Website Traffic Analysis (Filtering through the Data) . week eight
June 3, 2010 at 10:25 pm
filed under findability, techniques, tips
Tagged analysis tools, traffic analysis
With the large amount of information gathered in website traffic analysis tools, it is difficult to understand what is the most important data to observe and how to read for your site. Filtering through all of the data and analyzing the information that can help improve your website is a skill. Below are a few tips and techniques on what to focus on amongst all of the data and how to read the information.
Hits – Hits measure the amount of files that has been requested from the server when someone browses the website. These files include style sheets, documents, and other files. The data of ‘hits’ can be misleading since one page with multiple files generates numerous hits. A more useful look at the amount of users is the data from the ‘Unique Visitors’ that indicates the popularity of your website.
Unique visitors – Unique Visitors data reveals the findability of a website based on the amount of visitors who are viewing the site for the first time. This data is important to watch since a lapse in unique visitors could indicate a problem with the website server or that your content has not been updated for a while and has become uninteresting and irrelevant.
Return Visitors – A statistic that shows how many users are returning to the site. The information can be very valuable to gauge the relevance of your content to your users. Looking at ‘return visitors’ along with ‘page views’ and ‘time on site’ can reveal if users are returning to quickly refer back to the content or looking for more of the same content.
Page Views – Page Views data is a good statistic to read in relation to other statistics in order to gauge quality of content and usability of the website. For example, according to Aarron Walter, a high number of page views with a low number of unique visitors might indicate that it users are easily frustrated with navigation and cannot find the content they need. A low number of page views with many unique visitors might indicate that visitors find information quickly and do not need to navigate around the website too much. Watching page views data and navigation patterns are important to know what content your users enjoy.
Bounce Rate – Bounce rate is the rate at which users leave the site immediately, right after they arrive. A normal bounce rate is between 40 and 60% or lower. Your websites bounce rate can reveal problems with your website’s organization, content, or design. When considering other statistics, it is good to analyze ‘bounce rate’ in relation to ‘unique visitors’ to understand how the relevance of the ‘unique visitors’ statistic.
Referrals – This statistic can reveal how well inbound links, keyword search terms, and marketing campaigns are helping drive traffic to your website. Referrals from inbound links are a good indicator of the website popularity and findability. Also, you can determine the quality / relevance of the inbound link based on how long the user stayed on your site after being referred from another site.
Search Terms – Gauge the value of your keyword research through the ‘search term’ statistic. This statistic reveals the search terms that generate referral traffic through the search engines. The search terms can provide additional ‘niche’ long tail keywords as well as insight into how the content is reverbating with your audience.
Click Overlay – Click Overlay analysis places traffic statistics on top of your website’s page design to show where users click most. ‘Click overlay’ provides valuable information about how well your design directs your users and what information your users want to find. This information can also help you test and fine tune your website design and organization.
In order to sort through these and all of the other statistics and data, it is recommended to view only a few at a time and to organize the information to be able to compare the data in relation to each other. Viewing unique visitors with bounce rate or page views gives you more in depth information than viewing the data separately. To learn more about how to analyze your website traffic, visit Google’s Webmaster Tools.
Resources:
Building Findable Websites by Aaron Walter
‘Analytics Toolbox: 50+ More Ways to Track Website Traffic’ by Cameron Chapman on Mashable: The Social Media Guide
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