Analytics
Who Cares About Web Analytics?
Recently, my colleague Trace Johnson posted three valuable recommendations for improving your web site. The first recommendation was to “Get Web Analytics.” But, why should you care about Web Analytics?
Not because you care about analytics.
We know, it sounds a bit contradictory; but analytics for the sake of analytics doesn’t help anyone. Web Analytics is a means to an end. It is a tool designed to provide insight into your user’s experience, and in turn improve your ROI. So, once again, why should you care about Web Analytics?
Because you care about your users.
Your web site is all about your users. If you don’t have users, your web site is useless. If your users don’t like your web site, your web site is ineffective. Analytics can give you real insight into the desires of your users. It answers the questions, “What do our users care about?” and, “How does our company motivate them to care?”
It allows you to truly give the user what they want.
Not only will you learn why users are visiting, you will also discover if they liked what they saw upon arrival. We often find that users are interested in different content than what the web site owner assumes. If your ‘News’ page is packed with items regarding how to run a business; but the most popular items are the few which describe your products and services, you need to know that. Analytics provides a framework for improving your web site as you learn what type of content causes people to leave, and what type of content inspires user interaction.
Because you care about your company.
Analytics provides your company with hard data on the effectiveness of your online initiatives. Is your web site good enough? Is it producing a high ROI? Are you spending too much time and money on it? Or perhaps not enough? Analytics will tell you.
Having Analytics allows your company to precisely measure your ROI. By creating goals such as sales, newsletter sign-ups or contact form completions--just to name just a few, you will know exactly how successful your web site is in raising money, brand awareness, user interest and leads. You can use that information to scale your web marketing expenditures up or down. There has never been a more precise tool for measuring user interaction and ROI.
If you care about your users, and you care about your company; you need Web Analytics.
Tracking Multiple Sub-Domains in Google Analytics
There are many posts about tracking multiple sub-domains in one profile in Google Analytics; this is a step-by-step guide to implementing it.
Some decisions need to be made early in the implementation process. First, you need to ask yourself how detailed and segmented you want your sub-domains. If the site-overlay functionality is something you can’t live without, I don’t suggest following these steps.Here is a great tutorial on just how to do that.
Continue reading "Tracking Multiple Sub-Domains in Google Analytics"
Google Expands Backlink Tracking
The link is the currency of the web and one of the defining factors to determine your rank on search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Typically, you can check the number of incoming links (or “backlinks"), by using little tools like “link: URL” when using Google or by using Yahoo! Site Explorer.
This week, Google launched a more comprehensive look into backlinks via their Webmaster Tools. If you haven’t utilized these tools to this point, the backlinks feature will be a perfect time to learn about Sitemaps and other great Google webmaster tools.
Matt Cutts, the well known Google guru employee, wrote about the expanded backlink feature:
- In particular, for my site I was easily able to see more than 10x more links in this new tool than the link: command gave me. The link: command has always returned a small fraction of the backlinks that Google knows about, mainly for historical reasons (e.g. limited disk space on the machines that served up “link:” data).
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- Do not assume just because you see a backlink that it’s carrying weight. I’m going to say that again: Do not assume just because you see a backlink that it’s carrying weight.
Backlinks isn’t a game changer because it’s just showing data previously unavailable to you. But it is helpful in better understanding your referrers and referral traffic. So, head over to Google’s Webmaster Tools and give it a try.
Get Your Analytics On, Google Style
There are a significant number of web analytics packages on the market today. But, when Google entered the market about a year ago through their purchase of Urchin, they changed the face of the game by offering a relatively robust stats package at zero cost (it’s in some ways similar to how Google used Gmail’s extremely large storage capacity to make Hotmail and Yahoo!’s premium e-mail offerings obsolete).
Besides the fact that it is free and tracks an extensive number of metrics, Google Analytics makes a lot of sense if you are using AdWords because it integrates nicely with it.
I do want to note that here at Viget Labs we are big fans of WebSideStory’s HBX Analytics package (which costs money) and have a significant number of clients that we help leverage it. HBX allows you to dig a little deeper and, from our perspective, offers the ability to segment audience a bit more finely (and more easily). Still, if you just want to get up and running with a stats package - almost as a taste test for learning what web analytics is all about - Google Analytics is a great place to start.
Below follow a couple of resources:
Conversion University
http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html
Google Analytics Blog
http://analytics.blogspot.com/
Help
Analytics - Powered by What? (A Software Primer)
This third installment of our executive series discusses a critical component of Web Analytics—the technology. This is a subject that deserves quite a bit more attention than a blog post, so I will gently skim the surface of the topic. In many ways, choosing an analytics package is a typical software evaluation exercise; but, there are a few unique “big picture” considerations you should be aware of. The following are a few logical divisions of the space:
1. Tags vs. Logs
The major tools can be put into two broad categories—those that use log files to analyze data and those that use Javascript tags. Tag-based solutions are generally better at uniquely identifying a visitor and offer more options for custom and detailed reporting. They track user behavior versus server behavior. Logs are big and messy; but, they’re also yours (which means you have more control over some things). Although you can run a tag-based tool in-house, they are usually hosted by a third-party vendor—while a log-based solution runs on your servers. Although this decision ultimately depends on your business, we generally recommend tag-based solutions unless there is a compelling reason not to use them. Again, this is a topic that deserves much more than a one-paragraph summary, so feel free to email me for more information.
2. Deep vs. Broad
As tools get more powerful, they typically become more complicated. Some tools blur the line between Web Analytics and Data Mining, which is great for organizations that have the resources to run some serious analysis of their web usage. Other tools focus more on the softer side of the numbers, offering built-in tools to support less demanding marketing initiatives. The latter group typically offers a full suite of services that may include content management, site search, and the like. We tend to favor using the simplest tool that will give you the data you need. Again, the data is only as valuable as the action it triggers—so installing a complex tool that will never get used is worse than doing nothing at all.
3. DIY vs. Full-Service
Customer service is a big differentiator in this industry and should be carefully considered here. But, this is more about who is responsible for making sure you get the most out of your tool of choice. If you will have a dedicated internal team, you may not need much assistance and a virtual “hand-off” of the tool will suffice. On the other hand, you may want (or need) to lean on the vendor for just about everything from installing the code on your site to setting up the reporting. Note: this doesn’t get you off the hook completely—you still need someone to look at the data and actually apply it to your business.
4. Specific vs. General
The majority of the tools are generalists—offering a core set of functionality that you can then use to track most of what you would ever want to know about your visitors and their actions on your site. There are a set of tools, however, that offer very specialized tracking of, for instance, sales funnels or A/B testing. You may not care so much about which version of Javascript your visitors are running—but, you do need to know when a specific call-center referral visits the site and what they look at.
In short, get your ducks in a row before you contact any vendors—make sure you know what exactly you need from them and how the tool will support your business. Know who will perform the key functions within your organization and whether or not you plan on using an outside vendor. By definition, the job of the vendor sales team is to sell you their tool, so remember the ancient Chinese proverb when they start using words that sound like a Star Trek rerun gone bad ..."one who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.” Good stuff.