Introduction There are 7 basic stats that you will need to understand if you want to do anything with a website. Not just what they measure, but what they mean. Numbers are not good or bad: 1 million users is only good if it’s higher than last month. If you’re Facebook and you have 1 million users this month, you’re in trouble. Before you analyze anything, take aminute to think about what your site is supposed to do, and realize what numbers would indicate that type of behaviour.

1. Designing with Data
Sultan Shalakhti
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Introduction
1.There are 7 basic stats that you will need to understand if you want to do
anything with a website. Not just what they measure, but what they mean.
2.Numbers are not good or bad: 1 million users is only good if it’s higher than
last month. If you’re Facebook and you have 1 million users this month,
you’re in trouble.
3.Before you analyze anything, take aminute to think about what your site is
supposed to do, and realize what numbers would indicate that type of
behaviour.

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1. Sessions (Total Visits)
2. Users (Unique Visits)
This may surprise you, but Total Visits measures the number of times your site has been
visited, total.
Unique Visits is a little different though. If I visit your site 50 times, I am only 1 unique
visitor. And technically, it counts unique devices not “people”.
What they mean: Comparing these numbers will tell you whether your traffic is:
High quality — Total is much higher than Uniques.
High quantity — 1. Total is about the same as Uniques, 2. Uniques are higher than last
month.
Both (High Quantity and quality) — 1. Uniques are higher than last month. 2. Total is much
higher than Uniques.
Neither (High Quantity and quality) — 1. Uniques are lower than last month 2. Total is
about the same as Uniques.
Example to explain everything:
“Uniques” are a more authentic representation of your traffic, but I would rather have
1000 people who visit every day than 10,000 people who visit once a month. Then again,
if 1 guy visits my site a million times, that’s not particularly useful either, and he probably
has issues.

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3. Page views
What it measures: 1. The average number of pages each visitor will see 2. each
time they visit. 3. You can also think of it as the “clicks” per visit, if that helps
(although technically not accurate).
What it means: If your site is more focused on tasks or social interactions, then
the Pages-per-Visit might be a better metric to watch than pageviews.
Google example:
On the other hand, if you are Google Search, you want this number to be as low
as possible, because good search results give you what you want on the first
page.

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4. Pages-per-Visit
What it measures: 1. The average number of pages each visitor will see 2.
each time they visit. 3. You can also think of it as the “clicks” per visit, if that
helps (although technically not accurate).
What it means: If your site is more focused on tasks or social interactions,
then the Pages-per-Visit might be a better metric to watch than pageviews.
Google example:
On the other hand, if you are Google Search, you want this number to be as
low as possible, because good search results give you what you want on the
first page.

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5. Time-per-Visit
What it measures: how long each visit lasts (on average). It can be very important to
compare Time-per-Visit and Pages-per-Visit.
What it means: In a perfect world, content-based sites want visitors to read the whole
article, and read a lot of articles. That would be a long Time-per-Visit, and many Pages-per-
Visit.
If people see a lot of Pages-per-Visit, but don’t spend much Time-per-Visit, they might be
looking for something and not finding it (bad), or they might be completing tasks really
quickly (good). It depends!
If the Time-per-Visit is high, but Pages-per-Visit is low, your navigation might suck (bad), or
it might mean the articles are long and the users are really engaged (good)! It depends!
If both Time- and Pages-per-Visit are low, that might be a bad sign, unless the purpose of
your site is to get in and get out quickly, like Google.

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6. Bounce Rate
What it measures: the people that only see one page and then leave without
clicking anything.
What it means: In general, we usually think of this like people saying “no” to
your site. BUT… there are some exceptions.
Blogs tend to have a higher bounce rate, because they are designed for single-
page viewing: you either scan the list of recent posts, or you came for a specific
post.
The structure of the site and the source of your traffic can have a huge effect
on your bounce rate, so even though it looks simple, bounce rate can be a
complex indicator.

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7. New vs. Return Visitors
What it measures: If a person (actually a device) has been to your site before, they
are “returning”. If not, they are “new”.
What it means: Returning visitors know more about your site, so they often
“bounce” less and see more pages. If they are returning they must like what you do,
so they often spend more time on the site as well.
However, “new” visitors are good, because it means our site getting exposure to
more people.
The main thing is the ratio of new to returning. If you have no returning visitors then
your site is either new, or terrible, because nobody is coming back. If you have only
returning visitors then your users might be loyal, but the site is dying, because
nobody new is finding it.
And, in general, the more mature a site is, the more return visitors you will have —
as a percentage — because return a lot of visitors who come back often are hard to
beat with normal search traffic or ad campaigns.

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That’s it Folks!
Sultan Shalakhti