasks such as the development of algorithms.
What is the place of data analysis in the digital and web industry?
With the advent of Web 2.0 and big data, web content creators are increasingly interested in data analysis. Its influence can be found not only in the creation of websites. It is also present in web application creation, SAAS (Software as a service), mobile applications, etc.
Data is, on the one hand, at the heart of how the web operates today. This is mainly because of social media, as the functionalities of Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube but also Pinterest are based on the exploitation of data, but also because of the interactivity and personalization side of the web.
On the other hand, data analysis is proving to be decisive in the field of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Indeed, the use and creation of web analytics tools, i. e. audience measurement, is a central and indispensable aspect of the SEO strategy.
It is certain that with the improvement of technologies, the constant growth of storage spaces and the increase in data movement, the field of data analysis is bound to become more complex and play an increasingly important role.
Article written and translated by CAWEB Master’s students.