How effective is your web site

Learning how our web site works is an important task, which is often measured incorrectly. We have to look at not only the data, but we also need to know what questions to ask when looking at the data to put it into the correct perspective. Without understanding how the data works, we can run into all types of problems by drawing the wrong conclusions. In this section, I assume that we will be looking at data from some source such as Google Analytics and we are wanting people to purchase … [Read more...]

Web analytics series coming soon

I'm working on finishing up a series of articles for the new year on Web Analytics. What is web analytics? Glad you asked.  People build new web sites every day, but most have no idea how they are doing, if they are getting better or worse, or why.  Web analytics can help you answer those questions.  However, we need to know what numbers are important, which to ignore, why, and what we can do about it. This series is designed to be simple to read, and easy to follow.  While not an in-depth … [Read more...]

How to reduce your bounce rate

In our last post, Why People Leave Your Web Site, we referenced the Bounce Rate, and why its not something you want your site to have much of. In order to understand how to reduce your bounce rate you need to know why it is happening. Here are some unacceptable reasons why you might have a bounce, and what you can do to fix it: Your site takes too long to load. This could mean you need more bandwidth/better server or, more likely, you need to optimize your site. Your presentation is … [Read more...]

Why people leave your web site

When I introduce someone to Web Analytics for the first time, they generally go through several “light bulb” moments. They usually include things like: That’s how many users I get?!? (either with glee or frustration) So that’s where I get people from. This will often lead to questions they didn’t know they could ask such as: Why don’t I get more sales? Why are people leaving the site? What is this bounce rate? Why don’t I get more sales – a whole other article could be … [Read more...]