Basic Metrics

This post will explore some of the basic metrics used to analyze customer behavior. There are four terms that make up the foundation for web metrics: unique visitors, visits/sessions, page views and events. These can be combined with other measures and metrics to determine consumer behavior. Other metrics include click-through, click-through rate, bounce, and frequency, conversion and conversion rate. All of these combined create a better understanding of the consumers and their behavior patterns.

The unique visitors are the number of individual people visiting a site. Each person/visitor is counted only once. Unique visitors are a superior approximation of the number of actual people visiting the website. The number of unique visitors gives the business a general idea how many people they are reaching with a particular website, page, ad or link. The number of unique visitors can be compared to the business’ competition. Google + has surpassed the 100 million monthly users mark and that is a low number when compared to other social media networks. According to Mashable.com, in the same time period, Facebook had over 800 million unique visitors, Twitter over 180 million and LinkedIn over 160 million. This gives Google an idea where they are within the market and that they need to improve their unique visitors.

Visits or sessions can be defined as an interaction with a web site by an individual consisting of one or more requests for a page. Page views are the number of times a page is viewed and events are any logged or recorded action that has a specific date and time assigned to it by the browser or server.

Click-through refers to the number of times a link on a website was clicked. The click-through rate gives the ratio of how many times the link was clicked over the number of times the link was viewed. The click-through rate is the basis for online advertising and measuring its success. However, it has become an unreliable measure. In a new study by Pretarget, they found the correlation between click-through rates and customer engagement is lower than just ‘hovering’ over the ad. This is important because it can give the business an idea of which ads are successful as of clicks or whether they should change their strategy. CEO and Founder of Keith Pieper suggest from the study that optimizing viewable impressions and hover time could be a better measure than click-through rates. Since the Internet is always changing, learning when to use a better advanced metric could be important for brand goals.

Bounces are visits that consist of only one page being viewed. Frequency is the number of times an action is performed on a website by a unique visitor. The frequency will give an idea of what the unique visitors are doing on the website. This will show the business what part of the website works and what does not. Facebook released a statement in October 2012 that clicks do not matter as much anymore but reach and frequency do. By maximizing those key points, the company could have better brand engagement and possibly increase ROI. Measuring frequency shows customer behavior on a website and analyzing that data can help change the website to better market their target audiences.

Conversion is the number of times a desired outcome is accomplished and the conversion rate is the number of conversions over the number of visits. There are steps that are needed to increase a brands conversion rate, according to an article on Mashable.com. The first is to understand your customer. Following what they search for and even look at gives feedback to the company. Making the website more relevant also attracts customers. By using the information collected by following them, the website can be tailored to their needs. Another technique is using offline learning to enhance the online experience. Follow what your customers do in stores as well as online. Be consistent. The messages need to echo what attracted the customer to the website. And lastly is test the content before posting it live. All of these steps will help increase your conversion rate.

The basic metrics mentioned above give the company an understanding how their consumers behave and interact on the website. It is also helps predict how consumers will behave on the website and how to convert that behavior into the intended reaction.

Web Analytics and SEO Explored

According to IMC Lesson 1, web analytics first came to existence in 1995. For five years, the market grew rapidly. Certain companies analyzed clickstream, others used web blogs and some used browser tags as a solution to a service. The market grew from $140 million to $400 million in the first five years. Over the next few years, the companies consolidated the market and standardized certain products. The web blogs that one company used have now become standard to every other company. By 2007, the integration of social media became a standard also. Other platforms include mobile devices, gadgets and widgets. These make it easier for the blogs, podcast and other social media content to be displayed. Currently, the integration of the semantic web is in process. This is building relationships between the content and the content creators.

Web analytics is essential in the marketing world today. Consumer behavior is an important aspect that businesses use to shape their campaigns. Web analytics is the process of analyzing this behavior, specifically on business websites. The information is given back in real-time allowing companies to change their campaign instantly.

It gives companies a general idea of what works and what doesn’t on their website and what could potentially interfere with the goal of the website. With the instant updates of analyzed information, companies can continually change their website to better target their customers. More specifically, it can create a more user-friendly online experience.

Some of the data provided include the number visits, visitors, the amount of time spent on certain pages and the amount of time spent on the site in general (Kaushik, 2010). Companies can turn this information into successful website management. This is important so businesses can increase their customer engagement and possibly be able to predict consumer behavior. This will allow for a better-rounded website and campaign experience. While analyzing the web metrics is essential, pairing that with search engine optimization or SEO helps enhance that experience for the company and the brand.

SEO is an important part of a company’s marketing strategy. According to the SEO Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO, search engine optimization can be defined as the practice of improving and promoting a web site in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines. It can be used in a variety of ways. One aspect is optimizing the website for a given keyword. These are the words entered into Google or other search engines that can be found on your website. This is a main way the search engines find a website and put them into the results.

Showing up on the first page of results is very important for a brand. However, showing up as the number one result is even better. According to an article on Clickz.com, being the number one result on a search engine is 53% better than just being on the first page. After that 53%, the rest of the 47% were spread out among the other results. So 87% of organic clicks belong to the top five results. Since being number 1 is highly rated, it should be a number priority for companies and brands.

Web analytics and SEO work together to provide advanced data to companies and brands. When used correctly, they can optimize their brand online presence and ultimately enhance their customers' experiences.