Analytics is about website optimisation by analysing internet data through measurement and reporting. Analytics comprises a few ways to measure data such as off site (website’s potential audience, share of market voice, and commentary by the internet about the product or website) and on site (visitor’s behaviour on the site) methods. Many analytics services such as Webtrends and Google Analytics claim that they are not just about reports, but about creating “actionable insights” (Webtrends, n.d.) and aim to help clients “gain insights that matter” (Google Analytics, n.d.). These insights need to be actionable, improvable, accessible and understandable to clients. There are three distinct types of analytics services available, each providing a different viewpoint for clients. The first is basic web analytics software, but the second two are benchmarking services (where users learn from other competing websites) and application service providers (that provide analytics with quicker implementation and lower administrative costs) (Park, Kim & Koh, 2010, p. 61).
Analytics tools use a “vast amount of information about website visitors” (Wankhade, Ingle & Meshram, 2012, p. 83) such as summary statistics, visitor analytics, popular pages, refering links, search engine statistics, keyword analysis, and what browsers, operating systems and resolutions users are viewing the site with. While some of these are more about visual optimisation for users, areas such as visitor analytics are incredibly important. Clients can see where their audience is from geographically and what they are looking at most. Certain statistics can tell how long people spend on each page, and whether or not it was a quick look or if they are repeat visitors.
The measuring of analytics can canvas a variety of methods which include hits on a page (requests for links, information and content), page views, how long a user visits and views a page, the status of the visitor (whether they are new, return, etc), bounce rate (the percentage of visits that are single page only), and click paths to name a few. All of these methods are taking statistical data about the web page, and analytics software will present these results numerically, visually and some services offer detailed reports.
Interestingly, analytics services are currently moving towards other forms of analysis. While analytics itself is not a new concept, its application towards the internet is revolutionary in helping information architects determine if their site is working or not. Sites like Webtrends use analytics on mobile phones and social networks to determine the reach of campaigns and web access. Google Analytics and others are also following on this. For example the computational knowledge search engine Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/) includes a Facebook analytics report service.
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