Web analytics. I seem to stare them in the face each and every morning. In fact, I do. Each morning, like clockwork, I sit at my desk and put together a Web stats report for one of my clients. Within that report, I detail visitors, page views, and traffic sources. The report can be exhaustive and sometimes dare I even say tedious, but the information contained in it helps this client’s business grow and provides them with valuable data that can determine successes, and yes, even failures.
Knowing this, I have become intrigued with Web analytics, and I was actually excited to place them on this blog. The process itself was somewhat simple. I simply logged into my Google account, searched for “analytics” and followed the steps on developing the code. I will admit; I was a little hesitant on placing the code directly on the site myself, but this site was extremely helpful in providing detailed steps on how to make this happen. By following these steps, adding the code was a snap. Now I am ready to analyze, but what was I going to track on the site?
First and foremost, I do want to track the number of visitors to my blog. As Justin Harrison notes on his blog, it is critical to know who is visiting a site to determine not only if the site is meeting a business’ goals for the site, but to see from where visitors are coming (Harrison, 2009).
Granted, the goal of my blog is to inform and educate about my experience in the digital marketing program at WVU, but I still want to have an understanding of who is visiting my blog. Is it just my classmates and professors, or are there individuals who have seen my Twitter posts that have taken a gander? Too, maybe some of my content is being picked up by search engines and companies, and they are visiting the site. For example, in our social media class, my posts were showing up in Rust-Oleum’s Google alerts, and the company took notice of my blog. In hindsight, I would have love to have known they were visiting.
Another area of focus for me will be returning visits. Yes, this does go hand-in-hand with visitors, but by looking at returning visitors I can see if my blog is providing valuable information on this topic. I do hope that I am providing some insight on this topic, and measuring returning visitors is one such way to accomplish this. At least in a quantitative perspective.
Traffic sources are another component I will look for in my analytics reports. Are people coming to the site directly? Is a search engine helping them? Or are they using a social media vehicle, such as Twitter or Facebook to find the site? This is important because as we delve more into this topic. I am looking at ways to further optimize this site to bring it up in the search engine rankings. As mentioned in other posts, linking (both internal and inbound) will play a key role in this.
While content is different for some posts, I would like to see which posts are being read the most. This ensures that I am providing relative information about a wide variety of topics that are of interest to my followers. This is especially helpful since comments are not always posted to the site.
And finally, I will want to see how long people are spending on the blog. Is it informative and entertaining? I believe by looking at the time spent on the site this can be determined. While times will vary, I think the longer the time on the blog the more information is being digested.
While I have thought that Web stats reports may be viewed as numbers, I have gained a better understanding that there is meaning behind those numbers. I can’t wait to log onto my account and see who is, or isn’t reading, my blog.
References
Knowing this, I have become intrigued with Web analytics, and I was actually excited to place them on this blog. The process itself was somewhat simple. I simply logged into my Google account, searched for “analytics” and followed the steps on developing the code. I will admit; I was a little hesitant on placing the code directly on the site myself, but this site was extremely helpful in providing detailed steps on how to make this happen. By following these steps, adding the code was a snap. Now I am ready to analyze, but what was I going to track on the site?
First and foremost, I do want to track the number of visitors to my blog. As Justin Harrison notes on his blog, it is critical to know who is visiting a site to determine not only if the site is meeting a business’ goals for the site, but to see from where visitors are coming (Harrison, 2009).
Granted, the goal of my blog is to inform and educate about my experience in the digital marketing program at WVU, but I still want to have an understanding of who is visiting my blog. Is it just my classmates and professors, or are there individuals who have seen my Twitter posts that have taken a gander? Too, maybe some of my content is being picked up by search engines and companies, and they are visiting the site. For example, in our social media class, my posts were showing up in Rust-Oleum’s Google alerts, and the company took notice of my blog. In hindsight, I would have love to have known they were visiting.
Another area of focus for me will be returning visits. Yes, this does go hand-in-hand with visitors, but by looking at returning visitors I can see if my blog is providing valuable information on this topic. I do hope that I am providing some insight on this topic, and measuring returning visitors is one such way to accomplish this. At least in a quantitative perspective.
Traffic sources are another component I will look for in my analytics reports. Are people coming to the site directly? Is a search engine helping them? Or are they using a social media vehicle, such as Twitter or Facebook to find the site? This is important because as we delve more into this topic. I am looking at ways to further optimize this site to bring it up in the search engine rankings. As mentioned in other posts, linking (both internal and inbound) will play a key role in this.
While content is different for some posts, I would like to see which posts are being read the most. This ensures that I am providing relative information about a wide variety of topics that are of interest to my followers. This is especially helpful since comments are not always posted to the site.
And finally, I will want to see how long people are spending on the blog. Is it informative and entertaining? I believe by looking at the time spent on the site this can be determined. While times will vary, I think the longer the time on the blog the more information is being digested.
While I have thought that Web stats reports may be viewed as numbers, I have gained a better understanding that there is meaning behind those numbers. I can’t wait to log onto my account and see who is, or isn’t reading, my blog.
References
Harrison, J. (2009). Why Place an Importance on Web Analytics. Internet Marketing with Justin Harrison Blog. Retrieved February 3, 2010, from http://www.justinharrison.com/web-analytics/why-place-any-importance-on-web-analytics.php
Kelly,
ReplyDeleteGreat results. Keep the Good work.
Thank you!
ReplyDelete