1) Looking at the site usage, what does the terms visits, page views and pages/visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean and does it vary much from day to day?
A page view (PV) or page impression is a request to load a single HTML file ('page') of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web a 'page' request would result from a web surfer clicking on a link on another 'page' pointing to the 'page' in question. This should be contrasted with a "hit", which refers to a request for any file from a web server. There may therefore be many hits per 'page' view since an HTML 'page' can be made up of multiple files. Page views may be counted as part of web analytics. For the owner of the site this information can be useful to see if any change in the 'page' (such as the information or the way it is presented) results in more visits. If there are any advertisements on the page, the publishers would also be interested in the number of page views to determine their expected revenue from the ads. For this reason it is a term that is used widely for Internet based marketing and advertising.Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pageviews on Sunday 25th March, 2012
When I was searching for definition of page view I found the below definition in contrast to the one above quite interesting:
A page view is each time a visitor views a page on your website, regardless of how many hits are generated. Pages are comprised of files. Every image in a page is a separate file. When a visitor looks at a page (a page view), they may see numerous images, graphics, pictures etc. and generate multiple hits.
For example, if you have a page with 10 pictures, then a request to a server to view that page generates 11 hits (10 for the pictures, and one for the html file). A page view can contain hundreds of hits. This is the reason that we measure page views and not hits.
For example, if you have a page with 10 pictures, then a request to a server to view that page generates 11 hits (10 for the pictures, and one for the html file). A page view can contain hundreds of hits. This is the reason that we measure page views and not hits.
There is an additional potential for confusion here, because there are two types of 'hits'. The hits we are discussing in this article are the hits recorded by log files, and interpreted by log analysis. A second type of 'hits' are counted and displayed by a simple hit counter. Hit counters record one hit for every time a webpage is viewed, also problematic because it does not distinguish unique visitors.
Retrieved from http://www.opentracker.net/article/hits-or-pageviews on Sunday 25th March, 2012
A visit happens when someone or something (robot) visits your site. It consists of one or more page views/ hits. One visitor can make multiple visits to your site.
Retrieved from http://www.opentracker.net/article/hits-or-pageviews on Sunday 25th March, 2012
A visit happens when someone or something (robot) visits your site. It consists of one or more page views/ hits. One visitor can make multiple visits to your site.
Technically, a visitor is the browser of a person who accepts a cookie. Opentracker utilizes 1st party cookie technology. By this definition, a visitor is a human being, and their actions are 'human' events, because only humans use browsers (with javascript) to navigate the internet. If a cookie is not accepted, then we use IP numbers to track visitors.Retrieved from http://www.opentracker.net/article/hits-or-pageviews on Sunday 25th March, 2012
From this same site I also found this interesting, as I did not realise that this occurred:
How to distinguish between new and returning visitorsFirst, a returning visitor is a visitor who visits your site with a 24 hour period in between.
Secondly, we measure visits, a visit is a visitor’s clickstream broken by a ten minute interval, (minimum of ten minutes). So you have a cup of coffee, and return to the site after ten minutes, this will be a second visit. Say you go to bed, and you return to the site 24 hours later; you will be a returning visitor.
Secondly, we measure visits, a visit is a visitor’s clickstream broken by a ten minute interval, (minimum of ten minutes). So you have a cup of coffee, and return to the site after ten minutes, this will be a second visit. Say you go to bed, and you return to the site 24 hours later; you will be a returning visitor.
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.
Retrieved from http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81986 on Sunday 25th March, 2012
A more simplified definition is below:Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate) is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and "bounce" (leave the site) rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site.
A bounce occurs when a web site visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs. There is no industry standard minimum or maximum time by which a visitor must leave in order for a bounce to occur. Rather, this is determined by the session timeout of the analytics tracking software.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_rate on Sunday 25th May, 2012
Viewing the stats on Google Analytics I can see the bounce rate does change every day. Exploring the definitions above I have learnt that it is unusual for the bounce rate to be the same if you have regular visitors to a website. Some visitors will browse your site and find what they need, others will not and will ‘bounce’ back out.
Based on the results in the graph below the bounce rate hovers around 80 – 100%. At times it drops to 50%. Therefore it doesn’t vary much, but it doesn’t not remain the same daily.
Retrieved from https://www.google.com/analytics/web/#report/visitorsoverview/a6985438w36764487p36233804/%3Foverview-graphOptions.primaryConcept%3Danalytics.bounceRate/ on Sunday25th March, 2012
2) Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from?
Search Traffic, Referral Traffic and Direct Traffic.
You can see the traffic in the image below shows that referral traffic accounts for over half of the traffic to the site.
You can see the traffic in the image below shows that referral traffic accounts for over half of the traffic to the site.
Below you can see the list of the different referrals, foliospaces being the highest with 113 referrals.
3) What was the most popular web browser used to access the site?
Firefox and Internet Explorer are very close competitors for the most popular. As you can see in the image below there is only 1 visit that separates them. Google Chrome is 20 visits behind. Therefore from the data below I cannot say only one is the most popular, but that Firefox and Internet Explorer are both most used to access the site.
Firefox and Internet Explorer are very close competitors for the most popular. As you can see in the image below there is only 1 visit that separates them. Google Chrome is 20 visits behind. Therefore from the data below I cannot say only one is the most popular, but that Firefox and Internet Explorer are both most used to access the site.
4) How many countries did visitors to Foliospaces come from and what were the top four countries?
5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track
I believe the data available is very useful. Especially when we spoke about web design being so important last week, using these stats you can get an idea of how successful your site is and where you may be going wrong. Even being able to see what networks visitors are using is helpful to ensure your site is going to be compatible with their software.
Based on stats of your site, over time you can make changes and track to see if the changes you making are successful. Add content and change design to see if you receive positive numbers and duration of time users spending on site, reduce bounce rate.
You cannot track survey data. What types of visitors are accessing your site? What specific information do they take from your site? As developer you can only try to pinpoint a certain age and gender. However, with the data available here you cannot really see if the visitors are within the age and gender you expect.
Based on stats of your site, over time you can make changes and track to see if the changes you making are successful. Add content and change design to see if you receive positive numbers and duration of time users spending on site, reduce bounce rate.
You cannot track survey data. What types of visitors are accessing your site? What specific information do they take from your site? As developer you can only try to pinpoint a certain age and gender. However, with the data available here you cannot really see if the visitors are within the age and gender you expect.
6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more yourself.
High bounce rate - generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors.
Key words - can be defined as a word or words identifying something on a page
Average Page Depth - The average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session
Click through rate - The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.
Click – Action of selecting a link
Cookie - A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server
Cookie - A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server
Impression - the point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page.
Hyperlink - is a word, phrase, or image that you can click on to jump to a new document or a new section within the current document. Hyperlinks are found in nearly all Web pages, allowing users to click their way from page to page.Navigation - facilitates movement from one Web page to another Web page.
Pageview - A Web page that has been viewed by one visitor. Page views are often used in online advertising, where advertisers use the number of page views a site receives to determine where and how to advertise
Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors) - Unique Visitors represents the number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to your website over the course of a specified time period. A Unique Visitor is determined using cookies.
URL - Uniform (or universal) resource locator, the address of a World Wide Web page.
Visitor – person that access a web page
Visitor Session - is a defined period of interaction between a Visitor (both unique and untrackable visitor types) and a website.
Comparison shopping - The practice of comparing prices in advance of actually shopping in order to achieve the best deals and pricing on merchandise and services. Comparison shopping is often done in anticipation of buying occasional, big ticket items.
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