Web Analytics What Is Going On

Web Analytics: What is going on? Dan Lucarelli Director – Marketing & Education Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc. www.dlucarelli.com

Survey: How many are using some form of Analytics?

Agenda • Web Analytics defined • Logs vs Analytics • AWSTATS • Web Analytics: Google Style • How to set up Google Analytics • The Hard Part: Defining what you want

Web Analytics Defined Web Analytics – The process of collection, measurement and analysis of user activity on a website to understand and help achieve the intended objective of the website. Definitions retrieved February 11, 2009, from: http://www.outsource2india.com/webanalytics/glossary.asp

Web Analytics defined Web Analytics is software that generates metrics: – How many times a file is accessed; – How many pages are served; – How many unique IP addresses. • Analytics can: – Calculate the most popular pages; – Count the time spent on a page; – Figure out the ‘bounce’ rate Source: Google Analytics 2.0, Ledford and Tyler, Wiley Publishing (2007), ISBN 978-0-470-17501-9, p. 5.

Why use Analytics? • Analytics helps you improve your site’s purpose. – What is your site’s purpose? • Serve customers? (Members) • Sell things? • Distribute content? – Need to answer the ‘purpose’ question first

Logs vs Analytics • Logs = what • Analytics = what happened from the happened from the Server perspective. User perspective – Infer what happened – Track usage with by examining log files cookies, timestamps, on the Web server scripts, page names in a database

Logs vs Analytics

Unique Users • Logs: • Analytics: – IP address – Users and sessions • Firewall at a company (cookies) site • n Users behind the • one user for the entire firewall company

Page Views • Logs: • Analytics: – Number of pages – Number of pages and the time spent on each page

Log file analyzer • Software to make sense of Server logs – AWSTATS, Logaholic, Splunk, others – Almost always offered by a hosting service – Minimalistic logs and analysis in IIS

Getting started with Analytics Step by Step

Step 1: Create an Account • https://www.google.com/accounts/Login

Step 2: Log in to Analytics • https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/login

Step 3: Sign Up

Step 4: Agree to Terms

Step 5: Get the Code

Step 6: Add the code to your Web Site <HTML> <HEAD> <title>Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc.</title> <meta content=quot;Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1quot; name=quot;GENERATORquot;> <meta content=quot;Visual Basic .NET 7.1quot; name=quot;CODE_LANGUAGEquot;> <meta content=quot;JavaScriptquot; name=quot;vs_defaultClientScriptquot;> <meta content=quot;http://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5quot; name=quot;vs_targetSchemaquot;> <LINK href=quot;index16.cssquot; type=quot;text/cssquot; rel=quot;StyleSheetquot;> <link rel=quot;SHORTCUT ICONquot; href=quot;http://www.pa1call.org/images/1call.icoquot;> <script language=quot;javascriptquot; src=quot;index16pr.jsquot;></script> </HEAD> The Google Analytics code goes here, just before the <body> tag on the page… <body id=quot;thebodyquot; bgColor=quot;#004e82quot;>

The finished page… <HTML> <HEAD> <title>Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc.</title> <meta content=quot;Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1quot; name=quot;GENERATORquot;> <meta content=quot;Visual Basic .NET 7.1quot; name=quot;CODE_LANGUAGEquot;> <meta content=quot;JavaScriptquot; name=quot;vs_defaultClientScriptquot;> <meta content=quot;http://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5quot; name=quot;vs_targetSchemaquot;> <LINK href=quot;index16.cssquot; type=quot;text/cssquot; rel=quot;StyleSheetquot;> <link rel=quot;SHORTCUT ICONquot; href=quot;http://www.pa1call.org/images/1call.icoquot;> <script language=quot;javascriptquot; src=quot;index16pr.jsquot;></script> </HEAD> <script type=quot;text/javascriptquot;> var gaJsHost = ((quot;https:quot; == document.location.protocol) ? quot;https://ssl.quot; : quot;http://www.quot;); document.write(unescape(quot;%3Cscript src='quot; + gaJsHost + quot;google‐analytics.com/ga.js‘ type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3Equot;)); </script> <script type=quot;text/javascriptquot;> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(quot;UA‐xxxxxxx‐1quot;); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script> <body id=quot;thebodyquot; bgColor=quot;#004e82quot;>

Add the code to every page • The Google Analytics code must be added to every page on your Web site to be effective. – Google can track links and user paths through the site – Bounce rate – Time on site – Goals

Now What?

Now What? • Wait. A week or so. Give Google time to collect data from users on your site. • Check to see if the code was installed properly: • Log in to: http://analytics.google.com

Green Check = Code Working Xxxxxx‐x Xxxxxx‐x

Basic reports and Graphs Xxxxxx‐x

The Dashboard

Drill-down - Visits

Users by Geography

User Trending

Entrance Page…

… and Exit Page

The Dashboard can be rearranged

Review

Review • If you have a Web site, you should be analyzing traffic • You can analyze server-side (logs) or user- side (proactive analysis tools) • User-side analysis gives more insights • There are good-to-very good tools available at no cost (Google Analytics)

Questions? (Thanks! for your time!) Dan Lucarelli Director – Marketing & Education Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc. www.dlucarelli.com

Web Analytics What Is Going On

by Dan Lucarelli on Jun 09, 2009

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Web Analytics What Is Going On — Presentation Transcript