Web Analytics 101: A Three-Step Process

How to gather data, analyze reports and derive actionable insights

Do you know who your audience is? I mean, really, know who your audience is?

According to a recent report by Forrester Research, 73 percent of businesses track Web analytics data on their Web site. Unfortunately, not everyone uses their data to make decisions. Although Web analytics as a field has been around for years, few online endeavors are as poorly done and, in our opinion, underutilized.

The Problem
Given the opportunity to learn every minute detail of every unique visitor to a Web site, site owners too often do one of two things: one, they dive in way over their heads and scrutinize the bounce rate of the 0.0001 percent of users from Albania last week; or two, overwhelmed by the reams of data produced by their Web analytics software, check in once every 30 days on their unique user count and then drift away.

Solution
But there’s a better way to utilize Web analytics. It involves a focused strategy of what you want to achieve, and we like to break it down into three steps.

Step 1: Gather the Data
This is by far the least flashy of the three. Basically, this entails ensuring your tracking code is successfully installed and gathering the data you’re expecting to gather. Whether you install it in house or outsource your Web analytics to a vendor, tricky issues such as sites that span multiple domains, third-party shopping carts or registration pages can trip up your data gathering and sabotage your efforts before you begin.

And whether you’re working with a vendor or going it alone, check your data just to make you’re not seeing anything funky. If your Analytics package is telling you that not one visitor makes it past the home page or the average time spent on your site is zero, chances are something is installed incorrectly.

Step 2: Analyze Your Reports
The second step is by far the most involved. There are tons of ways to dive in and analyze, but here are some guiding questions you should ask as you pore over the data.

  • Where do your visitors come from? Look at your keyword report and see if people who search for terms and phrases in your industry are finding your site. Look at your referring sites report and see what other sites link to yours, and which ones don’t. If you’re working in social media, is it driving anyone to your site?
  • What are your visitors doing? What are your most popular pages? Do they align with your goals? Any surprises?
  • What are your visitors looking for? If possible, check your Web site’s search feature to see what people are searching for once they make it to your site. Do you offer what your audience is searching for?
  • When and where do your visitors leave your site? Are there any pages that have bounce rates or exit rates that are higher than other pages?

Step 3: Derive Actionable Insights
Now here’s where it gets tough, where most companies and even vendors miss the mark. Now that you’ve analyzed your reports and learned a few things, how do you translate those findings into actionable insights that will benefit your company's mission?

When you look at your internal search reports, are a lot of visitors searching for information your company provides, but does not have on its Web site? Maybe you need to add specific content.

Do a lot of visitors exit from your contact page? This is not too surprising, but if your contact form isn’t linked prominently from every page on your Web site, you may need to rethink your navigation, or at least your footer and sidebars.

Does your home page have a high bounce rate? Perhaps a site-wide redesign is in order.

So do you know who your audience is?
If you’re not using Web analytics to enhance your web initiatives online, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. And if your vendor isn’t providing you with information you can use to make those changes, you’re not leveraging that opportunity to its full potential.