Web Analytics Training Day

Welcome!

First……

A Little Quiz to Test Your Internet Marketing Knowledge

Your Host for Today!

• Andy Atkins» MD of Web Kinetics & Lead Internet Marketer at

MBL Solutions

» 10+ years experience in online marketing

Objectives for Today

• To understand the scope of web analytics and be able to select the elements that are important to your organisation, including those not included in most analytics packages

• To acquire the knowledge required to use analytics tools and to understand your visitors – where they come from, what they do on the site, where they go, why they leave?

• To enhance internal skillsets to the point that web analytics tasks can be managed internally or that direction can be given to external agencies.

• Fundamentally, to be able to use online performance data to focus business growth efforts or cost management activities.

What Metrics do You Use Right Now?

What Would You Like to Know?

The Agenda

• What are web analytics?

• Why are they useful?

• Site-focused analytics

• Market-focused analytics

• How to use analytics packages

• Some group work, practicals ….. and some trade secrets!

Why are you here?

What do you Use at the Moment?

Web Analytics - OMG!

Web Analytics – What are they?Web analytics is the process of analyzing the behavior of visitors to a Web site. The use of Web analytics is said to enable a business to attract more visitors, retain or attract new customers for goods or services, or to increase the dollar volume each customer spends.Web analytics is often used as part of customer relationship management analytics (crm analytics). The analysis can include determining the likelihood that a given customer will repurchase a product after having purchased it in the past, personalizing the site to customers who visit it repeatedly, monitoring the dollar volume of purchases made by individual customers or by specific groups of customers, observing the geographic regions from which the most and the least customers visit the site and purchase specific products, and predicting which products customers are most and least likely to buy in the future. The objective is to promote specific products to those customers most likely to buy them, and to determine which products a specific customer is most likely to purchase. This can help to improve the ratio of revenue to marketing costs.In addition to these features, Web analytics may include tracking the clickthrough and drilldown behavior of customers within the Web site, determining the sites from which customers most often arrive, and communicating with browsers to track and analyze online behavior. The results of Web analytics are provided in the form of tables, charts, and graphs.

A generic term meaning the study of the impact of a website on its users. E-commerce companies often use Web analytics software to measure such concrete details as how many people visited their site, how many of those visitors were unique vistors, how they came to the site (i.e., if they followed a link to get to the site or came there directly), what keywords they searched with on the site's search engine, how long they stayed on a given page or on the entire site, what links they clicked on and when they left the site. Web analytic software can also be used to monitor whether or not a site's pages are working properly. With this information, Web site administrators can determine which areas of the site are popular and which areas of the site do not get traffic and can then use this data to streamline a site to create a better user experience.

It’s just the numbers that relate to the online aspects of your business or organisation!

It extends beyond your website(s) to advertising, social media, inbound links, etc.

It’s not only Google Analytics….

Why is it important/useful?Some Examples

• Which keywords are the most searched/most competitive in your sector?

• Which Adwords campaigns are actually converting profitably?

• Are people finding the information on my site that they’re looking for?

• Do visitors click on the things that you want/expect them to?

• Do people actually engage with your social media content?

• Have your key competitors got better inbound links than you?

• How do people find your website?

• Which pages on your site encourage conversation?

• How do your competitors get higher rankings in the search engines?

Different Analytics Types

3 Broad Categories of Tools

External Perceptions

on the Internet(Chrome SEO)

Performance vs.Competition &Market (WebCEO)

On-site MetricsTools(Google Analytics)

Measuring your In-site Performance

Web Server Logs

Web Server Logs

• Solid basic statistics

• Level of analysis is dependent on the interface available at the hoster

• Based on activity that can be measured by a web server only

• Doesn’t measure activity as seen by the user of the website

• Unable to identify many of the off-site attributes that can be tracked by analytics software

Google Analytics Dashboard

Google Analytics & Others

Standard Stuff• Analysing Page Traffic• Identifying Traffic Sources• Measuring traffic by keyword• Monitoring Bounce Rates• Identifying seasonality/events• Traffic geolocation• Measuring engagement level• Identifying long-term trends

Cleverer Stuff• Link Analytics & Adwords• Measure Specific Goals• Track Conversions (ecomm)• Create Filters• Track traffic by activity• Page Overlays• Benchmarking• Automate custom reporting

Measuring your External Content Perception

YouTube Analytics

YouTube Analytics

Facebook Insights

Heat MappingNormal View

Heat Mapping‘Confetti’ View

Webmaster Tools

Measuring your Market Performance & Competitors

Possible Metrics

• Search Engine Rankings

• Inbound Links

• Page Optimisation Analysis

• Bookmarks

• Page Load Speeds

• Readability Level

• Age of Domain

• Sitemap/Robot file Presence

?

The FREE Stuff(Browser Plugins)

The FREE StuffIssues

• Internet Explorer doesn’t usually accept plugins of this kind

• Different plugins for Chrome & Firefox

• Great for snapshots and quick ‘sneaks’, but not for proper analysis or performance over time

• Some of the data is not as robust as it seems

• Not effective for looking at rankings, keyword analysis or linking

The Paid Stuff(SEO Software)

The Paid StuffIssues

Pro’s• Generally robust data

• Feature-set usually includes rankings, keywords, backlinks & page analysis as a min.

• Good for comp. comparison

• Can track results over time

• One-time report set-up

Con’s• Costs – typically £200/250 for

software and then annual update fees on top

• The fuller-featured tools tend to have a steeper learning curve

• Separate software setup and use

• Reports can tie-up connections for long periods

Social Media Monitoring/Metrics!

Social Media Monitoring/Metrics

Social Media Monitoring

Let’s have some fun with social media analytics!

A Short Exercise

Which types of metrics would be of most use to your specific business/organisation?

Google Analytics – A Reminder

Google Analytics & Others

Standard Stuff• Analysing Page Traffic• Identifying Traffic Sources• Measuring traffic by keyword• Monitoring Bounce Rates• Identifying seasonality/events• Traffic geolocation• Measuring engagement level• Identifying long-term trends

Cleverer Stuff• Link Analytics & Adwords• Measure Specific Goals• Track Conversions (ecomm)• Create Filters• Track traffic by activity• Page Overlays• Benchmarking• Automate custom reporting

Setting It Up…..

1. Set up a Google account

2. Go to Account Settings

3. Add Analytics to your account

4. Copy the code snippet into the <head> section of your site or send it to your agency/designer to add

5. Wait a few hours and then watch your data appear!

Google Analytics – Live Demo

Google Analytics – Q & A

Browser Plugins – Live Demo

Browser Plugins – Q & A

SEO Analytics Software – Live Demo

SEO Analytics Software – Q & A

How to Use Web Analytics

Can you find the following?

• Which keywords are the most searched/most competitive in your sector?

• Which Adwords campaigns are actually converting profitably?

• Are people finding the information on my site that they’re looking for?

• Do visitors click on the things that you want/expect them to?

• Do people actually engage with your social media content?

• Have your key competitors got better inbound links than you?

• How do people find your website?

• Which pages on your site encourage conversation?

• How do your competitors get higher rankings in the search engines?

Final Thoughts

• Use only the analytical tools that relate directly to your objectives

• Don’t be afraid to pay for the right tools – they’ll save you money

• When using on-site analytics, focus on a limited set of relevant metrics and investigate others by exception

• Remember that browser plugins are just rough ‘snapshots’

• Don’t use your own browser to measure rankings!

• Always link Adwords and Analytics accounts

• Remember that, without the metrics, you’re flying blind online….

That’s all, folks!