This practical guide explains the basics of Web analytics, measuring conversions and developing a meaningful measurement process to optimize your Web site performance.

A Guide to Understanding Web Analytics and Converting Information into Business Value

If you don't have a clear sense of your Web site business objectives, or for that matter, your measurement of your success on meeting those objectives, you're not alone. But as Bob Dylan stated years ago, "the times they are a changing".  And that statement is very true when it comes to executives and managers wanting to know more about their Web site's potential.  When speaking with decision makers today, most will tell you that turning Web site visitors into Web site 'actions' and converting them is their most important Web site objective.
   
To better understand the power of your Web site investment, especially if you have a 'Web 1st' marketing strategy, collecting data on how your visitors interact on your Web site, and then studying that activity and behavior, is known as Web analytics. 

An important Web analytics term we also need to fully understand is visitor conversion. Generally, the Web analytics meaning of conversion is the turning of Web site visitors into customers.  It's one thing to get users to your site, but it's another to get them to interact with you. Most Internet visitors guard their identities very closely, making it very difficult to convert them into prospects and customers.  Specifically, conversion is the completion of a specific task or desired action by a Web site visitor that helps you achieve your business objectives. The key is to know when and how to ask a Web site visitor to take an action or perform a task, and then to know if your plan is working. Web site tracking and analytics is therefore essential for success.

Interestingly enough, many decision makers are not making the investment to measure their Web site objectives using Web analytic software.  There are many reasons given for executives and managers to holding off on this investment. These include a lack of understanding of what software is on the market; what to measure; and how hard it will be to integrate and set-up the actual business process of making actionable changes to a Web site based on the information uncovered.

Below is a simple view of the Web analytics process and the three main levels of organizational implementation of a Web analytics program. This will help you decide to what level you need to go to ensure the measurement success of your marketing and communications campaigns.  Each level determines what kind of software you need.

The Three Levels of Web Analysis:

1. Web Statistical / Traffic Reporting Analysis
This tells you the basic information you need to know about your Web site. These reports look at trends of your monthly visitors, page views, search engine referrers, keyword phrases used and other 3rd party referring Web sites. This solution is most commonly provided by your Web Hosting Provider.
  
2. Visitor Activity And Behavior Reporting Analysis
The most important feature of this report is measuring and reporting capabilities on Web conversion success by your marketing campaigns. Did they buy? Did they click for more information?  It will also show usability reports that include visual path analysis and smart views of your Web pages.  Both types of reports provide a visual means of seeing how Web visitors interact with your Web site. 
  
3. Visitor/Customer/Partner Reporting Analysis
This report provides individual customer data and merges it with your Web site activity to provide a complete holistic view on any given individual and his or her Web behavior.
It is often the case that your professional Internet Services Agency will help with levels 2 and 3, the reporting and analysis of your site.

Conversions: What to Measure?

A conversion is really just the fulfillment of a desired action on your Web site that a visitor completes.  It can be completing a registration form, viewing your product catalogue, requesting more information, loading a shopping cart and paying for the product by credit card, downloading a file like a white paper or product specifications, or subscribing to a newsletter.  Obviously when dealing with ecommerce, the ultimate conversion is when a visitor fills the shopping cart and makes a purchase.

Conversions are made up of a number of steps that lead a visitor to make the action complete - this is called a scenario.  Using level 2 Web analytic software, you can create a scenario and link it to your Web site. The various steps of the scenario are called a scenario funnel.  It's called a funnel because as your visitors move from the first action to the next you'll notice that many visitors have dropped off, as though it were a leaky bucket.  This is when we use Web analytic software to identify and track down those "leaks" and take steps to repair them. The objective, therefore, is to make sure that Web visitors don't leak out as you watch them move forward to the next desired outcome and action.

When you can combine a Web Content Management System with a Web Analytics program, such as the integration of Hot Banana and ClickTracks, you have a very powerful combination.  You can easily set up your scenarios in order to review and, here's the key, easily make content changes on the fly to patch up those leaks.

Closing the Loop

Using Web analytic software also begins to close the loop on your marketing dollars. 

Offline - By directing traffic to specific landing pages you can determine how many visitors used this page as their entry page to your Web site and then follow them through your conversion or scenario funnel.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy - Determine which keyword phrases, ad copy and which paid search engine marketing programs are delivering more visitors and, of those visitors, how many are converting. 

Online Ad Campaigns - Determine which Web sites are driving the most traffic, and also which creative.

Email Campaigns - Determine which Email marketing campaigns are driving the most traffic, and also which creative is most successful.

Measuring Processes

Following is a description of the RADAR Process which is used by WebTrends.
 
Report - Using Web Analytic software will provide rich insight into your Web site traffic.

Analyze - Marketing and/or business managers must review their reports on a monthly level or at least on a quarterly basis.  It is also a best practice to include your Professional Internet Services Agency in the review so that they can see the trends and provide guidance on what the trends mean.

Decide - Based on reviewing the data, make actionable decisions that can be implemented on your Web site.

Act - Go ahead and redesign the home page or change the content and links on landing pages. This is the point where we can look at the leaky bucket and make changes to increase your conversions.  This is also where you can become the hero of the day - when you get the conversion rates right.  Don't worry about this step though, as experimenting is good. You can always revert back to a previous version of your Web page if your action doesn't have the desired effect.  And yes, having an easy-to-use Web Content Management System really helps, as you will need total control of Web content. 

1. Streamline your visitor paths to key destination pages so more visitors can easily find what they're looking for.

2. Viewing the funnel data visually will help increase visitor conversions through key scenarios by pinpointing and eliminating Web site design or technical trouble spots.

3. Optimize Web page performance by looking at specific usability data in combination with your  Web Content Management System. By evaluating Web page real estate, you can easily make decisions and then make changes to improve the usability of your Web site.

Review and Refine - Monitor and review the actions taken and look at how you can enhance them further.