Developing a strategy for use of Google Analytics
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Transcript of Developing a strategy for use of Google Analytics
Google Analytics strategy
What it is and why you need one
[email protected] of Edinburgh Website Programme
www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme @usabilityed
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts
- for support rather than
for illumination.”
Andrew LangScottish poet
1844 - 1912
• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?
Website analytics
• The measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data
• For purposes of understanding and optimising web usage
How Google Analytics works
• A hidden snippet of code that is added to all webpages
• This code collects visitor information and sends it back to Google servers for processing– Requires JavaScript and cookies
• Polopoly-generated pages include this automatically. – Everyone else needs to make sure it’s included.
What Google Analytics collects
• Information about a visit to our website, including:– Whether the visitor has been to the site before– When the visit occurred – The referring site or campaign – What the visitor did during their visit– Where they are and the technology they used
• All data is aggregated and anonymised
What Google Analytics doesn’t record
• Document downloads
• Clicks on links to destinations not tracked by our code
• Interactions with in-page content – For example an embedded YouTube video
There are ways around this…
We collect tons of data
• In 2011 the University Website had:– Unique Visitors: 4,061,338– Pageviews: 73,827,700
• That’s a big pot of data– You need to be able to break this pot down
• Doing this effectively needs a strategy
Segmentation
• Few – if anyone - should be interested in taking all this data at once.
• You will only be interested in a slice based on your visitors
• This is where segmentation comes in…
• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?
Google Analytics can tell us
• Things like…– Top content– Top search terms– Visits– Unique visitors– Time on site– Pages per visit– Bounce rate
• My question today:
–“So what?”
Hopefully I’ll answer this too…
Google Analytics doesn’t tell us how to build a better business
It’s just numbers…
• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?
“We want more visitors”
• Does this = success? Probably not…– Do you really want fewer unnecessary enquiries?– Or maybe more “valuable” enquiries?
• Beware of measuring something just because it’s easy to do
“We want to see how effective our advertising has been”
• But what are visitors doing on arrival?– Think quality not quantity
• A referrer is a great way to identify a particular type of user– Compare their behaviour to others who didn’t visit
via the advertising campaign
“We want people to watch our video”
• Or maybe download our brochure…
• No – you want quality applications– You want to gauge how watching the video is
affecting user behaviour, compared to those that aren’t
– Are they reading more content? Staying longer on site? Doing the things you want them to do?
“We want our users to…”
• But who are your users? (we really mean target audience)
– Certainly not everyone who arrives at your site• Potentially only a small proportion
– How can we use Analytics to identify them?• Good site and content structure is essential
Beware of redesign based on Google Analytics alone
• Google Analytics can tell you what, but not why– Jumping to conclusions is
easy and dangerous
• Analytics + User Research =Greater than the sum of their parts
• How many blind men are there round your elephant?
• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?
What constitutes a successful visit?
• Identify what you want visitors to do:– Spent x minutes on site– Visited pages A, B and C– Downloaded brochure x– Completed my enquiry form– Spent x minutes reading how to apply info– Rated or shared my content
• Or possibly a combination of some of these?
Put a value on your content creation & management
• Is video content worth the investment?
• Is it worth our while generating x news articles per month?
• If we cut y pages from our website, would it affect our ‘performance’?
Identify things that warrant further investigation
• Back to the elephant– Usability testing– Surveys– Click analysis– etc
• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?
Set up your website to identify audiences
• If you bundle a range on content on a page, you can’t identify what the visitor was there for
• In the absence of video and download numbers, structure your site accordingly– If you want to compare prospective students who
watched our video to those who didn’t…
Some potential audiences
• Within or outside the University network• From a particular geographic location• With browsers set to not-English• Using mobile devices• Having visited a particular page– Especially form ‘thank you’ pages
• Having spent x minutes on the site• Having viewed at least y pages
Or more likely – a combination of these…
For example…
• What can we learn about people in China who have demonstrated a strong interest in programme x?
• How does their behaviour differ from similar people based in Europe?
• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?
Why do all this?
• Justify the effort put into your website– Make a case for more resource?
• Measure the value added by bringing extra data into your calculations– X visitors = Y bums on seats = £Z,000
Thank you
Questions?
[email protected] of Edinburgh Website Programme
www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme @usabilityed