Analyze Your Analytics

Post on 17-Dec-2014

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How are visitors finding your website, stories and videos? How did they get to your site? Learn to decipher the charts and graphs of Google Analytics, which key information to follow and how to use the data to make decisions about improving traffic.

Transcript of Analyze Your Analytics

ANALYZING

School Newspapers Online www.snosites.com

ANALYTICSyour

VOCABULARY

ANALYZINGANALYTICS

your

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

AUDIENCE

1 • Audience is the umbrella term for people who are visiting your site.

• Subcategories are available for demographics, interests, behavior, browser and device.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITION

2 • Acquisition is the term for the various methods that visitors came to your site — how your site “acquired” them.

• Acquisition is broken down by channels, or methods.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

BEHAVIOR

3 • Behavior is the term for the actions taken by visitors to your site — what they looked at and clicked on, how long they did these, when they left and from where.

• Behavior is divided into content, speed and search.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

SESSIONS

4 • A session is the period time a user is actively engaged with your website.

• All usage data (Screen Views, Events, Ecommerce, etc.) is associated with a session.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

PAGEVIEWS

5 • Pageviews is the total number of pages viewed.

• Repeated views of a single page are counted.

UNDERSTANDING THE CHARTS

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ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITION

•How are visitors discovering your content?

•How did they navigate to your site?

Determine…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITION

•Knowing this information will help you determine how people find you.

•Use this data to make decisions about where and how to post on social media, using Google+ and other methods of finding an audience.

Why…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITIONHow?

What visitors were on before your site

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ACQUISITION

•Target ranges, based on SNO sites:

• Social should be about 25-40% • Direct should be about 25-35% • Search should be about 30-40% • Referral should be about 10-20%

• If an acquisition method is disproportionate, ask why.

Commentary

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITION

•How many people visit your site on a phone?On a tablet?

•How many are on a desktop or notebook computer?

Determine…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITION

•Knowing this information will help you determine how people are accessing your site.

•Use this to remind yourself to check how your site looks on mobile devices.

Why…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITIONHow?

Increasingly, visitors accessthe Web via mobile devices.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

ACQUISITION

•You should view your site on mobile devices (and with multiple browsers) to see what your visitors see.

Commentary

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALS

•How many visitors come to your site?

• Visitors

• Pageviews

• Pageviews per session

Determine…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALS

•Knowing this information will help you determine your site’s popularity and when visitors come.

•Use this data to determine when to post on social media, if efforts to attract attention and clicks are working, to gain advertisers.

•Determine what to add to story pages to keep readers clicking on story after story.

Why…

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READERSHIP TOTALSHow?

Low traffic well below 100 pageviews per day

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALSHow?

Solid traffic of about 100 pageviews per day

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALS

•Target ranges, based on SNO sites:

• Meh: 25 pageviews per day • Epic: 1,000 pageviews per day • Target: 75-100 pageviews per day

•Know your typical traffic to identify when you have a viral story.

•Promote to maintain weekend traffic.

Commentary

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALS

•What percentage of visitors are new?

•What percentage of visitors are returning?

•These totals won’t be pure because visitors clear their browsing history, use other devices, etc.

Determine…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALS

•Knowing this information will help you understand your audience.

•Use this to evaluate your staff’s promotional methods and goals.

Why…

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READERSHIP TOTALSHow?

Lots of new visitors who only looked at one page then left.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

READERSHIP TOTALS

•The goal should be to have about half returning and half new. Aim for loyal readership.

•This will vary throughout the school year.

•You many have more new readers at the start of the school year or after a breaking news story.

Commentary

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

BEHAVIOR

•Which stories are getting the most viewers?

•This also affects “bounce rate” (whether a reader looks only at the one page) and the total number of stories per session.

Determine…

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BEHAVIOR

•Knowing this information will help you determine what stories interested your readers.

•Use this data to help guide story ideas and story format.

Why…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

BEHAVIORHow?

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

BEHAVIOR

•Be aware of stories that get an abnormal number of views and ask what made it spike. Was it …

• time • topic • method of promotion • search of a popular/viral term

Commentary

WHAT’S YOUR TARGET?

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YOUR TARGET

•Set a reasonable expectation.

•Make a plan to reach that target.

Determine…

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YOUR TARGET

•Your site will build traffic over time as you become more established.

• More frequent posts • Wider audience

•You want to steadily increase your pageviews.

Why…

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

YOUR TARGET

•You want steady traffic. Post frequently and consistently.

•Don’t dump your content all at once.

•Remember to resurface content and to promote with pre-scheduled “ICYMI” and “best of” posts to maintain traffic over weekends and breaks.

Why…

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YOUR TARGETHow?

Avoid this!Infrequent posting

then content dump.

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

YOUR TARGETHow?

Peaks/valleys = little weekend traffic

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YOUR TARGETHow?

Steady weekday traffic

ANALYZING YOUR ANALYTICS

YOUR TARGETHow?

Good balance of new and returning visitors

Average of more than 21,000 pageviews per month!

Mostly steady traffic with a few spikes

School Newspapers Online contact@snosites.com schoolnewspapersonline.com

QUESTIONS?Fire away