Guest Blog 6: Stats and Analysis
October 2, 2011
So let’s backtrack for a moment. The reality of the Web is that most of those 250 million websites are just there. No one really knows who’s using them. No one really knows if anyone likes them. Someone had a good idea, published a website, and isn’t really sure if it’s doing what they hoped it would or not.
It is possible to gain a good understanding of your users, or perhaps more accurately, their usage, by looking at some simple statistics. You can use free services like Google Analytics or AW Stats, or commercial web statistics packages like Webtrends, or even develop something in-house.
This may sound really obvious, but believe me, the need to analyse the behaviour of your users is commonly overlooked and misunderstood. If you are a business or offering any kind of service, getting your metrics right is fundamental – before you build your website, not after.
Know what you want to measure and, just as importantly, why you want to measure it. It should influence how you build your site in the first place.
Almost anything can be measured, but there is absolutely no point in overwhelming yourself with data you will never use. Focus on what you need to know. This goes right back to why you are doing this at all. Examine your business strategy; it will tell you what is important to measure.
It’s all about what you need to know. Stats packages will give you a lot of data, but they won’t necessarily interpret it for you.
They will tell you you’ve had a 5% rise in Unique Users over the last 12 months but they won’t tell you whether that’s good or bad. They might tell you you have a bounce rate of 80% but not what to do to improve it.
For every question you ask, more questions will be raised. Decide what is important to know and make sure you focus on that. If you’re not sure what questions to ask, get some help up front, it will save you a lot of pain in the long-term.
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