WEB ANALYSISHOW TO MEASURE A WEBSITE’S PERFORMANCE

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about.me/johnwedderburn

wedderburnjohn@gmail.com

JOHN WEDDERBURN

• Web content management• Analytics• Social media • Higher education, biomedical and research sectors

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WEB ANALYTICS

Understanding of what web analytics is

What a metric is, and how to use them

Why you need to understand your business goals

Basic web analysis

Advanced web analysis

How to ask the right questions

How to create kick ass reports

Quick wins

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TAKE HOME MESSAGE

If you’re not measuring it, you’re not managing it

Picture: Adrian S Jones, Flickr

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MEET THE HIPPO

Highest Paid Person’s Opinion

Avinash Kauskik

Picture: Canopic, Flickr,

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DATA VS OPINIONS

You need to understand:

The purpose of your website

The performance of your website

How visitors convert to customers

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5 SECOND TEST…

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Souce:XKCD

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PUBLIC SECTOR VS PRIVATE SECTOR

Picture: bizbuzzmedia, Flickr

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BUSINESS GOALS – PRIVATE SECTOR

Increase revenue: The bottom line

Save staff time

Broaden the customer base

Increase online purchases by 10% over 6 months

Increase visits to the online support, resource and forum pages

Increase visits to the website from Google, both organicand paid search.

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PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANISATION GOALS

Save staff time

Ensure information is made freely available

Recruit new staff

Increase visitors from search from specific keywords and phrases

Increase visits to online tools and resources

Generate visits to onsite recruitmentadverts from social media sources

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LIBRARY GOALS

Build a sense of community among library users

Contribute to research, scholarly activities and teaching

Expedite access to scholarly resources at the point and place of need

Increase visits to the website from target demographics by 20%

Increase traffic to support guidesand online resources.Contact partners via social media

Increase the number of enquiries to the online catalogueby 20%.Increase the number of new visitors by 30%

WEB STRATEGY…EXPLAINS WHY YOU HAVE WEBSITE…AND HOW IT DELIVERS YOUR ORGANISATION’S GOALS…

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ASKING ’WHY?’

Why do we have a website?

Why do we want visitors?

Why do we want engagement?

Why do we want people to return to our content?

Solution – Make the ability the access our databases the key mission of our website

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ASKING WHY? WILL…

Define success

Create criteria for decision making

Align resources

Motivate staff

(David Allen, Getting Things Done)

Creates the foundation for future measurement

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WEB STRATEGY

Picture: nechbi, Flickr,

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Source: Bluewire media

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Source: Loveday and Niehaus

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Source: Loveday and Niehaus

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Source: yourseoplan.com Goals from: Cornell University Library

Expedite access to scholarly resources

Provide cutting edge facilities and services

Ensure stewardship of the university’s intellectual assets

Contribute to research, scholarship and teaching

Become an employer of choice

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CONVERSION

The act of making your prospect do what you want them to do

- Making a purchase

- Leaving an email address

- Downloading a brochure

- Accessing a database

- Logging in

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WHAT ARE THE KEY CONVERSIONS WHICH VISITORS WILL CARRY OUT ON YOUR WEBSITE?

…WITHOUT THIS CONTEXT ANALYSIS CANNOT BE COMPLETED…

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Source: yourseoplan.com

Student Recruitment

Non EU citizens Exiting tostudera

Programmedescription

Educationoverview

Employer ofchoice

Qualifiedgraduates

Onlineapplication

Job PageJobdescription

IP stewardshipUniversitystaff and students

Upload Upload page Page for staff

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• List the primary, and a few secondary goals of the website you have created

• For one or two of these goals identify the:

Target Audience. Conversion. Conversion Page. Landing page.

- Is the goal measurable?- What actions can be taken to develop the goal?

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FACTORS NEGATIVELY AFFECTING CONVERSION

Poor navigation

Lack of customer focus ’organisation’ rather than ’customer’ centric

Focus on ’look and feel’

Unclear ownership

WE NEED A REDESIGN….BECAUSE THE WEBSITE IS BORING

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HIPPO

” I don’t like that colour”

”The titles on our website pages are not the correct ones”

”We should have a picture of the director on the first page”

”The website is looking a bit old, we should do a redesign”OPIN

IONS

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DATA VS OPINIONS

• You need to own your website and its data

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Killer questions to the HIPPO:

- What are we trying to change? Or improve? Or Fix?- Why? How does this help our organisation’s goals?- How will we measure it?

Picture: Hyeenus, Flickr,

WEB ANALYTICS…HOW TO OWN YOUR WEBSITE…

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WEB ANALYTICS

Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage

Web analytics is the tool you will use to champion the user’s experience,show the value of your expertise, showcase the results of your colleagues’ hard work and make a case for getting a budget for developing your online activities

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TOOLSWebtrends

Google Analytics

Omniture

Facebook insights

Awstats

Youtube insights

Yahoo web analytics

Facebook analytics

Crazy egg

Kissinsights

4Q

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DATA PUKE• Difference between reporting and giving insights

It’s not called Web Reporting….

ANALYSE and ACT

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Question: ”Tell me the number of visits the website got”

Answer: ”What is the business

question you are trying to answer? Why are visits important to you?”

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HOW DATA IS OBTAINED

Types of tools:

- Logfile analysis

- Page tagging

Other sources of data:

- email response rates, usability test data, website, survey tools

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GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Uses a first party cookie and Javascript on the page

Important to know that:

- Leaves a cookie on the users computer

- Data is held elsewhere,

- Anonymous

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LIMITATIONS• Cookies can be deleted, or never installed

• The same visitor may use multiple computers and devices

• One computer may be used by many visitors

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DATA WILL NEVER BE 100% ACCURATE

Over time, trends will be precise

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VISITOR TRACKING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR• Need to inform visitors that you are using cookies

In Sweden, Post and Telecom Agency is responsible for telling you how to manage visitor data

• Google requires you to say you are using Google Analytics

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COOKIES AND THE LAW

Directive 2009/136/EC

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WHO USES GOOGLE ANALYTICS?• Used by 57% of the top 10 000 websites

Source: trends.builtwith.com

• 8 of the top 10 universities in the world use GA

• 20 of 25 Swedish universities use GA

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WORDPRESS AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS

BASIC METRICS…DON’T JUST ASK HOW MANY VISITS WE GOT

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WHAT’S A METRIC?

A metric is a number

- A count

Page views

Visits

- A rate

Conversion rate

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• Goals• Bounces• Entrances• Exits• New visits• Page views• Time on page• Time on site• Visits

METRICS DIMENSIONS

• Browser• City• Continent• Domain• Keyword• Mobile• Page• Source

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Picture: RsMs, Flickr,

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THE VISIT

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VISIT, VISITS, VIEWS AND UNIQUE VISITORS

A visit – distinct entry and end, with several pages looked at

1 visit can include several page views

A unique visitor can make several visits during the same day

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VISITORS

A visit is a session on your website

- A page is landed on

- Cookie installed or activated

- Other pages looked at

- Exit or 30 mins elapse or the browser is closed

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PAGE VIEWS

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TIME ON SITE

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A QUICK DIGRESSION…

Sources: Not Quite the Average, Weinreich et al, 2008 Jakob Nielsen, useit.com

Users will read about 20% of the text on the average page

52% of visits were for less than 10 seconds

Website visit duration 2 minutes 34 seconds

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AVERAGES

Picture: Norte_it (Dario J Lagana, Flickr,

• Your website is not average,so don’t use average reports

• Just reporting averages will make it hard to show change

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VISITS ARE MISLEADING…

How many visits did our website get?

Jan – July 2011: 3 273 486 visits

…made by 769 752 people

587 881 of these people were from outside the organisation

481 551 visits were for more than 2 minutes and looked at 3+ pages

20% of the visitors only made 1 visit

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VISITOR SOURCE

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REFERRING WEBSITE

• Only referring sites

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BOUNCE RATE

Picture: Sean dreillinger, Flickr

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BOUNCE RATE• A visit which leaves after just one page…..

• A bounce rate of over 30% is worrying

’they came, they puked, they left’

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LOYALTY

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• Despite looking impressive, the visit metric is not that valuable by itself

• Metrics straight out of the box, cannot usually be actioned

- Too much noise….

SEGMENTS

…BECAUSE THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS AN AVERAGE WEBSITE OR AN AVERAGE VISITOR….

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Picture: victor_nuno, Flickr,

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INTERNATIONAL VISITORS…..

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REFINE YOUR DATA..

Segments could be:

• Visitors from Google

• International visitors

• Visitors from social media

• Visitors who read more than 3 pages of content

• Visitors who convert

• Visitors from mobile devices

Segments make metrics more effective by placing them into context

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INTERNATIONAL SEGMENT

Action: Continue to lever Facebook

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INTERNATIONAL SEGMENT

Action: Optimise landing pages

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KEY POINT

The application of a segment will give you more insights into your data

- Visitors who returned

- What content did they read?

- Visitors who came from search

- What pages did they land on first?

- Visitors who came from social media

- How long are they on the website?

- Do they convert?

CONVERSION

…WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE ON YOUR WEBSITE?...

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CONVERSIONS – GOALS AND SEGMENTS

Goal: Click on ’add to basket’

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CONVERSIONS

Types of conversion can include:

• Add more subscribers to a blog or newsletter

• Download a brochure

• Click on a Facebook share button

• Register for an event

• Make a purchase

Can be both micro or macro conversions

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WHERE DOES YOUR CONVERTING TRAFFIC COME FROM?

• Segment – International visitors from outside the European Union

Action: Maintain and develop content on sites sending converting traffic

IS YOUR CONTENT WORKING?….CONTENT IS KING….

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Word cloud created from keywords used to find website

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CONTENT PERFORMANCE

• Most viewed pages by International visitors to the website

CONTENT CHECKLIST

Sources

- Referring sites

- Keywords

- Visits

Landing Pages and Bounces

• Focusing on campaign and targeted traffic

Micro-conversions

ADVANCEDTRACKING…MEASURING OFFLINE, ONLINE

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OUTBOUND LINKSDOCUMENTS• Google Analytics will not automatically track:

- Documents

- Outbound links (exits from a link on your site)

• Tracking these, by using the ’events’ function will:

- Give true bounce rate

- Give intelligence on value of links

- Provide value of email, document etc links

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INBOUND LINKS• Track banner ads and other links to your site with URLs

containing unique tags

• Track links from brochures by using a unique URL which redirects to a URL you are tracking

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WHY?• Tracking banner ads and brochure links will enable you to

establish value

• 316 visits to the landing page• No conversion• Expensive

• 1 595 visits to the landing page• Bonus: approx. 2 % conversion• Cheap

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MEASURINGSOCIAL MEDIA…”HAVE WE GOT A FACEBOOK?”

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WHY?• Customer service

• Promotion

• Business intelligence

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SOCIAL MEDIA NEEDS PURPOSE1.Once we have a Facebook page, we’ll be able to…….

2. People will read our Facebook page, because it helps them to……..

3. After reading, we want Facebook page visitors to…..

4. …………., ……………., and …………….. will let people know we have a Facebook page

5. We will create ……. posts per month, with …….. In charge of editorial and ……….. In charge of analytics

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6. Sample posts, and their headlines, include…….

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FACEBOOK INSIGHTS

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TWITTER

Klout

Bit.ly (or other shorterner tool)

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Graph shows visits to the job description on our website:

Blue line is total visits to the job description.

Orange line is visits from social media.

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BLOG

Google analytics or similar

Wordpress comes with own analytics function

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YOUTUBE INSIGHTS

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MEASURING ’ENGAGEMENT’

Facebook:

- Friends is a crude measure

- Comments and type

- Views of tabs

- growth relative to peers/competitors

Twitter:

- @ and RTs

- amplification

Image: www.lumaxart.com

ROI OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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REPORTING

…ACTIONS, ACTIONS, ACTIONS

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REPORTING• Give insights

• Become an advocate for data based decisions

- Don’t wait to be asked

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KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Metrics that are used to help an organisation define and measure progress towards organisational goals

OR….

Measures that help you understand how you are doing

against your objectives

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Why are we online?

Visibility Lead Generation RecruitmentSo people know we exist Convert visitors into prospective students Send students to

studera.nuKey Performance Indicator:Visits from non-brand keywords and phrases

Key Performance Indicator:New visitor growth

Focusing on visits from:- Search- Referring sites- Target countries

Key Performance Indicator:Engagement on Facebook

Key Performance Indicator:Views of our most important content

Focusing on visits from:- Loyal visitors- Target countries- Search- Referring sites

Key Performance Indicator:Email contacts

Key Performance Indicator:Newsletter subscripton

Key Performance Indicator:Exits to studera.nu

Focusing on visits from:- Loyal visitors- Target countries- Search- Referring sites

Based on a model provided by Avinash Kaushik

BusinessGoal:

WHY?

Metrics:

Segments:

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TIME

During Jun – Aug 2011 our website received 3 274 visits from social media

- This is 50% more than the previous year

Placing data into the context of time makes it instantly more meaningful.

This is partly due to our investment in Facebook and Twitter

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WHY ARE YOU REPORTING?

Ask ’why’ or ’so what?’

We got 2000 visitors to the website last week.

So what?

This is a 25% increase from the same time last month – it’s due to the newcontent we commissioned and the distribution of it via Facebook

Or….

This is to be expected, as the summer holidays have ended

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WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR REPORT?

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KILLER QUESTIONS…AND THE REPORTS THAT ANSWER THEM…

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ARE WE VISIBLE ON THE WEB?

• Traffic Sources report

Action: check referring sites and keywords in Google

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IS OUR CONTENT WORKING?• Landing Page report

Action: Optimise landing pages to reduce bounce rate

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

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WHICH SITES SEND US CONVERTING TRAFFIC?

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VISITOR PROFILEFor example, visitors from mobile devices:

Action: Check functionality of site on mobile devices and optimise for most used, Examine which content is most used (lesson plans in this example) and develop an app.

BENCHMARKING….IS HARD…

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GOOGLE TRENDS

REALITY CHECK…WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE…

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BECOMING A DATA EVANGELIST

Understand why you have a website

Know what the conversion points are

Measure the hell out of it

Analyse your data

Action and report your date – don’t wait to be asked

Advocate your data

Repeat

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Conversion University – Google

Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Measuring Success by Brian Clifton

Trending Upwards by Shelby Thayer

Universityusability by John Wedderburn