Web Analytics / Metrics at Smithsonian

Web Analytics at Smithsonian 11/18/2011 Brian AlpertWeb Analytics and Search Engine Marketing Analyst Smithsonian Institution

Table of Contents• Overview• Challenges• Tools• Google Analytics Dashboard• Case Studies• Measuring Social Media• Qualitative Analysis• Well-Meaning Advice 2

Smithsonian is extremely active, digitally Over 140 websites  Museums, Archives, Libraries, Scientific  Educational Programs  Smithsonian Enterprises Social media  100+ facebook pages  70+ twitter feeds Mobile strategy  Nancy Proctor‟s five-year strategy currently in second of four phases 3

Our challenges, your challenges The web at SI is as diverse as the objects in the museums, but… SI web staff have a lot in common  Wear many hats  Carefully allocate precious time  Frequently manage social media  Work in small teams  Different levels of technical expertise They can’t devote a lot of time to analytics But… analytics is a thoughtful, time-intensive process A well defined, tightly focused approach is the key 4

Our tools, your tools  Tool-of-choice for day-to-day analysis and segmentation  What began informally is now ubiquitous and supported  Logfile analysis to produce the “Big Numbers”  The only realistic way to report apples-to-apples for 140 websites  Ability to reanalyze data comes in handy  Legacy data dating back over a decade  HootSuite Enterprise social media management and tracking 5

Google Analytics Custom Dashboard Manageable number of recommended metrics A foundation to make data actionable Requires no development budget – just GA and Excel Easily updated and customized Designed:  To help orient one toward action  To help communicate to management 6

The dashboard is presentation-friendlySummary definesand puts themetric in context Red/Yellow/GreenChart shows status markerssegmented data show each metric‟strended over time. status at-a-glance. „Action‟ section answers the question “So what?”Suggestions for • Key Trends and InsightsPossible • Impact on Website / UnitAdditional • Steps Being TakenSegments. 7

Segmentation example – All Visits data looks one way... Key Trends and Insights Minimal loyalty group (purple) downward trend indicates improving content engagement High loyalty group (blue) upward trend indicates sameThis Impact of this Data on the Site or Program• This good-looking chart may indicate high content engagement and/or perceived value• This data may correlate to increasing conversion behaviorsActing on this Data• Identify moderate and high loyalty pages as a means of duplicating, or improving others• Examining conversion behaviors of these segments may yield addl insights• Correlating high bounce rate pages to one-time visits may yield addl insights•Test different content types in an attempt to move minimal visitors into moderate group 8

…But applying segmentation tells a different story Key Trends and Insights Minimal loyalty group upward trend indicates organic listings are not appropriately targeted Moderate loyalty group downward trend indicates same High loyalty group trending slightly downward, in contrast to previous chart‟sThis Impact of this Data on the Site or Program upward slope• Organic search listings are driving poorly-targeted traffic• Will result in decreased organic search performance over timeActing on this Data• Refocus title tags, meta-description tags and page content for important pages• Perform link analysis to see where other SEO improvements can be made 9

Case Studies 10

Ocean Portal Analysis Analyze ocean.si.edu data from June ‟10 – January ‟11  Assess sites performance  Suggest new measurements  Understand visitor behavior  Competitive analysis  Determine benchmarks  Estimate sites growth potential  Recommendations 11

Frequency of Visits – All Site Visitors Key Trends and Insights Minimal frequency group upward trend indicates less willingness to visit the site over time, which may indicate difficulty finding or navigating content. Moderate loyalty group downward trend indicates same. High loyaltyImpact group also trends• Site visitors visiting the site less frequently over time negatively impacts the project goals of downward, but the“fostering a desire to learn more, to continually share and to move visitors along a continuum of overall range islearning toward action.” encouraging.Recommended Steps• A-B test premise that visitors are having a difficult time finding content due to nav/U-I issue• Replace complex site map with a simpler HTML version 12

Frequency of Visits – Social Media Visitors Key Trends and Insights Segmented group trends are „streaky,‟ indicating interest correlating to social media program activity. Moderate loyalty group trend is flat but in the same % range as other segments. High loyalty group share is much higher thanImpact either of the other• Social media visitors visiting the site erratically over time could impede the project goals of “fostering a segmentsdesire to learn more, to continually share and to move visitors along a continuum of learning toward analyzed,action.” indicating strong relationshipRecommended Steps between OP• Consider ways to more consistently execute social media/blog efforts content and this• Engage qualitative effort to gauge possible U-I or search issues, and/or uncover other engagement- audience.related characteristics. 13

Followup – Frequency of Visits – All Site Visitors Key Trends and Insights Minimal frequency group trend has leveled off; whether or not the trend will shift downward is TBD. Moderate loyalty group trend has reversed and is now trending up. High loyalty group isImpact significantly fallen• The moderate group of visitors visiting the site more frequently over time positively impacts off, reflecting thethe project goals of “fostering a desire to learn more, to continually share and to move visitors new primary trafficalong a continuum of learning toward action.” source (social media), and theRecommended Steps fact that traffic has• Strategize ways to boost high frequency group. skyrocketed.• Other social strategies, SEO / paid search / serialized blog 14

Followup – Frequency of Visits – Social Media Visitors Key Trends and Insights Minimal frequency group trending more sharply upward than all-visits group, and is still somewhat „streaky.‟ Moderate loyalty group trend is also trending up. September‟s # is the highest in site history. As expected,Impact high loyalty• Crossing of the blue and orange trends reiterates learnings from previous slide group has fallen off even more• The site may be over-reliant on social media traffic, and should consider ways to balance the sharply than thetraffic mix. „all visits‟Recommended Steps segment.• Strategize ways to boost high frequency group.• Other social strategies, SEO / paid search / serialized blog 15

Smithsonian Archives Strategic Analysis Step one: Smithsonian Archives (SIA) web team worked with management to articulate their organizational goals:  Increase influence  Become the definitive source on Smithsonian history  Illuminate the Institution as a research and educational catalyst  Make gains in outreach  Increase audience engagement w/ website content  Expand audience awareness of, use of, and access to SIA collections and resources  Increase understanding of the diversity and relevance of resources and collections 16

Increase Influence Become the definitive source on Smithsonian history Strategies  Search engine performance as a proxy for increased authority  Increase engagement, decrease bounce rates on history content Tactics  Create Smithsonian History features that are easily repurposed by other SI units  SEO and GA segmentation tactics for history content  Techniques to minimize bounce rate  Assess U-I and interior linking  Assess SEO keyword/results targeting Measurement  Measure relevance, authority via Open Site Explorer  Engagement metrics for history content  Frequency/length/depth of visits  Segment types of history-related visits (long, short, etc.) Will changes to on-page links lower bounce  Create length-of-visit conversions and assign $Index value rate from Search and Social Media segments?  Decrease in history content bounce rates  Number of pages/keywords referred by search engines  Track history content repurposing 17

Measuring Social Media Not unlike the web‟s early days, units largely measure quantity We use HootSuite Enterprise for an SI-wide Dashboard  Aggregate FB likes and Twitter followers  Will also be counting YouTube and Flickr views (API development) Units want to do more; are receptive to newer metrics  Influence  Engaged Users  Conversation (“People talking about this”) Units with a more strategic focus use additional tools  PostRank (acquired by Google)  Klout (inbound messages per outbound message = conversion rate)  Beth Kanter‟s spreadsheet aerobics  EdgeRank (tracks success of Facebook posts)  SocialBro (helps determine best time to tweet) 18

Qualitative Analysis Incorporate the “voice of the customer” in decision making  Surveys  Learn directly from site users  Complete the picture by adding to quantitative data  Confirm or deny hypotheses  Usability testing  Confirm or deny hypotheses  Uncover new hypotheses for consideration  A-B or Multivariate Testing  Not everyone thinks the way we do  …Knows what we know  …Uses the Web the way we do  Google Website Optimizer is a limited, but free tool As Avinash Kaushik says*  “Your Web Analytics 2.0 strategy must include at least a few methods of actually listening to your customers. This way, you stay on top of their expectations, and you also gain the key context you need, the why, for making sense of your what, which is your Clickstream (i.e., quantitative) data.” * Web Analytics 2.0, page 169 19

Well-Meaning Advice Start with specific goals and objectives – it‟s the only way to know what to measure  If they‟re not clearly articulated, make them up!  …then take them to management  This will get the ideas flowing  Don‟t measure too much!  It‟s easy to do and you don‟t have time  Pick a few metrics that make sense for your objectives  You can always change them When presenting, tell a story, with the focus on action  Trends and Insights (what‟s happening)  Impact (why it matters)  What you are doing about it Reorient management away from useless “quantity of stuff” metrics 20

Thanks! Brian Alpert Smithsonian Institution alpertb@si.edu 202-633-3955 21

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Web Analytics / Metrics at Smithsonian

by Brian Alpert on Nov 23, 2011

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Web Analytics / Metrics at Smithsonian Presentation Transcript