It’s been said that “good designers redesign, great designers realign“. Design is a continual process of refinement, realignment and improvement. But how do you decide what needs refining? Do you make informed decisions or are you grasping at straws in the dark?
Web site statistics hold the key to making informed decisions, but throwing a little Google Analytics code on your site isn’t really enough.
In this half-day workshop you will learn how to use web statistics to better refine your designs. Get the basics of what all those analytics numbers mean, learn how to set measurable goals, and define conversions. Then take it to the next level with the Google Website Optimizer, A/B and multivariate testing.
[2024]Digital Global Overview Report 2024 Meltwater.pdf
Notas del editor
I’m not going to stand up here and talk for 3 hours.
Name, Responsibility, Background and What you hope to get out of this
Should be ~130
What judgment do you use to make decisions? Do you just guess, is it on hunches, based on what a few people tell you? Because you say so?
Key Objectives to Measure
• Increase awareness and reach of your site
• Showcase student life & the authencity of the University experience
• Engage visitors with relevant content
• Drive repeat visitors
• Increase applications (online and off)
• Increase campus visits
So what is important to me? What should I be tracking?
Admission Specific
Apply to College
Schedule a Campus Visit
Request Info
Download the Viewbook
Take a Virtual Tour
General Goals
Sign up for eConnect updates
Watch Videos
Subscribe to RSS
Become Facebook Fan, Member of a Group
Join Linked In
Read Blogs
Anything you can think of that I have missed?
Things that you can do from your homepage (or should be able to do)
You have 15 minutes
Volunteer a few peeps to share their thoughts
Should be ~2:10
A visitor is already on your site, aim low, just one click
Analytics is only one small piece in of the Realign Process
It’s Cheap.
It’s the only thing to defeat the Highest paid person in the room
It also builds trust
Higher pageviews is not always better
More could mean harder to find what a user wants?
Low pageviews could be excellent navigation
Not meaningful statistic
The average time on a site is the time on each page not including the time on the final page because we have no way of knowing this
Bounces are not necessarily a bad thing
Traffic Types (Source/Medium)
Direct (none)
Referral – from another site
Custom
Search Traffic
Organic – generic search
PPC
CPC
Custom – set by variables
Should be at ~220
Make sure you know everything in YOUR context.
One account for all your domains. If it’s not setup now do it tomorrow or today!
Try to stay here till 230
Should go in the head
Always use multi domain
Up to 100 Unique profiles can be saved
Decide with our without www will come back more to this later
Setup your default page based on your scripting language (index.html, index.php, etc)
Excluding URL Query Parameters that might not mean anything. Maybe a return variable that means something to the page, but isn’t useful for tracking purposes
Site Search is valuable for if you have an internal search on your site that uses a certain variable to track.
Combining pages to remove bloat
Internal vs. External visitors have completely different motivations
Filter to just a certain directory
Knowing there people are coming from, the exact page is mega important
Campaigns! Be sure to use this for EVERYTHING!
Keep track in a Google Doc so it can be shared
Make sure to setup filters so these don’t skew your central account
Should be 3
Goto your homepage and figure out a goal
How would someone get to that site?
15 minutes to do this
Get a volunteer to show theirs
Should be ~330
Understand Behavior
Small Changes Make Big Differences
Defeat People
It is fun and addicting
Develop two versions of a page
Randomly show different versions to users
Track how users perform
Evaluate (that's where statistics comes in)
Use the better version
Casual Decisions
Important Decisions (tougher)
Points of Concern / Issues
Marketing
Lots of traffic
Complicated Changes
Things that don’t result in a conversion
Unmesurables
Low traffic pages - around 100 conversions per page variation
Should be ~340
Who can tell me the difference between these two pages?
Think the fold matters?
We decided to test it..
Three variations..
Should be ~400
Give them 15 minutes
Try to show one from a volunteer
Using Google Website Optimizer
Be sure to redirect any URL’s you create back to the original when done