Our Analytics Contents… Analytics…why should you care? What do you Gain by using stats? The usual Google Analytics… 5 Analytics you NEED TO USE…. Which is the best analytics to use….and why? Test then Tweak… Credits…

Analytics…why should you Care?… investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning… i.e. it gives you an edge! Where are my visitors coming from and what do they do on my site? How can my website convert more visitors into customers? Which keywords resonate with prospects and lead to conversions? Which online ad or creative is the most effective? Why do so many people leave my site without doing what I want? Are there website design elements that are turning visitors away? What site content are people most interested in? How can I optimize for further revenues….or leads…or community building?

What do you Gain? Every website has a purpose, it is a tool which should be leveraged to bring you revenue…you know your goals, right? Analytics provides the map of how to achieve this. Without this you simply leave your online success up to fate…the field of dreams syndrome… You need to measure for success! You need to understand what it is you are measuring! You can then make data-driven-decisions…to aim at a better visitor experience! In other words you can control your success!

Google Analytics… Free…loads on every page… Powerful and easy-to-use… Can track visitor paths to show you what theyre after and if they then found same! Provides SEO information too – phrases, referrers, search engines, landing pages, exit pages and more! You can now use GA for social plugins like Google+ and Twitter too! And there are now ways to encompass Mobile too – handy if you are in that newly burgeoning area too!

Analytics Basics… NOTE - not hits…hits mean nada when it comes to tracking your visitors… The 5 Basic Metrics are…. Sessions – or visits i.e. the # of times a unique drops by… Uniques – the actual visitor themselves i.e. one person… Pageviews – the actual page visited, always from a unique URL… Site Time – the total amount of time on a site…in minutes usually… Referrers – the site that the visitor was on before getting to your site… All analytic programs offer at the least – or best – the above big 5 metrics…

1]. Sessions… Because sessions are defined as any one visit to your site, generally theyre a good basic measure of site use… Do Not Use sessions to measure either audience size or advertising tho as you do not care about multiple sessions (visits from same uniques over and over) or new versus old visitors either! DO use sessions to measure… How busy the site is in broad terms…and also on server loads too… Conversion rates per session i.e. how many visits to get a lead or sale… General interest in your site....comes from multiple sessions…. Peak times daily, weekly or seasonally prove or validate your SEO campaign….

2]. Uniques… Are a good measure of your Audience size and ad performance too… Do Not Use uniques to measure either per visitor interest (doesnt tell you that) or overall site activity either…. DO use uniques to measure… Audience size…real live people each count as one… Overall ad performance…new ad brings new #s so that is working… Change over time…news can bring new uniques validating that news outlet… Comparison with sessions…can bring info and data on why folks come once or revisit and thats very good metrics… So…sessions PLUS uniques is important!!! They are marketing mgmt. tool!

3]. PageViews… If visitors are uniques then your pageviews are their footprints… both aggregates and individuals… Do Not Use pageviews to measure audience size ever as that use is skewed…. DO use pageviews to measure… Visitor interest…interest shows engagement and leads to leads… Content performance…shows you what visitors want to see… Ad performance…ads giving better pageviews are better performers for you! So…as a marketing mgmt. metric, pageviews validate your content with regards to your uniques and their sessions….

4]. Site Time… As a measure of valuing your uniques, think about the balance… Do Not Use site time to measure raw audience engagement…. DO use site time to measure… Weigh sessions and uniques with site time…. If site time plunged….then less interest and engagement or poor content…. If site time remained constant then new uniques were also engaged…. Especially apparent from social media site sends…. So…as a marketing mgmt. metric, site time validates your unique visitors engagement and their interest in your site….

5]. Referrers… As a metric that shows you where a unique comes from… DO use referrers to measure… Let you know where your uniques just were before coming to your site…. Let you know why they came by taking a back-look at that referrer…. Let you know which referrer sites generate the best bang for the buck Let you know which referrer site advertisements worked best… And lastly, let you know how to validate your whole SEO campaign… Lastly…remember referrers…as they are the ones to watch carefully – daily in fact to measure your site engagement and conversions….

Google Analytics… various views various metrics various timelines all leads to making decisions to make the needed changes to increase your visitor engagement with your site…and your goals too!

Others… There are many others analytics packages out there…! We used to use Urchin – the father of GA…till Google deprecated it! Other examples include…(I especially recommend MixPanel!) Clicktracks MixPanel Webalizer Sawmill KissMetrics

Which Analytics to Use? ALWAYS start with GA… as its free, easy-to-use and then if you get bigger than this free app, you can then upgrade by buying the service from your web host….depending on what they offer, that is! in other words, start at a walk … and if you gather momentum then think about adding a paid-for tool… and turn those visitors into clients and customers!

Test then Tweak… You will need to monitor all of the various aspects of the sales process, and yes, you will also need to tweak your Sales Conversions too. Basically, your Sales Conversion funnel breaks down into 4 main areas… Create an offer Build a call to action Build a landing page Measure, test and then tweak….

Our Online Marketing Pyramid…

Credits… Jim Rudnick -- MCSD CEO KKT INTERACTIVE a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer more than 14 years of SEO experience with more than 19 years of web experience have worked for NY Yankees, PEP Boys, GE, The Disney Company, Canada Life, Mercedes, SAAB, Reuters and Quaker State Oil… built more than 400 sites…have run more than 100 SEO Campaigns over the past 10 years we build sites that have had millions of hits come up on the first page in search engines and more than that – we build sites that generate new business for our clients day after day!!! we blog about Canadian SEO at