The Web Smart Blog
The Web Smart Blog exists to extend the information provided in our monthly Web Smart Newsletters. Web information changes so quickly that a monthly publication can't cover enough ground. Also, additional information to past topics can't wait for future publication so we add related newsletter information here.
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Google Analytics Adds Benchmarking
March 21, 2008 at 10:59 am by Eric| When it comes to interpreting website analytics the most important frame of reference is the past performance of your own site. Seeing overall improvement and growth over time is the main thing to look for. Figuring out where there may be problems or opportunities is the main goal. But often I wonder how my stats compare to other sites like mine. Unfortunately, my competitors aren't likely to welcome me into their analytics reports to compare. But recently Google has offered an option in their Analytics package to anonymously share your traffic data in order to provide aggregate comparison benchmark reports. Once you opt in you'll get a new "Benchmark (Beta)" option under the "Visitors" tab. This page allows you to pick an industry that most closely matches your own and creates benchmark comparison reports for some key metrics. Here's our comparison to other website design and development sites.  The reports include overall visits, bounce rates, pageviews, average time on site, pages/visit, and new visits. I'm pleased with our comparison especially in overall visits. Because we produce a lot of content, not all directly related to our web development services, I'm not surprised by the higher bounce rates. And these high bounce rates also effects the Pages/Visit report. This new feature should prove very helpful in measuring website performance. Thanks again Google! |
Tags: google analytics
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Understanding Bounce Rates
February 5, 2008 at 11:00 am by Chris| Understanding bounce rate is an important aspect of analyzing your overall statistics, especially when it comes to determining the effectiveness of an individual page. The bounce rate measures the number of visitors to a website that leave before a specified amount of time has elapsed (this time period varies among analytics tools, but typically it is 30 minutes). This means that if a user accesses your site and leaves it within 30 minutes or leaves their browser idle for that time, they will be registered as a bounce. The bounce rate for an individual page of a website is determined by the number of users that access a page and leave the site without clicking to another page within the specified time period. Avinash Kaushik, Google's Analytics Evangelist, has blogged about measuring the effectiveness of your web pages and writes: "My own personal observation is that it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying. I stress that this is my personal analysis based on my experience, but hopefully it gives you a feel for what you are shooting for."One thing to keep in mind is that your expectation for meeting Kaushik's standard on any given page of your site should also be measured against the entrance sources for that page. Depending upon how a user is referred to your site, his or her understanding of the relevance of your site's content to their query will vary quite a bit. For example, if a user searches for "Chris Butler blog" and clicks the link on the search results page that leads them to my blog, it is quite possible that they will immediately leave once they realize that my blog is about web technology and strategy (perhaps the Chris Butler they were looking for is a wedding photographer). The point is that the more specific the search query, the more likely that a user will come to your page "pre-qualified" for the content he or she is about to receive and will not leave the page immediately. 
If you take a look at the image to the left, you'll see the top seven entrance sources for this blog, and the corresponding bounce rates for users that entered from those sources. Notice that users that came to my blog directly register a very low bounce rate. This is to be expected since these users know the blog and therefore know generally what information they will be getting. On the other hand, notice that users entering the blog from Google register a higher bounce rate (overall, not too low, though). This is likely due to what I mentioned above about search query specificity. In fact, one of the top search terms that lead users to my blog is "alexa above the fold," yet I only used this phrase once in my blog in a slightly peripheral comment. This means that users coming to my blog after having searched for that phrase should be expected to register a relatively high bounce rate (their bounce rate is 40%). One of the best ways that I have found to increase the number of "pre-qualified" users has been to post my blog articles to Digg. Since I've just gotten started with this, my Digg performance isn't that significant, but what has been important to me is that the users that do come to my blog via Digg register a very low bounce rate consistently. This is because Digg allows you to post a link to an article and then place it within a set of pre-defined categories. If a user clicks to your article from Digg, he or she will theoretically have at least narrowed down to a category of interest and will be "pre-qualified" for the information you provide. |
Tags: seo google search analytics
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Great Analytics Blogs
February 5, 2008 at 10:00 am by Chris| There are several blogs dedicated to educating us about analytics. Here are some worth checking out: The Official Google Analytics Blog Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik Web Analytics World by Manoj Jasra You could also subscribe to this Google Blog search RSS feed for "google analytics" or set a more refined one up for yourself. |
Tags: google analytics
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Landing Page Optimization Seminar
February 5, 2008 at 9:00 am by Chris| Today only: VKI Studios, a Google Analytics and Website Optimization consultant, will be running a webinar titled "Landing Page Optimization: a process using Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer" today. You can register here to participate. |
Tags: analytics
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Shooting the Website Analysis Video
June 29, 2007 at 7:46 pm by Eric| I spent the past two weeks producing our latest newsletter as a video. I was an interesting process. Everything from buying a cheap lighting kit to figuring out how to handle audio was all new. The other videos we produced last summer were done by a good friend of mine, Nathan Scoggins, out in LA. He put together a highly qualified crew and it was amazing to watch them work. I used Camtasia again, which I've used for our video documentation. It's very light weight and easy to use. I've blogged about it before. I'm pleased with the outcome but I think I might upgrade to Adobe Persuasion next time. There wasn’t as much control as I would like over audio, and there aren't any tools for adjusting the brightness, contrast, or color of the video files themselves. The entire process took ten days. Two days to write the script, a day to buy equipment. two days to set up and test sound video and lighting, one day to shoot, two days to edit, one day to process all the final video files and one last day to put up on the site. I think I can do future videos in five to six days if I keep them a little shorter. This video was much longer than my typical newsletter because we intend for it to be used by clients as a training resource in interpreting their site's traffic reports. It was pretty fun. I learned quite a bit and I've gotten good feedback so far. A couple unexpected events included numerous flies buzzing into my shinny head whenever the lighting was on and taking almost an hour to get the final sequence done--I just couldn't get through it without messing up. All in all though I think it will be a helpful resource and it was fun to do so I hope to do more in the future. I also saw a similar video project go online the day before we launched ours. It's by Beth Kanter called Web Analytics Demystified: A Primer for Nonprofits. I think it makes a nice complementary resource. |
Tags: analytics traffic
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Website Analysis Software Options
June 27, 2007 at 12:37 pm by Eric| We've been using Urchin 5 for our website traffic reports for quite a while. This is the default traffic system for the sites on our server. I've also begun using Google Analytics. Google bought Urchin right after they came out with Urchin 6 and recently they've updated the system with lot's of new features. Check out our first Web Smart video newsletter for a review of Urchin and Google Analytics features. There are other options out thereof two
main types--systems that are installed and create reports from a server's raw log files, and web based services that use embedded code to create reports. Urchin is an example of the former and Google Analytics of the later. Other website traffic analysis software solutions include Web Trends, ClickTracks, Coremetrics, WebSideStory, and Fireclick. I also recently came across a website called crazyegg that creates visual click points and heat maps based on click position. I haven't tried this out yet, but it looks pretty cool. For links to more thorough lists of analytics providers (there are well over a hundred) see Jeremiah Owyang's blog post "Which Web Analytics Programs is right for your Web Strategy?" at his Website Strategy blog. |
Tags: analytics traffic
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