Web Analytics Essentials - Gordon Choi

Web Analytics Essentials

Gordon Choi
April 2012

www.gordonchoi.com

http://www.gordonchoi.com/

Gordon Choi – www.gordonchoi.com

2009-Present (Shanghai, China)
Web analytics integration & SEO/SEM analytics
integration for online travel industry (e.g. Ctrip.com)

2002-2008 (South Africa + Hangzhou, China)
Performance-based SEM/SEO for global & Chinese
markets

1991-2001 (South Africa)
A bit of computer programming & didn’t do much

Before 1990 (Hong Kong)
Just a kid


Web Analytics Essentials

1. Web Analytics Principles & Scope

2. Google Analytics Basic Setup

3. Web Analytics Reports & KPI Metrics for Web
Analysts focusing on SEO & SEM

4. Google Analytics Tips

5. Google Analytics Advanced Setup


Web Analytics
Principles & Scope


What is Web Analytics? Why Web Analytics?

What is WA?

- Web analytics is the measurement, collection,
analysis and reporting of Internet data for purpose
of understanding and optimizing web usage –
Avinash Kaushik & Wikipedia.org

Why WA?

- Web statistics of your site are captured 24 hours a
day & can be built into regular web reports.
- Connects web statistics to your KPI metrics.
- Helps identifying areas on your site that need
improvement.

Data Capture Methods & Tools

1. Web Log Files

- Data captured on server side
- Smallest data unit = By web element e.g. CSS, ico

2. JavaScript Tags

- Data captured on browser side
- Smallest data unit = By web page e.g. HTML


JavaScript-based WA

Benefits:

1. URL based
2. Cookies based
3. Easy installation with JavaScript tags
4. Allows customized setup to capture more user
actions / events
5. No / minimal data storage issue


JavaScript-based WA

Shortcomings:

1. May require good URL structure planning
2. No bot data e.g. Googlebot, baiduspider
3. No page error data
4. Doesn’t work on non JavaScript based browsers
5. JavaScript heavy web pages


JavaScript-based Web Analytics Tools

WA Examples:

1. Google Analytics
2. Yahoo Web Analytics
3. 百度统计 (Baidu) - CN
4. Adobe Site Catalyst - Paid
5. 99Click – CN / Paid
6. Piwik – Open Source


Google Analytics
Basic Setup
Multiple Sub-domains
Chinese Search Engines
Profile Filters


Google’s Web Data Cycle

1. Web users visit websites in the Internet
2. Google crawls the Web & stores web data in the Index
3. Google collects web data from sites using GA & stores web
data in GA servers
4. Google provides website’s organic search data to users
through GWT
5. Google provides website’s analytics data to users through
GA


How does Google Analytics (GA) work?

Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC):
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-1234567-8']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') +
'.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>

GA collects visitors’ web usage data on your site
through this basic GATC which is JavaScript based.

Make sure you install GATC on EVERY page of your
site.


How does Google Analytics (GA) work?

1. A web user visits a page on your site.
2. Your web server returns the page’s content and
the GATC to the user’s browser.
3. The GATC executes, captures the page view,
cookies & other visitor details and sends the data to
GA’s servers.
4. GA may send cookie data to the user’s browser.


Google Analytics Account Setup

To use GA,
1. Create a new Gmail or use your existing Gmail:
e.g. YourName@gmail.com

OR
2. Add your non-Gmail to Google Account:
e.g. https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount


Google Analytics Profile Setup

To set up GA, you’ll have to be a GA Administrator
with full access to your GA account

Create a GA profile


GATC Setup


GATC Setup - Standard

GATC (standard), if your site is on only one domain
& no sub-domain, e.g.
http://www.ctrip.com/

(function() {
})();
</script>


GATC Setup – Multiple Sub-domains

GATC (customized), if your site is on multiple sub-
domains, e.g.
http://hotels.ctrip.com/
http://flights.ctrip.com/

_gaq.push(['_setDomainName', '.ctrip.com']);
(function() {
})();
</script>



GATC Setup – Multiple Domains

GATC (customized), if your site is on multiple
domains & sub-domains, e.g.
http://www.lvping.com/
http://flights.ctrip.com/

_gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]);
(function() {
})();
</script>

_gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]);

GATC Setup – Chinese Search Engines

GATC (customized), if you are to track Soso, Sogou
& Youdao as Search Engine Referrals.
_gaq.push(['_addOrganic', 'soso', 'w']);
_gaq.push(['_addOrganic', 'sogou', 'query']);
_gaq.push(['_addOrganic', 'youdao', 'q']);
(function() {
})();
</script>

_gaq.push(['_addOrganic', 'soso', 'w']);
_gaq.push(['_addOrganic', 'sogou', 'query']);
_gaq.push(['_addOrganic', 'youdao', 'q']);


GA Setup – Profile Filters

Create filters to:

1. Remove traffic from internal IP addresses, e.g.
Your own IP
2. Remove traffic from internal domain names, e.g.
Intranet
3. Show all URLs in lowercase
4. Show all URLs with full paths


Profile Filter: Lowercase URLs

Lowercase URL filter consolidates URLs in different
cases into a single URL & makes it easy for you to
look at your web pages per URL in GA reports.

Without filter, 2 different entries (URLs) in GA:
www.example.com/INDEX.html 20 visits
www.example.com/index.html 100 visits

With filter, 1 entry (URL) in GA:
www.example.com/index.html 120 visits


Profile Filter: Lowercase URLs


Profile Filter: URLs in Full Path

For a multiple sub-domain site, 2 different URLs:
www.ctrip.com/index.html
hotels.ctrip.com/index.html

Without full path filter, URLs will show up in GA as:
/index.html
/index.html

Without full path filter, URLs will show up in GA as:
www.ctrip.com/index.html
hotels.ctrip.com/index.html


Profile Filter: URLs in Full Path

Regular Expression:
http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py


GA Profile: Best Practices

Two types of GA access:
1. Administrator = full access to GA account
e.g. You, the web analyst, should be the Admin

2. User = view access to all reports
e.g. Anyone else can be granted user access

Profile tips:
1. You can create multiple profiles for any one site
2. Always keep 1 profile without any filter
3. User access is profile based


Web Analytics
Reports & KPI Metrics
A Web Analyst’s Guide to focus on
SEO & SEM Analytics
through Google Analytics


Web Analytics Reports & KPI Metrics

1. Web Analysts
2. Basic Reporting
3. Goal Conversions
4. Segmentation
5. SEM Tracking
6. SEO Reports
7. Site Search


Web Analysts

What is a Web Analyst?

Web analysts are professionals who use digital
measurement tools, digitally collected data and
analysis skills to improve the Internet for
individuals and institutions

Digital (Web) Analytics Association


Web Analysts

According to Avinash Kaushik…

A Web Analyst's Typical Work Day
10%
20% Reporting

10% Analyze Acquisition
Strategies
Understanding On-site
Customer Experience
Staying Plugged into the
Context
20% 20% Explore New Strategic
Options
Take Breaks

20%


Basic Reporting

1. Trends on overall site traffic (i.e. visits)
2. % Direct vs. % Search vs. % Referring Sites
3. % New Visitor vs. % Returning Visitors
4. Visitor Frequency - Counts of visits
5. Visitor Recency - Days since last visit
6. Geography: countries, cities
7. Browsers, languages, mobile devices
8. Trends on SEO/SEM traffic
9. Top SEO keywords
10. Top SEM keywords
11. Top pages
12. Top landing pages
13. Site search
14. In-page analytics i.e. click distribution

Basic Reporting

Decide Reporting Frequency:
1. Daily, 2. Weekly, 3. Monthly, 4. Quarterly

Metrics:
1. Visitors vs. Visits
2. Visits vs. Page Views
3. Page Views vs. Unique Page Views
4. New Visitors vs. Returning Visitors
5. Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate
6. Time on Site vs. Time on Page
7. Clicks vs. Visits


Weekly Reports

Run these reports once a week:

1. Your site’s trend by visits i.e. How many visits
per day this week vs. last week vs. this week last
year?

2. Top 10 countries or top 10 cities by visits?

3. Top 20 pages by page views?

4. Top 100 SEO keywords by visits?

5. Top 100 SEM keywords by visits?


Direct Traffic vs. Search Engines vs. Referring Sites

Monitor fluctuation in traffic source types
Report frequency = Weekly


Direct Traffic vs. Search Engines vs. Referring Sites

Examples on Analysis:

DT=65%, SE=10%, RS=25%
Strong brand but low SE traffic - Need to improve
SEO & SEM

DT=15%, SE=40%, RS=45%
Weak brand - Need to improve brand awareness

DT=20%, SE=70%, RS=12%
Too reliant on SE traffic – Need to diversify traffic
sources


New Visitors vs. Returning Visitors

Monitor fluctuation in visitor types
Report frequency = Weekly


New Visitors vs. Returning Visitors

Examples on Analysis:

New=85%, Returning=15%
1. A new website, OR website is unable retain users
2. Need a plan to retain new users

New=20%, Returning=80%
1. Monetizing through repeat users
2. Need to a plan to acquire new users


Reports (Once Every 6 Months)

Run these reports once every 6 months:

1. How often do people visit your site?

2. What were the last time people visited your site?

3. What browsers (e.g. IE7, 8, 9, Firefox, Chrome)?

4. What mobile devices (e.g. IPhone, IPad, etc)?


Daily Reports

Whether you track sign-ups & orders through GA or
your internal system, run this report every day:


GA Goals

Track site conversions through GA’s goals.

Set up one of the goal types:
1. URL destination
2. Visit duration
3. Page / visit
4. Event


GA Goals


GA Goal Funnels

Typical goal funnel URLs:

1. www.example.com/search-list/
2. www.example.com/product-details/
3. www.example.com/checkout/
4. www.example.com/payment-info/
5. www.example.com/delivery-info/
6. www.example.com/confirm-info/
7. www.example.com/complete/ (GOAL)


GA Goal Funnels – Reservation Booked


GA Goal Funnels – Purchase Made


Segmentation – Traffic Sources

Segment by Traffic Sources:

(none) / direct
google / organic
baidu / organic
google cpc
baidu cpc
hao123.com / referral
chinatravel.net / referral
twitter / referral
facebook / referral


Segmentation – Traffic Sources

Traffic Metrics by Traffic Sources:

Conversion Metrics by Traffic Sources:


Segmentation - Direct Traffic

Is Direct Traffic Really Direct Traffic?

1. Direct typing in address bar of browser
2. Browser bookmarks
3. Untagged links through Windows Live (MSN)
Messenger, emails, PDF documents, etc
4. Lost referral value e.g. Cookies reset

Some direct traffic of your site comes through
organic search as brand keywords e.g. Ctrip,
Amazon, Taobao


Segmentation - Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate represents the percentage of initial
visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different
site, rather than continue on to other pages within
the same site. Wikipedia.org

Bounce Rate = Visits Viewing 1 Page / Total Visits


Segmentation – Types of Visits

3 Types of Visits to a Site:

Non-bounced &
Converted Visits

Non-bounced
Visits

All Visits


Segmentation - Page Views / Visits

How important is Page Views / Visits?


Segmentation – Advanced Segments

Segment: Traffic Metrics & Conversion Metrics by
Traffic Sources of all Non-bounce Visits


Segmentation – Non-bounced Visits

Again, Traffic Metrics by Traffic Sources (but, of all
non-bounced visits):


SEM Tracking

Your website may have both SEO & SEM traffic.

Ensure all SEM visits are tracked & appear in GA
Traffic Sources report as:

google / cpc
baidu / cpc

If SEM visits aren’t correctly tracked, they will mix
up in organic (SEO) visits & appear as:

google / organic
baidu / organic


SEM Tracking - Google AdWords

Link all your Google AdWords accounts to your
Google Analytics account

Enable auto-tagging in Google AdWords


SEM Tracking – Other Search Engines

Tag your all your Baidu SEM URLs:

utm_source=baidu
utm_medium=cpc
utm_term=web+analytics+2.0
utm_campaign =analytics+books

http://www.example.com/?utm_source=baidu&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=web%2Banalytics%2B2.0&utm_cam

Use Google’s URL Builder to generate the tagged
URL (or just use Excel):
http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578


Four Stages of SEO

Four Stages of SEO:

1. Pages Indexed in Search Engines (e.g. Google)

2. Keyword Ranking

3. SEO Visits to Your Site

5. SEO Conversions


SEO Reports

The purpose of SEO reports are for monitoring:

1. Traffic Trends (i.e. Entire Site, Per Sub-domain,
Per Site Section)

2. Spider Behavior (e.g. googlebot, baiduspider)

3. Page Errors (i.e. Status Codes 404, 302, etc)

4. Keyword Ranking


SEO Reports – SEO Visits

Daily Traffic Trends with Week-over-week & Year-
over-year Comparison e.g. Google Organic Visits


SEO Reports – SEO Visits

Daily Traffic Trends by Sub-Domains & by Site
Sections e.g. Google Organic Visits


SEO Reports – Pages Indexed

Pages Indexed by e.g. Google, by Sub-domains, by
Site Sections


SEO Reports – Keyword Ranking

Keyword Ranking report:


SEO Reports – GWT, Web Log Files

Spider data & Page Error data can be found from 2
sources:

1. Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)
2. Your Site’s Web Log Files

Google Webmaster Tools provide SEO reports with
basic & limited data, but is ready for access & easy
to use.

Web Log files have full data, but aren’t easy to use
& will require your web administrator & software
developer to extract the data for you.


SEO Reports – Log Files

1. Pages crawled per googlebot IP
2. Kilobytes downloaded per googlebot IP
3. Time spent per page per googlebot IP


SEO Reports – Log Files

Page Errors: Pages with Status Codes 404 (not
found) or 302 (moved temporarily)


SEO Reports – Landing Pages

How much does a page contribute to conversions?

1. Top Landing Pages by Visits
2. Top Landing Pages by Conversions


Site Search

Site search allows visitors find products on your
site by entering keywords.


Site Search

Site search data allows you to understand visitors’
intent:

1. What products do people search the most?

2. What is a product’s conversion rate?
i.e. No. of items sold / No. of searches

3. What do people search for that you don’t have?


Site Search – Seasonal Trends

The popularity of the top site search keywords may
change in different months & in different seasons.


Site Search – Online Travel Sites

Some websites provide “restricted” site search

e.g. Hotel search on an online travel site:
Beijing, 01Apr2012, 03Apr2012, Swissotel Beijing, 2000,
Chaoyang, 5


Google Analytics Tips
URL Structure, Dashboards,
Multi Channel Funnels,
Real Time Report, Custom Reports
Annotations, Visitors Flow,
Cookies, Data Sampling


URL Structure: Best Practices

Good URL structure allows quick retrieval of data
through filtering reports by URLs:

tripadvisor.com/Hotels-
tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-
tripadvisor.com/VacationRentals-
tripadvisor.com/Attractions-



Problematic URLs in Goal Funnel:

1. www.example.com/search-list/ (Search Results)
2. www.example.com/product-details/ (Product)
3. www.example.com/checkout/ (Checkout)
4. www.example.com/payment-info/ (Payment Info)
4. www.example.com/payment-info/ (Delivery Info)
4. www.example.com/payment-info/ (Confirm Info)
5. www.example.com/complete/ (GOAL)



Make it easy to record granular SEO data:

site:tripadvisor.com/Hotels atlantic city
site:tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review atlantic city
site:tripadvisor.com/VacationRentals
site:tripadvisor.com/Attractions

49,900 pages (of this type) indexed by Google


GA Dashboards


GA Real-time Report


GA Annotations


GA Custom Reports


GA Visitors Flow


GA Multi Channel Funnels

Top Conversion Paths – Some traffic sources or
paid/advertising channels aren’t the last click before
conversions, but did contribute to conversions.


GA Cookies - Definition

An HTTP cookie is a parcel of text sent back and forth
between a web browser and the server it accesses.

Cookies are used to differentiate one user from another and to
pass information from page to page during a single user's
website session.

A web server uses cookies to collect data about a given
browser, along with the information requested and sent by the
visitor.

Cookies do not identify people, but rather they are defined
themselves by a combination of a computer, a user account,
and a browser.

Google


GA Cookies – Types of Cookies

What do these GA cookies do?

__utma
Visitor identifier, expires in 2 years

__utmb
Session identifier, expires in 30 minutes

__utmz
Traffic source identifier, expires in 6 months


GA Sampled Data

Sampling is that part of statistical practice concerned with the
selection of an unbiased or random subset of individual observations
within a population of individuals intended to yield some knowledge
about the population of concern, especially for the purposes of
making predictions based on statistical inference. Sampling is an
important aspect of data collection. Wikipedia.org

When does GA provide Sampled Data?

1. Any non pre-computed ad hoc query that reaches 500,000
visits (sessions).
2. Any query that exceeds 1,000,000 unique dimension
combinations.

Traffic Trends is more important in GA reports!


Google Analytics
Advanced Setup
Social Media Tracking



Track the social media performance through GA:

1. Facebook Like button
2. Facebook Share button
3. Twitter Tweet button
4. Google +1 button

If you have the buttons installed on your website,
you want to track the button clicks.



Add customized GA codes to your buttons

Track Facebook Like button clicks on your site:
_gaq.push(['_trackSocial', 'facebook', 'like', 'http://www.your-
website.com/social.php']);

Track Facebook Share button clicks on your site:
_gaq.push(['_trackSocial', 'facebook', ‘share', 'http://www.your-

Track Twitter Tweet button clicks on your site:
_gaq.push(['_trackSocial', ‘twitter', ‘tweet', 'http://www.your-

Click tracking for Google +1 is built-in to GA



Tag your all your Twitter Tweet URLs:

utm_source=twitter
utm_medium=social
utm_term=web+analytics+2.0
utm_campaign =analytics+books

http://www.example.com/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=web%2Banalytics%2B2.0&ut

Use Google’s URL Builder to generate the tagged
URL (or just use Excel):
http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578


Web Analytics
References
WA Blogs
WA Books
GA Official Support


WA & SE Blogs

http://analytics.blogspot.com
http://www.kaushik.net
http://cutroni.com/blog/
http://www.roirevolution.com/blog/
http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/
http://www.visualrevenue.com/blog
http://www.webanalyticsworld.net
http://www.hongkongwebanalytics.com
http://bluewhale.cc （中文）
http://www.seomoz.org
http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics


WA & SE Books

Web analytics & search engine books:

Web Analytics - An hour a day
Web Analytics 2.0
Avinash Kaushik

Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics
Brian Clifton

Search Engine Marketing, Inc.
Bill Hunt & Mike Moran


Gordon Choi Online

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/gordonchoi

Google+:
https://plus.google.com/108099088932620717110/

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/ppcblog

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gordonchoi

Quora:
http://www.quora.com/Gordon-Choi

Weibo:
http://weibo.com/ppcblog

Q&A

Thank you!

gordonppc@gmail.com


Web Analytics Essentials - Gordon Choi

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