This document provides an overview of key analytics terms and metrics for analyzing website traffic, including audience, acquisition, behavior, sessions, pageviews, readership totals, popular stories, new vs returning visitors, and setting reasonable traffic targets. It explains how to interpret analytics data to understand how users find and engage with a site in order to inform content strategy, promotion, and growth goals. The goal is to achieve steady, consistent traffic growth over time through frequent, on-brand posting and community building.

1. WCLIhCoK’sING?
School Newspapers Online
www.snosites.com

2. ANALYZING
ANALYTICS your
SOME VOCABULARY

3. AUDIENCE 1• Audience is the umbrella term for people who are
ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
visiting your site.
• Subcategories available for:
• demographics
• interests
• behavior
• browser
• device

4. 2ACQUISITION • Acquisition is the term for the various methods
that visitors came to your site — how your site
“acquired” them.
• Acquisition is broken down by channels, or
methods.
ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

5. BEHAVIOR 3• Behavior is the term for the actions taken by
visitors to your site — what they looked at and
clicked on, how long they did these, when they
left and from where.
• Behavior is divided into content, speed and
search.
ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

6. SESSIONS 4• A session is the period time a user is actively
engaged with your website.
• All usage data (Screen Views, Events, Ecommerce,
etc.) is associated with a session.
ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

7. 5PAGEVIEWS • Pageviews is the total number of pages viewed.
• Repeated views of a single page are counted.
ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

8. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
Analytics
Some Options
•Google
•Chartbeat
•On-site page views counter
•Other?

9. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
Analytics
Our Focus
•Google
•Chartbeat
•On-site page views counter
•Other?

10. ANALYZING
ANALYTICS your
UNDERSTANDING THE CHARTS

11. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
How?
Where visitors were
before they came to your site

12. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
Determine…
•how visitors discover your content.
•how visitors navigated to your site.

13. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
Why?
This information will help you know how people
find your site.
Use this data to make decisions about where and
how to post on social media, using Google+ and
other methods of finding an audience.

14. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
Commentary…
•Target ranges, based on SNO sites:
•Social should be about 25-40%
•Direct should be about 25-35%
•Search should be about 30-40%
•Referral should be about 10-20%
•If an acquisition method is disproportionate, ask
why.

15. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
How?
Increasingly, visitors access
the Web via mobile devices.

16. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
Determine…
•how many people visit your site from a
•phone.
•tablet.
•desktop.
•laptop.

17. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
Why?
This information will help you determine how
people are accessing your site.
Use this to remind yourself to check how your site
looks on mobile devices.

18. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
ACQUISITION
Commentary…
•You should view your site on mobile devices (and
with multiple browsers) to see what your visitors
see.

19. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
How?
Low traffic well below
100 pageviews per day

20. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
How?
Solid traffic of about
100 pageviews per day

21. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
Determine…
•how many visitors come to your site.
•Visitors
•Pageviews
•Pageviews per session

22. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
Why?
This information will help you determine your
site’s popularity and when visitors come.
Use this data to determine when to post on social
media and what to add to story pages to keep
readers clicking on story after story.
Use this data to gain advertisers.

23. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
Commentary…
•Target ranges, based on SNO sites:
•Meh: 25 pageviews per day
•Epic: 1,000 pageviews per day
•Target: 75-100 pageviews per day
•Know your typical traffic to identify when you
have a viral story.
•Promote to maintain weekend traffic.

24. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
How?
Lots of new visitors who only
looked at one page then left.

25. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
Determine…
•what percentage of visitors are new.
•what percentage of visitors are returning.
(These totals won’t be pure because visitors clear their
browsing history, use other devices, etc.)
•what percentage of visitors enter the site and
"bounce" or leave the site rather than viewing
other pages within the same site.

26. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
Why…
This information will help you understand your
audience.
Use this to evaluate your staff’s promotional
methods and goals.
Use this to determine ways of keeping viewers
on the site.

27. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
READERSHIP TOTALS
Commentary…
•The goal should be to have about half returning
and half new. Aim for loyal readership.
•This will vary throughout the school year. You
many have more new readers at the start of the
school year or after a breaking news story.
•Find ways to keep readers on the site: hyperlinks,
related stories, etc.

28. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
BEHAVIOR
How?
Track the number of hits each story
gets.

29. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
BEHAVIOR
Determine…
•which stories are getting the most viewers.
•the total number of stories viewed per session.

30. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
BEHAVIOR
Why…
This information will help you determine what
stories interest your readers.
Use this data to help guide story ideas and story
format.

31. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
BEHAVIOR
Commentary…
•Be aware of stories that get an abnormal number
of views and ask what made it spike. Was it …
•time
•topic
•method of promotion
•search of a popular/viral term

32. ANALYZING
ANALYTICS your
WHAT’S YOUR TARGET?

33. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Determine…
•Set a reasonable expectation.
•Make a plan to reach that target.

34. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Details.
•Your site will build traffic over time as you
become more established.
•More frequent posts
•Wider audience
•You want to steadily increase your pageviews.

35. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Advice.
•You want steady traffic. Post frequently and
consistently.
•Don’t dump your content all at once.
•Remember to resurface content and to promote
with “ICYMI” and “best of” posts.

36. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Avoid this!
Infrequent posting
then content dump.

37. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Peaks/valleys =
little weekend traffic

38. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Steady weekday traffic

39. ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS
YOUR TARGET
Mostly steady traffic
with a few spikes
Good balance of new
and returning visitors
Average of more than 21,000
pageviews per month!

40. QUESTIONS?
Fire away!
School Newspapers Online
contact@snosites.com schoolnewspapersonline.com