Web analytics defined
This blog is dedicated to web analytics. A good place to start is therefore to try and define what web analytics is.
My definition goes as follows:
Web analytics is a new, fast-growing discipline that helps companies optimize their websites, online marketing activities and customer relationships by means of collecting, analyzing and reporting data about internet users.
To this I think we should add that web analytics has four distinctive characteristics:
- Web analytics can use a variety of data sources, but it is almost always based behavior tracking
- Web analytics always aims to understand internet users in a natural setting - that is, as they navigate a specific website or web universe
- Web analytics is primarily based on quantitative data and statistical analysis
- Web analytics helps companies not only to achieve certain business goals, but also to understand web site visitors and to give them an optimal experience by enabling them to complete the tasks they themselves define
December 11th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Wow!
This is a very interesting definition of Web Analytics. But what do you mean by “a natural setting”? Does this mean that e.g. demographic data is uninteresting for Web Analytics?
December 12th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Hi New reader!
Thanks very much for leaving a comment. It is great to get some feedback on my very first post!!
By “natural setting” I mean that web analytics is first and foremost concerned with “real” visitors who come to your website in order to complete certain tasks they themselves define. Notice the difference here from usability. Usability is also concerned with website visitors, but it doesn’t study them in a natural setting. Rather, it studies users in a “usability lab” where they are asked to complete tasks that the usability expert defines.
The major strength of web analytics, I think, is that this research method doesn’t need a lab or predefined tasks. Rather, web analytics provides insights into how people actually use a website – regardless of its intended use. As such web analytics enables you to learn about real needs in a target group and to discover new unexpected problems or opportunities.
This is not to say, of course, that web analytics should ignore demographic data. What is does mean is that web analytics should be concerned with the demographics (and psychographics) of the people who are actually visiting your website. (Thus, according to my definition, analyzing the responses to a survey from an panel of users is not an example of web analytics.)
Although most web analytics applications focus exclusively on click stream data, it is definitely possible to combine behavioral tracking with online surveys, which are launched on your website. In fact, I believe, the very best insights come from studying the relationship between what people do, who they are and what they experience (and, of course, the latter types of data can only be obtained by asking people directly through e.g. an online survey) .
Interestingly, by studying this relationship you can even mirror think-aloud tests which are frequently used in usability labs. In the same way as usability experts can ask questions about what the users experience while observing his or her behavior, so too integrated click stream and survey data will enable you to “get into the heads” of the visitors and to see which actions or navigations are associated with negative experiences.
In Netminers we use Webmapping to visualize such relationships. You can read more about that here
Thanks again for your input; it is greatly appreciated
March 27th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Snx for you job!
It has very much helped me!
July 24th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
[…] use online surveys in web analytics? According to my own definition, web analytics is primarily concerned with measuring online behavior. Web analytics can tell you […]