Beginners Guide to Website Metrics
The most common fallacy I see amongst first time website owners is the notion of “if we build it, they will come”. The truth of the matter is that building a website is merely the first step. I liken it to putting up a billboard in the Sahara Desert. That is, just having a website is not enough. You MUST also draw visitors to that website. And once you draw visitors to your website, you it is equally important to analyze those visitors using web analytics software such as Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/).
Here is a breakdown of the most basic and fundamental website metrics you should work to understand.
Page Views – The number of page views within a given time frame, which represents the number of times a visitor requests a page from your website server. A page view differs from a unique in that a visitor can register unlimited page views per day, but only one daily unique per day (See Below). The relevance of measuring page views is to gauge the interest level of visitors in your site content. A low number of page-views is a sign visitors are leaving the site without browsing any of the pages. Analogous to a shopper venturing into a furniture store, only to walk right back out the door because the furniture lacked appeal. A high number of page views would of course mean that visitors are browsing the pages and actively engaged in your site content. The furniture store shopper that walks every aisle, checks out the prices, asks the salesman questions, etc. If your relative page view to unique visitor ratio is low or lessens, two possible assumptions could be made. a.) Your site content is not interesting, engaging, or properly assembled. b.) Your marketing activities, which drive unique visitors to the site, are not targeting the correct audience. Someone looking for a tennis racket that ends up in a golf store is not likely to browse for very long.
Unique Visitors – A visitor that comes to your site for the first time that day. This number primarily measures site “stickiness”. Stickiness is a term used to describe the amount of visitors maintaining a long term interest in your site—those that return day after day. If Visitor A found your site on a Monday in June, and then came back on Tuesday and Wednesday of June, then Visitor A would be registered as having 3 unique visits during that span. All subsequent visits or page views after the first visit of the day are not considered a unique visit. There is a caveat to be considered with unique visitors and monthly uniques that is explained in the next section.
Monthly Uniques - A visitor that comes to your site for the first time during a calendar month. This number also measures site “stickiness”, but on a much broader level. Again, stickiness is a term used to describe the amount of visitors maintaining a long term interest in your site—those that return month after month. If Visitor A found your site in February and came back again in both March and April, then Visitor A would be registered as a monthly unique for February, March and April. All subsequent visits during those same calendar months by that visitor are not considered a monthly unique visit. There is an awkward part about monthly uniques (and unique visitors to a degree) as they pertain to “stickiness”. Using the example above, if Visitor A was visiting the site for the first time ever, his February visit is registered as a monthly unique visit and also a new visit (see below). So the cumulative total of monthly uniques really signifies (new visitors + repeat monthly visitors). A simple way to use the monthly unique number as a metric for stickiness is to take monthly uniques as ratio of new visitors. This will quickly indicate how much the increase/decrease in monthly-uniques is a result of stickiness vs. new visitors.
New Visitors - The number of visitors to the site that are visiting for the first time ever. All further visits by this visitor will not be registered in this category. This primarily is an indication of how many new leads your site is generating. Naturally, you then would take marketing dollars spent vs. new visitors generated to see how effective your campaign is going. But as mentioned above, both page views and monthly uniques have to also be considered. A new visitor that lands on your home page and immediately leaves is not a good sign, even though it would lift the new visitor number.
Posted By: William Foote, Co-founder of http://www.vmg-interactive.com
Posted by William Foote under Web Metrics | Comments (1)