Web Analytics 101 provides an overview of web analytics. It defines key metrics like visitors, sessions, pageviews, and bounce rate. It explains that web analytics tracks metrics of web traffic to understand visitors and improve websites. While analytics can't directly drive traffic or perform magic, it can reveal what content and campaigns are most effective and identify key supporters. The document recommends setting SMART goals and segmenting data to guide an analytics strategy and get useful insights.
2. Web Analytics in a nutshell
• Web analytics software tracks metrics – or, measurements –
of web traffic
• Web analytics can help you get into the heads of your
visitors
• Analytics can give you info that can make your website’s
design and content better and more relevant to your
audience
• HUMANS do web analytics, not software
3. What Web Analytics won’t do:
• Act as a replacement for CRM
• Drive traffic to your website
• Perform magic
4. How your organization can use
web analytics
• Find out what campaigns (e-mail, social media, paid search
- even print!) bring in traffic/activity
• Identify what websites hold the key to your core supporters
• Monitor what website content is popular & most effective
• in site errors (broken links, etc.)
5. Web Analytics Key Terms
• Visitor: An individual user of your site
• Visit/Session: Time from when a visitor enters and
leaves your website
• Pageviews: Every time a visitor views a web page on a
site
• Site Referrer: External web page that brought visitor to
you
• Conversion: When a visitor completes an action (buys a
product, subscribes to newsletter)
• Bounce Rate: Percentage of visitors that exit after only
viewing one page of a website (or 10 seconds)
6. Planning a Web Analytics Strategy
• What is the purpose of your organization’s site? (ex.
sell products, gather donations or content?)
• What visitor actions on the site will help achieve your
goals? (ex. signing up, buying something?)
• What do visitors want to do when they come to your
site?
• What information will decision-makers want to know?
7. Metrics and your site
You don’t have to pay attention to every metric!
Identify key metrics!
• Blog: time on site, pages/visit
• Non-profit website: Visitor to donor ratio, referring
sites/bounce rate
What metrics you follow depend on the goals of your site.
9. Web Analytics Troubleshooting
Are you:
• Measuring goal conversion?
• Filtering your data?
• Segmenting your data?
• Reporting your data to all who could use it?
• Acting on your data?
10. Going Further: Testing and
Tagging
• A/B Testing (testing test samples against a baseline)
• Multivariate Testing (testing multiple page elements)
• Heat Maps
• Campaign tagging and measurement (PPC, email,
social media)
• Surveys and focus groups
11. Going Further: Books/Blogs
Books
• Google Analytics 2.0 – Mary E. Tyler
• Web Analytics an Hour a Day — Avinash Kaushik
• Web Analytics 2.0 — Avinash Kaushik
Blogs/Websites (Google ‘em!)
• Conversion University
• Web Analytics World
• Web Analytics Demystified