Thorn Midterm 7500 Final
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Web Analytics 10/15/2009
Chris Thorn MIST 7500
MIST 7500 Midterm Chris Thorn Web Analytics Web Analytics are numbers, stats and metrics that measure the activity on a website. They are a statistical rabbit hole for web administrators and site owners to fall down when analyzing the performance of their site. The available metrics range from the obvious, headline-grabbing Number of Daily Visitors to the esoteric, subjective Conversion Rate. Understanding the meaning, context and level of accuracy of web analytics is important. Depending on their needs, users can choose from a number of web analytics services and programs. Corporations can purchase or build enterprise-level software for large scale platforms. Smaller users can choose from various free analytics programs to monitor their websites. The key is finding an analytics program that captures the important information and displays it in a way for the user to effectively analyze and process the data. To find the right program, users must understand the metrics definitions and functionality. Key metrics include Unique Visitor, Repeat Visits and Session Duration among others. Unique Visitors, as defined by Wikipedia, is a uniquely identified visitor to the site, whether by IP address, visitor log-in or cookie, during a certain timeframe set by the analytics software or administrator. This metric is often confused with the laymen’s perception of hits, which are the number of requests for files on a page. Servers can request many hits per page depending on the number of files, such as images, text, ads and other files, hosted on that page. The number is incredibly misleading but still haunts the industry today. For example, the sales team at my office is constantly asked how many hits our network of sites receives on a daily basis. The metric is meaningless. Unique Visitors on the other hand is more accurate but still has flaws. Why Unique Visitors works better is that it counts a metric once during a set time period. If a user visits a site in the morning and returns in the evening, depending on the set time constraints, they are likely viewed as one unique visitor for the day. This metric is built on a few assumptions. First, there is one user per measurement method, which means the analytics program assumes the same visitor used the same computer (if using first-party cookies) or came from the same IP address (if using web log analysis) that day. But if a home computer is used by multiple family members to visit CNN.com during a single day, the analytics software will only count one Unique Visitor despite different users at the computer. IP address analysis also can be inaccurate because some corporate users share one external IP address or use dynamic IP assignment. Multiple users might be hitting the site from one IP address. Another metric that is focused on by administrators is New vs. Returning Visitors. At first glance, this appears to be an amazingly powerful metric. In theory, as the analytics software tracks site activity, it differentiates Unique Visitors that are new to the site from others that are returning to the view the content. When I first started tracking visitors to my web comic, I misinterpreted this metric in the way mentioned above. As my understanding of site analytics grew more nuanced, I realized that New/Returning also is flawed. When users clear their cookies or visit from different IP addresses, they
are classified as new. Considering how many users clear their cookies after each online session, this can be an inaccurate measurement tool. Obviously web analytics are not 100 percent accurate. Some metrics are better gauges than others. Daily visitor rates or other stats can be frustrating when viewed as just numbers because they can’t be trusted as absolutes. But where I’ve found web analytics to be incredibly useful is in understanding visitor trends and site effectiveness by putting the metrics in context. My MIT blog has generated no traffic since I installed Google Analytics and Sitemeter software to the blog (in full disclosure, the site has counted 6 visits but they are all from me). But I have used both programs to track and develop my web comic, http://www.registered-weapon.com, and I’ll discuss one method used to derive meaning from the captured analytics. Both analytics programs are installed by inserting a piece of javascript code into the HTML of the targeted site’s homepage. Simply create an account with the tracking service, copy the code from the service site, paste it into in the HTML of your site. Once enabled, the analytics starts tracking immediately but it may take some time to display the results. First Google Analytics is the more sophisticated of the two programs I’ve mentioned.
Above is the analytics overview page. With a quick glance, I can see the general stats for all of my sites during the last 30 days. For deeper analytics, I can click on the View Report link.
Now I’m viewing the dashboard for Registered Weapon. The metrics summarized on the overview page are now graphically displayed for easy consumption. I can drag my mouse across the line graph to view the number of Unique Visitors for a certain day along the 30-day timeline, which is an efficient way to catch-up on site traffic. For more detailed analysis, I can choose from a menu on how I’d like to view the analytics. The options include Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content and Goals. I will not explain every feature or view in detail but I will provide a good example of using the analytics to determine site or campaign success. On October 12, we ran an ad campaign on various blogs and comics sites. The sites were chosen for past performance(determined by the method I’m about to describe) or greatest potential of traffic based on similar content or audience.
From analyzing the stats for the day in the image above, the dominant traffic
driver was still from direct traffic, which are bookmarks, Google Reader or visitors typing the site address into the browser. The other traffic sources listed are either sites that linked to us for reasons like reviews, recommendations or something else and sites where we placed the advertising. Those sites included Overcompensating.com (46 visits), Basic Instructions.net (21 visits), Wigu.com (13 visits), needforbushiod.com (9 visits). Assuming all advertising costs were equal, Overcompensating.com is the clear traffic driver and best advertising investment right? Not necessarily. The visit numbers need to be put in context with the other analytics listed, which are either averages or percentages. See the table below.
The Page/View average column shows Wigu.com delivered the most page views per visitor on average. For a web comic, this is extremely important because it means someone is reading the content in large chunks. The Average Time on Site column illustrates that readers from BasicInstrutions.net spent lots of time on the site, which says we hit a sweet spot as it skewed the average higher. Now, the Percentage of New Visits are above 75 percent for all sites so that’s considered a success. A second inference from that data set since only one site produced 100 percent new visitors is that regular readers on those sites have visited our site before, enjoyed the content but required a prompt to remember that. Maybe we convinced them to bookmark our site this time. Maybe that will happen next time. And, finally, the Bounce Rate percentage is possibly the most important when put in the context of a ratio between the total of visitors generated by each individual site. While Overcompensating,com delivered the highest number of visitors, the Bounce Rate is 50 percent. Wigu.com, on the other hand, only delivered 13 visitors but the Bounce Rate is 7 percent. To me, the Wigu.com users are the right demographic for our content at a much higher percentage. As long as Wigu ad rates are reasonable, we stand a high chance of converting their users into our readers at a maximum value to us. Sitemeter is more limited in functionality than Google Analytics but it offers a neat advantage. When content is updated on Registered Weapon, an admin will tweet about it with a link, post the link on the Facebook page and send an email blast to newsletter subscribers. With Sitemeter, we can use the service to track who is on the site at any given moment, which helps determine effectiveness of our communication tools.
This method, while wholly inaccurate, is similar in execution to news organizations that monitor web traffic in real time to determine how to position headlines and stories for maximum exposure and traffic generation. In general, web analytics are powerful tools for measuring your site but they must be understood and properly interpreted for companies to use the data in the right way. Web Site Attractiveness When discussing web site attractiveness, there are two separate points-of-taste to take into account: the human eye and the search engine. A beautiful, intricate site design that flows content in an organized way for the reader means nothing to the text hungry search engine that hunts on the strength of key words. The trick is building a site that satisfies both needs. Depending on the site’s content or purpose, the visual design or the coding side might be more important. For most sites, driving traffic to their site is the initial problem so search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) will be the first topic in this paper. SEO is different from SEM in a few fundamental ways. Most prominently, SEO is considered the organic way to improve search results in various engines while SEM is a paid model for site owners to appear with search results, according to Wikipedia. Search engines have taken an active role in SEO techniques to help web developers and content creators increase their search relevancy in an ethical, content-driven way. For example, Google provides a webmaster central site for developers to reference when building sites. They can follow useful SEO methods, learn how to implement a Google sitemap and submit their site for guaranteed indexing in the search engine. Yahoo! Site Explorer also provides similar guidance. SEM is monetarily driven. Search engines are often paid on a per click (PPC) basis by advertisers, according to Wikipedia. The links, bought or bid on for keywords, appear as sponsored ads surrounding the search results. Or the advertiser pages are indexed in the database based on keywords but no promises are made for rankings or placement. Although not as organic as SEO, SEM offers an advantage to advertisers:
control (Wise, Paternack, 2005). By using SEM, sites can define the landing page for the visitors, which provides control over the first contact between site and prospective customer. In contrast, SEO landing pages are dictated by the generated search results. SEO methods are often defined as either White Hat, which follows the straight and ethical path of optimization, or Black Hat, which artificially manipulates searches that may result in bans for offending sites. Jill Whalen, an expert in SEO, sees the differing methods in an alternate way (Whalen, 2004). She suggests viewing the techniques as sustainable and temporary. Companies and developers all want the same thing: traffic. But if companies aren’t willing to put in or pay for the effort to design a sustainable site over time, they may resort to the questionable methods for a quick buck if it fits their business model. If visitors successfully navigate the search engine waters to a site, the second definition of web site attractiveness is important. The aesthetic appeal can make or break a site for a visitor in just a few seconds. Design is subjective to individual tastes but there are a few agreed upon do’s and don’ts. First, clarity or effective communication (Snell, 2009). He warns designers of letting visual flair trump the clear delivery of information. He also offers 7 areas of focus for site attractiveness: text, images, titles and headers, icons, design styles, colors, and audio/visual content. Each of these topics can be discussed individually at length without reaching a consensus on the right approach. The most successful strategy is likely to design your site within the context of your business as it relates to those 7 core areas. If you operate a design studio, your site’s appearance should be more visually engaging and intricate than a news portal that is built around efficiently communicating the headlines. An interesting survey, conducted by Smashing Magazine (Friedman, 2008), uses 50 popular blogs to analyze 30 blog design problems or questions. They breakdown the blogs into percentages as to how they approached the problem. The survey is a great source of information for blog designers. Sasquatch Planet Admittedly, Sasquatch Planet is still on the starting blocks in respect to SEO and site design. I’ve installed the analytics services to the site but the traffic has yet to surface. Configuring the SEO material will be difficult as I’ve yet to define a purpose for the blog outside of the MIT assignments. A good approach to take might be to focus on keywords that emphasize my nascent stage in IT and my participation in the UGA MIT program. Prospective readers include prospective students at in the program. When I was searching for information on the program, my research led to the Terry MIT pages. A current student’s perspective may help others decide if this is right approach for them. Integrating the SEO keywords should be done in an organic manner. Do to spamming and abuse, Meta Tags have lost their prominence as search result generators (Wise, 2008). The search engines use complex algorithims to rank content. Current SEO methods include emphasizing keywords or phrases in your content often. For Sasquatch Planet, I should write more headlines that feature words like “UGA”, “MIT” and “Program”. I should also repeat my core words in the content. Since I’m using Blogger as my host, I’m at a disadvantage in regards to SEO when compared to other services that offer theme related categories that can be tagged by
search engines (Hurlbert, 2005). While that strategy is out, I can play tag with every site I know. The more links I create to other sites and the more other sites link to my site, I can create relevancy and activity for search engines to hone in on. Also, incoming and outgoing links are often laden with keywords relating to a topic. For the visual side, I plan on introducing a new header that clearly explains the blog to both reader and search engine alike. The template, font and color scheme will be customized with more thought than when I initially launched the site. During the coming weeks, I’m interested to see if these changes drive more traffic to the blog than me, myself and I.
Bibliography "Web Analytics." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 October 2009, 11:34. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 12 Oct. 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics>. Wise, Bill, and Pasternack, Dave. "SEO isn’t SEM”. DMNews., 5 Dec. 2005. Web. 11 Oct 2009. < http://www.dmnews.com/SEO-Isnt-SEM/article/89604/> Whalen, Jill. "Black Hat/White Hat Search Engine Optimization”. Search Engine Guide, 16 Nov. 2004. Web. 11 Oct 2009. < http://www.searchengineguide.com/jillwhalen/black-hatwhite-hat-search-engine-optimization.php> Snell, Steven. "Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design." Smashing Magazine., 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Oct 2009. Snell, Steven. "Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design." Smashing Magazine., 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Oct 2009.
Chris Thorn MIST 7500
MIST 7500 Midterm Chris Thorn Web Analytics Web Analytics are numbers, stats and metrics that measure the activity on a website. They are a statistical rabbit hole for web administrators and site owners to fall down when analyzing the performance of their site. The available metrics range from the obvious, headline-grabbing Number of Daily Visitors to the esoteric, subjective Conversion Rate. Understanding the meaning, context and level of accuracy of web analytics is important. Depending on their needs, users can choose from a number of web analytics services and programs. Corporations can purchase or build enterprise-level software for large scale platforms. Smaller users can choose from various free analytics programs to monitor their websites. The key is finding an analytics program that captures the important information and displays it in a way for the user to effectively analyze and process the data. To find the right program, users must understand the metrics definitions and functionality. Key metrics include Unique Visitor, Repeat Visits and Session Duration among others. Unique Visitors, as defined by Wikipedia, is a uniquely identified visitor to the site, whether by IP address, visitor log-in or cookie, during a certain timeframe set by the analytics software or administrator. This metric is often confused with the laymen’s perception of hits, which are the number of requests for files on a page. Servers can request many hits per page depending on the number of files, such as images, text, ads and other files, hosted on that page. The number is incredibly misleading but still haunts the industry today. For example, the sales team at my office is constantly asked how many hits our network of sites receives on a daily basis. The metric is meaningless. Unique Visitors on the other hand is more accurate but still has flaws. Why Unique Visitors works better is that it counts a metric once during a set time period. If a user visits a site in the morning and returns in the evening, depending on the set time constraints, they are likely viewed as one unique visitor for the day. This metric is built on a few assumptions. First, there is one user per measurement method, which means the analytics program assumes the same visitor used the same computer (if using first-party cookies) or came from the same IP address (if using web log analysis) that day. But if a home computer is used by multiple family members to visit CNN.com during a single day, the analytics software will only count one Unique Visitor despite different users at the computer. IP address analysis also can be inaccurate because some corporate users share one external IP address or use dynamic IP assignment. Multiple users might be hitting the site from one IP address. Another metric that is focused on by administrators is New vs. Returning Visitors. At first glance, this appears to be an amazingly powerful metric. In theory, as the analytics software tracks site activity, it differentiates Unique Visitors that are new to the site from others that are returning to the view the content. When I first started tracking visitors to my web comic, I misinterpreted this metric in the way mentioned above. As my understanding of site analytics grew more nuanced, I realized that New/Returning also is flawed. When users clear their cookies or visit from different IP addresses, they
are classified as new. Considering how many users clear their cookies after each online session, this can be an inaccurate measurement tool. Obviously web analytics are not 100 percent accurate. Some metrics are better gauges than others. Daily visitor rates or other stats can be frustrating when viewed as just numbers because they can’t be trusted as absolutes. But where I’ve found web analytics to be incredibly useful is in understanding visitor trends and site effectiveness by putting the metrics in context. My MIT blog has generated no traffic since I installed Google Analytics and Sitemeter software to the blog (in full disclosure, the site has counted 6 visits but they are all from me). But I have used both programs to track and develop my web comic, http://www.registered-weapon.com, and I’ll discuss one method used to derive meaning from the captured analytics. Both analytics programs are installed by inserting a piece of javascript code into the HTML of the targeted site’s homepage. Simply create an account with the tracking service, copy the code from the service site, paste it into in the HTML of your site. Once enabled, the analytics starts tracking immediately but it may take some time to display the results. First Google Analytics is the more sophisticated of the two programs I’ve mentioned.
Above is the analytics overview page. With a quick glance, I can see the general stats for all of my sites during the last 30 days. For deeper analytics, I can click on the View Report link.
Now I’m viewing the dashboard for Registered Weapon. The metrics summarized on the overview page are now graphically displayed for easy consumption. I can drag my mouse across the line graph to view the number of Unique Visitors for a certain day along the 30-day timeline, which is an efficient way to catch-up on site traffic. For more detailed analysis, I can choose from a menu on how I’d like to view the analytics. The options include Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content and Goals. I will not explain every feature or view in detail but I will provide a good example of using the analytics to determine site or campaign success. On October 12, we ran an ad campaign on various blogs and comics sites. The sites were chosen for past performance(determined by the method I’m about to describe) or greatest potential of traffic based on similar content or audience.
From analyzing the stats for the day in the image above, the dominant traffic
driver was still from direct traffic, which are bookmarks, Google Reader or visitors typing the site address into the browser. The other traffic sources listed are either sites that linked to us for reasons like reviews, recommendations or something else and sites where we placed the advertising. Those sites included Overcompensating.com (46 visits), Basic Instructions.net (21 visits), Wigu.com (13 visits), needforbushiod.com (9 visits). Assuming all advertising costs were equal, Overcompensating.com is the clear traffic driver and best advertising investment right? Not necessarily. The visit numbers need to be put in context with the other analytics listed, which are either averages or percentages. See the table below.
The Page/View average column shows Wigu.com delivered the most page views per visitor on average. For a web comic, this is extremely important because it means someone is reading the content in large chunks. The Average Time on Site column illustrates that readers from BasicInstrutions.net spent lots of time on the site, which says we hit a sweet spot as it skewed the average higher. Now, the Percentage of New Visits are above 75 percent for all sites so that’s considered a success. A second inference from that data set since only one site produced 100 percent new visitors is that regular readers on those sites have visited our site before, enjoyed the content but required a prompt to remember that. Maybe we convinced them to bookmark our site this time. Maybe that will happen next time. And, finally, the Bounce Rate percentage is possibly the most important when put in the context of a ratio between the total of visitors generated by each individual site. While Overcompensating,com delivered the highest number of visitors, the Bounce Rate is 50 percent. Wigu.com, on the other hand, only delivered 13 visitors but the Bounce Rate is 7 percent. To me, the Wigu.com users are the right demographic for our content at a much higher percentage. As long as Wigu ad rates are reasonable, we stand a high chance of converting their users into our readers at a maximum value to us. Sitemeter is more limited in functionality than Google Analytics but it offers a neat advantage. When content is updated on Registered Weapon, an admin will tweet about it with a link, post the link on the Facebook page and send an email blast to newsletter subscribers. With Sitemeter, we can use the service to track who is on the site at any given moment, which helps determine effectiveness of our communication tools.
This method, while wholly inaccurate, is similar in execution to news organizations that monitor web traffic in real time to determine how to position headlines and stories for maximum exposure and traffic generation. In general, web analytics are powerful tools for measuring your site but they must be understood and properly interpreted for companies to use the data in the right way. Web Site Attractiveness When discussing web site attractiveness, there are two separate points-of-taste to take into account: the human eye and the search engine. A beautiful, intricate site design that flows content in an organized way for the reader means nothing to the text hungry search engine that hunts on the strength of key words. The trick is building a site that satisfies both needs. Depending on the site’s content or purpose, the visual design or the coding side might be more important. For most sites, driving traffic to their site is the initial problem so search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) will be the first topic in this paper. SEO is different from SEM in a few fundamental ways. Most prominently, SEO is considered the organic way to improve search results in various engines while SEM is a paid model for site owners to appear with search results, according to Wikipedia. Search engines have taken an active role in SEO techniques to help web developers and content creators increase their search relevancy in an ethical, content-driven way. For example, Google provides a webmaster central site for developers to reference when building sites. They can follow useful SEO methods, learn how to implement a Google sitemap and submit their site for guaranteed indexing in the search engine. Yahoo! Site Explorer also provides similar guidance. SEM is monetarily driven. Search engines are often paid on a per click (PPC) basis by advertisers, according to Wikipedia. The links, bought or bid on for keywords, appear as sponsored ads surrounding the search results. Or the advertiser pages are indexed in the database based on keywords but no promises are made for rankings or placement. Although not as organic as SEO, SEM offers an advantage to advertisers:
control (Wise, Paternack, 2005). By using SEM, sites can define the landing page for the visitors, which provides control over the first contact between site and prospective customer. In contrast, SEO landing pages are dictated by the generated search results. SEO methods are often defined as either White Hat, which follows the straight and ethical path of optimization, or Black Hat, which artificially manipulates searches that may result in bans for offending sites. Jill Whalen, an expert in SEO, sees the differing methods in an alternate way (Whalen, 2004). She suggests viewing the techniques as sustainable and temporary. Companies and developers all want the same thing: traffic. But if companies aren’t willing to put in or pay for the effort to design a sustainable site over time, they may resort to the questionable methods for a quick buck if it fits their business model. If visitors successfully navigate the search engine waters to a site, the second definition of web site attractiveness is important. The aesthetic appeal can make or break a site for a visitor in just a few seconds. Design is subjective to individual tastes but there are a few agreed upon do’s and don’ts. First, clarity or effective communication (Snell, 2009). He warns designers of letting visual flair trump the clear delivery of information. He also offers 7 areas of focus for site attractiveness: text, images, titles and headers, icons, design styles, colors, and audio/visual content. Each of these topics can be discussed individually at length without reaching a consensus on the right approach. The most successful strategy is likely to design your site within the context of your business as it relates to those 7 core areas. If you operate a design studio, your site’s appearance should be more visually engaging and intricate than a news portal that is built around efficiently communicating the headlines. An interesting survey, conducted by Smashing Magazine (Friedman, 2008), uses 50 popular blogs to analyze 30 blog design problems or questions. They breakdown the blogs into percentages as to how they approached the problem. The survey is a great source of information for blog designers. Sasquatch Planet Admittedly, Sasquatch Planet is still on the starting blocks in respect to SEO and site design. I’ve installed the analytics services to the site but the traffic has yet to surface. Configuring the SEO material will be difficult as I’ve yet to define a purpose for the blog outside of the MIT assignments. A good approach to take might be to focus on keywords that emphasize my nascent stage in IT and my participation in the UGA MIT program. Prospective readers include prospective students at in the program. When I was searching for information on the program, my research led to the Terry MIT pages. A current student’s perspective may help others decide if this is right approach for them. Integrating the SEO keywords should be done in an organic manner. Do to spamming and abuse, Meta Tags have lost their prominence as search result generators (Wise, 2008). The search engines use complex algorithims to rank content. Current SEO methods include emphasizing keywords or phrases in your content often. For Sasquatch Planet, I should write more headlines that feature words like “UGA”, “MIT” and “Program”. I should also repeat my core words in the content. Since I’m using Blogger as my host, I’m at a disadvantage in regards to SEO when compared to other services that offer theme related categories that can be tagged by
search engines (Hurlbert, 2005). While that strategy is out, I can play tag with every site I know. The more links I create to other sites and the more other sites link to my site, I can create relevancy and activity for search engines to hone in on. Also, incoming and outgoing links are often laden with keywords relating to a topic. For the visual side, I plan on introducing a new header that clearly explains the blog to both reader and search engine alike. The template, font and color scheme will be customized with more thought than when I initially launched the site. During the coming weeks, I’m interested to see if these changes drive more traffic to the blog than me, myself and I.
Bibliography "Web Analytics." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 October 2009, 11:34. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 12 Oct. 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics>. Wise, Bill, and Pasternack, Dave. "SEO isn’t SEM”. DMNews., 5 Dec. 2005. Web. 11 Oct 2009. < http://www.dmnews.com/SEO-Isnt-SEM/article/89604/> Whalen, Jill. "Black Hat/White Hat Search Engine Optimization”. Search Engine Guide, 16 Nov. 2004. Web. 11 Oct 2009. < http://www.searchengineguide.com/jillwhalen/black-hatwhite-hat-search-engine-optimization.php> Snell, Steven. "Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design." Smashing Magazine., 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Oct 2009. Snell, Steven. "Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design." Smashing Magazine., 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Oct 2009.
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