Transcript: New from BookNet Canada for 2024: BNC CataList - Tech Forum 2024
Google Analytics
1. GOOGLE ANALYTICS:
AN INTRODUCTION
Michelle Belden
Access Archivist, Penn State Special Collections
PALA 2012
2. WHY GOOGLE ANALY TICS?
Free
Sufficient for most libraries
Easy to implement
Fairly easy to understand
3. CONSIDERATIONS
Data that won’t go through:
Users who disable Javascript, block cookies
No reporting is 100% accurate. Focus on trends.
Privacy:
Data is anonymous
No Personally Identifiable Data
Not shared with 3 rd parties
4. GETTING STARTED
Sign up for a Google account
http://www.google.com/analytics / to get tracking code
Insert code into web pages
Bottom of head section of HTML
For large sites, put in template
6. WHAT DOES IT MEASURE?
Visitor characteristics
Traffic
Content effectiveness
7. A FEW TERMS TO KNOW
Visitors – randomly assigned ID and timestamp
New and returning
Visits/sessions
Page Views
Unique page views
Bounce Rate
14. SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?
Especially when you’re just getting started, you might be
interested in general questions:
Where your visitors are coming from
What browser/resolution they are using
Most popular content
Pages with highest bounce rate
As you go along, more specific questions might arise, like:
Is this digital project getting enough use to justify further work?
17. MORE ADVANCED USE
What are the goals of your site?
How will you measure those goals?
Example: we want our users to find our “finding aids”
“Conversion”: hit on page whose URL begins with:
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/dam/psul/up/digital/findingaids /
You can even assign monetary values to these “conversions”
Can also look at time on site, pages per visit
(Is the content sticky? Or is it just hard to find things?
Maybe it’s time for some user studies -)
18. FUNNELS
• Series of URLs you think users will/should follow
• Find out where you’re losing them
• You can also find paths you didn’t foresee