The following is a basic guide to some of the metrics we use in our analytic reports. It is not in the least exhaustive as the metrics we use for each individual client is dependent on the needs of that client and the goals behind the website.

I hope, however, that it provides a brief introduction to web analytics for those who are unfamiliar with what kind of measurements are involved.

Visits

The number of visits to the site. This needs to be looked at over time to determine any patterns, such as seasonal variations. Where peaks and troughs occur it is important to determine what, if anything, occurred immediately before them.

Unique visitors

Visits is a blanket figure and a useful guide but more important is the unique visitors stat. A site may receive 50 visits but from only 5 visitors. Alternatively it may receive 50 visits from 50 different visitors. Which is best will depend on the goal of the site - if user loyalty is important then the first will be more positive while the second will be if the goal is to get as many new people to the site as possible.

Bounce rate

This is a very important metric as it indicates how engaging the site is. Single page visitors are usually classed as bounced visits and the higher the percentage the poorer, generally, the quality of the visit.

Pages visited

This is recorded as the overall total of pages visited and the average number of pages visited per user. The higher the average the more engaging the site.

Time on site

Similar to the average number of pages viewed, the average time per user spent on the site is an indication of the amount of visitor interaction with the site.

New v Returning visitors

As with many of the metrics, the predefined goals dictate how they should be interpreted. However, most sites will aim for a good balance between attracting new visitors and having visitors who return to the site.

Location by country/city

It is possible to determine the country and city of origin of the visit which can help determine the quality of those visits, again based on the predetermined goals.

Entry pages

Many people think that websites are entered through the homepage and that the users navigate the rest of the site from there. However, this is not true. Visits can start on any page that is returned by the search engine or linked to from another site. These are known as landing pages and it is important to know which ones they are and which are the most successful in terms of retaining visitors. Popular landing pages should be treated with the same importance as the home page.

Exit pages

Just as any page can be a landing page so visitors can leave a site from any page. Identifying these pages can help in determining problems that are causing people to leave or, more positively, if users are completing conversions based on the sites goals. Thank you pages are more than just polite - each time one is reached it tells the site owner that a user as completed a transaction, be that a purchase, a sign-up or something else.

Traffic source

This is answering the question, how did the site user arrive at the site? Was it through a Search Engine and if so, which one? Was it via a Pay Per Click campaign? If the visit was from another website what was that referring site? Finally did the user type the address directly into the browser as when taking the address from a flyer, advertisement etc. To help monitor this marketers often use a unique page for each offline ad campaign in order to determine where the user obtained the address for example www.mydomain.com/guardian would provide data on the number of people who have visited the site after reading an ad in the Guardian newspaper.

Path

This provides information on how a user has progressed through the site from the landing page through to the exit page. This helps the site owner to understand how visitors are interacting with the site. Where there is a specific goal such, as a purchase, this helps to see if users are following the required path to complete a conversion and if not at which point are they abandoning the process.

keywords

Which keywords are being used to find the site? Are there keywords appearing which were not thought of during the initial optimisation process and should they be considered for further optimisation.

Member registrations / sign-ups

For sites that require registration, what is the ratio of registrations to visits? If it is very low could there be a reason for this that can be addressed, for example, is the registration process too complex? or difficult to locate? Is there an easily accessible privacy policy?

User contributions

For sites that promote user interaction through forums and comments it is important to measure how active the users are. What is the ratio between the number of unique visitors and those who contribute. Can the quality of the contributions be measured based on predefined goals?

Inbound links

How many external links are there to the website. An indication that users find the site useful and that it meets a need is there willingness to link to it. This is in addition to the importance of backlinks in Search Engine Optimisation and is an indication of the perceived quality of the site.

AddThis/social bookmarking

AddThis is a service for quickly adding social bookmarks to sites such as Delicious and Digg and like inbound links can be used as a measure of perceived value of the site by others.

Conversions

As touched upon a number of times above, every website should have a purpose and this purpose should be defined in terms of measurable goals. each time a goal is met by a user a conversion as taken place. The ratio of visits to conversions is therefore a very important metric when gauging the success, or otherwise, of a site.

Segmentation

Finally, a quick word about segmenting the data. To get a true insight in to the performance of a site and to produce genuinely actionable metrics segmentation is vital. All the data that can be obtained should be able to be broken down. Bounce rate, for example, is an important measurement in terms of engaging visitors but because so much more important when segmented using other metrics. Which visitor source has the largest BR - Direct? Search Engine or Referrals? If it traffic delivered from the search engines have the largest bounce rate, then with which search engines is it greatest and with which keywords and landing pages. When looking to address the bounce rate of the site the owner will be in a better position to take action based on this information than just the initial bounce rate. This process is true for all the metrics - the more they are broken down the more they can
be acted upon.