How to start using web analytics within an organisation

While everyone appears to think it is only them who are barely scratching the surface with web analytics, most companies that I have spoken to are in a similar position.  They may have a web analytics tool implemented on their website and know how to look at unique visitors and page views but are unsure [...]

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Which is the right metric to use?

I get asked sometimes which is the best metric to use when creating a certain report. My rough rule of thumb is to go back and ask what sort of question it is that you are trying to answer with this report. If it is related to: the number of people, use unique visitors traffic [...]

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Basic Report Items for Site Performance

As I discussed in my first couple of posts, there are some basic metrics that I look at when evaluating the performance of a website e.g. unique visitors, page views, etc. I am going to describe here how to set up a report in Sitestat that contains all these basic metrics. This report can be [...]

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Data gets lonely

Any metric by itself is inherently meaningless. It is a number, a percentage, a ratio but without something to compare it to, there is no way of knowing if it is good, bad or indifferent. The metric needs to be compared against something in order to give it meaning.

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Your First Metrics – Part 2

Engagement Metrics The set of metrics that I listed in the post last week (visits, visitors and interactions) could be described as the basic traffic metrics. Each are absolute numbers as opposed to a percentage or ratio and each can be used to describe the popularity of the website during the previous period. The following [...]

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Your First Metrics – Part 1

Why are we talking about metrics and not insights? The common theme that runs through any discussion of web analytics is that the industry needs to move beyond a focus on metrics and simply providing reports to instead focusing on the provision of insights and recommendations. I totally agree, in order to add value to [...]

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