UNDERSTANDING YOUR USER'S WEB SITE
EXPERIENCE
According to WikiPedia.org, Web Analytics is defined as,
"the monitoring and reporting of Web site usage so businesses can better understand
the complex interactions between Web visitor actions and Web site offers, as well as
leverage that insight for increased customer loyalty and sales." By tracking movement
and monitoring the path and activity of site users, Web analytic tools provide valuable
information about individual user behavior. This data provides you with important insights
based on watching user movements within your website. You will be able to track how users
navigate through your site, which pages are most frequented, where users exit your site
and any number of other behavioral traits.
Visitor traffic statistics can tell you much more than how
many customers visited your site on a given day. A good Web analytics service will provide
you with the ability to slice-and-dice your visitor reports so that you can readily
identify peak traffic periods by hour, day, week, month and year. The benefit to this
granular breakdown is that you can identify trends that can be used to provide an enhanced
user experience. For example, if your Web site is used to promote a restaurant, you might
tailor your menu pages to display a lunch menu during peak morning Web traffic and a
dinner menu during peak afternoon hours. Using Web analytics, you can identify the best
hours to present dynamic content. Your Web developer can provide this functionality on
your Web site, increasing your users' interest, providing them viable benefits over
competitive sites, and bettering the chances that your visitors will find what they are
looking for and not abandon their search in frustration.
DO WEB TRAFFIC REPORTS TELL THE WHOLE STORY?
If you are only crunching numbers, it is impossible to
accurately judge whether a user has had a satisfactory experience at your Web site. They
may have found the information they were seeking, they may even have purchased your
products, but visitor number tallies alone cannot tell you if your visitors were confused
or frustrated and whether or not they will return to your site in the future. Nor can they
tell you what changes you need to make to reduce a user's pain threshold at your site or
what changes should be made to increase the overall level of satisfaction with their site
experience.
By analyzing the "click path" (also known as
"clickstream") of your visitors, you can begin to understand their behavioral
patterns. Then, suddenly, behavior analytics becomes a powerful tool for optimizing your
Web site content and overall performance.
Click path reports can also be very useful in identifying a
navigational issue commonly known as, "click distance." Click distance refers to
the distance in which a user has to move their mouse in order to navigate your Web site.
If your site navigation is cumbersome, you may be causing the end user more click distance
and as a result they may not see, or find, links to pages that are important to your
site's success.
In addition to click path and click distance, it is also
important to understand the means in which your visitors access your Web site. Statistical
information about their computer operating system, browser type and screen resolution can
go a long way in helping you provide optimal content and navigation. For example, if your
Web site provides a software download, you can improve your visitor's experience by
dynamically directing them to a download page that is best suited for their computer type.
If, in your operating system analytic reports, you find that you have a high volume of Mac
users, then it would be wise to ensure that the nature of your content satisfactorily
relates to them. Another great example of technology analytics would be screen resolution.
If you have a large percentage of visitors viewing at 800x600 it would behoove you to
ensure that your Web pages view well at that resolution. If not, you are forcing unneeded
horizontal scroll, which could in fact be a troublesome source of abandoned visits.
THE KEYWORDS TO SUCCESS
It is a well known statistic that 85% or more of Web site
traffic is derived from search engines. Search Engines provide a fuzzy roadmap to billions
of Web pages -- hopefully this includes yours. If you are listed, you really are the
proverbial needle in a haystack, so maximizing your search engine relevancy is one of the
most important marketing strategies you can employ. An additional benefit of understanding
keyword relevancy is that this data will go a long way in helping you streamline your
visitor's experience. Once you have the information, you can take your visitors directly
to specific pages within your Web site, potentially bypassing irrelevant levels of
information that might otherwise cause them to lose interest, thus prematurely exit your
site.
Again, Web Analytics offers insightful information by
providing you with actual keywords and key phrases used by real customers who found your
Web site from a search engine listing. Within keyword reports, what you do not see is
often more important than what you do. For example, if you sell red sweaters and the key
phrase "red sweaters" does not appear in your search engine keyword reports, or
has limited use, then this provides you with key information about your meta data and
marketing efforts for that page(s). If you combine search engine click- through analysis
with visitor click path (which pages they are starting on) you can instantly identify
which pages are marketed well and which need improvement.
THE BIG PICTURE
To truly understand all the factors contributing to your
Web site user's overall level of satisfaction, you must combine your knowledge of visitor
traffic, behavioral analytics and keyword analysis. This melding of data provides a far
richer, extensive and complete picture of your user's Web site experience and provides you
with a vital road map of the actions necessary to enhance your visitors' site experience;
and this will keep them coming back.
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