Presentation given at the Delaware Valley Archivists Group meeting on March 21, 2013. The slides provide an overview of how visitor statistics and user engagement are measured on PhillyHistory.org and how similar tracking may be done on other digital history projects.

1. Tracking Metrics for a Digital Project
Deborah Boyer
PhillyHistory.org Project Manager
Azavea Inc.
@debsting and @phillyhistory www.PhillyHistory.org

2. DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

3. Map Search Page
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

4. PhillyHistory.org, a project of
the Philadelphia Department of Records
• 5 organizations
- Philadelphia City Archives
- Philadelphia Water
Department
- Office of the City
Representative
- Library Company of
Philadelphia
- Free Library of Philadelphia
• Over 106,000 historic
photographs and maps
• Over 11,300 registered users
• 15,000 unique visitors per
month
Camp Independence, Civil War Recruiting Camp
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013Company of
The Library Philadelphia via PhillyHistory.org

5. What are metrics?
 A measure of an organization or project’s activities and
performance
 Often involve user-based evaluation in the form of
surveys
 Archival Metrics Toolkits – www.archivalmetrics.org
 Digital tools can track a lot of activity (and bring up lots
of new issues)
 Numbers? Maybe?
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

6. Deborah Boyer
@debsting
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

7. Why Track Metrics?
 Gain a sense of your audience
 Discover what is working well
 Explore what can be done to improve
 Analyze internal processes
 Because the grant says we have to
 Defend your existence
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

8. What We Use on PhillyHistory
 Google Analytics
 AWStats
 Internal statistics on PhillyHistory.org
 User surveys
 Comments, likes, tweets, and other social media
items
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

9. Learn About Your
Audience
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013
Founders Week - 1908

10. What do you want to know?
 How do people find you?
 What type of user are they (educator, general
public, student, etc)?
 How long do people stay on the site?
 Do they click through to additional pages?
 Are they repeat visitors?
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

11. How do they find us?
Keyword searches: Links from blogs and
- phillyhistory.org online magazines
- philly history (Plan Philly, Hidden
- old images of City, etc)
philadelphia
- philly archives
- philadelphia
neighborhood
photos
- divine lorraine
hotel
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

12. PhillyHistory.org Users
 Primarily Philadelphia enthusiasts and citizen historians with a
passion for the past
 Visit the site every couple months
 73% of registered users (8,320) are from Pennsylvania
 Generally, about 2:1 ratio of new to returning visitors
 Spend an average of 5:27 on the site
 Primarily desktop but 18% of traffic was mobile/tablet in last 30
days
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

13. And once they’ve arrived…
 Use geographic search far more than any other search criteria
 For last 30 day period, returning visitors spent an average of
8:35 on the site compared to 3:53 for new visitors
 Register for an account – average of 173 new accounts per
month in 2012
 Some leave right away – 10% bounce rate
 Often land on home, search, or blog page. Blog pages have
higher exit rates (33%) compared to search page (23%).
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

14. This is how they search
Top Keywords Top Topics/Featured Series
1. School 1. Historical Images of Philadelphia
2. Street 2. People
3. Philadelphia 3. Cemetery
4. High 4. Architecture
5. Hall 5. Philadelphia Piers
Top Neighborhoods
1. South Philadelphia
2. Fishtown And the most frequently
3. Frankford
4. Mayfair viewed photo…
5. Olney
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

15. City Hall Under Construction,
1881
(also known as the first photo on
the search page)
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

16. Can’t all these numbers just be faked?
 Numbers aren’t as important as trends and patterns
 Look for reasons for major spikes and dips in traffic
 Limit interference from internal actions
 Try to track if an action (press release, user survey,
etc.) changes in how people use the digital project
 Numbers are just one part of the user engagement
story
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

17. Connie Mack Stadium - 1967
What’s Working
Well
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

18. We’ll Keep These Around
 New photos of new locations every week
 Regularly updated blog with new entries every week –
41% increase in unique visitors in 2012 compared to 2011
 Links from social media – Facebook and Twitter are both
in our top 10 for referrals
 Being present on Twitter – gradual increase in followers
 Error reports submitted by users – 3,200 and counting
with 89% accuracy in the reports
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

19. Student Photo - 1913
Where to
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013
Improve

20. Insights Gained by Metrics
 Bounce rate on the blog is very high. Come for a blog entry
and stay for...?
 Usage of PhillyHistory by teachers and students could increase
 Interesting features are underutilized
 Very Philadelphia centered audience; should that change?
 Is tablet support necessary?
 Improve search process – 63.6% of surveyed said PhillyHistory
very useful but only 29% said search was easy to use
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

21. Typing Class - 1928
Analyze Internal
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013
Processes

22. How Can the System Be Improved?
 Each month, we track:
 Error reports investigated
 Records created
 Scans added
 Scan requests closed
 Revenue generated
 Provides statistics on
what we can do with
available resources
Scans Added Monthly, 2006 - Present
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

23. City Fair - 1967
Those Pesky Grant Requirements
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

24. Benefits of Having Metrics on Hand
 Provide solid statistics to include in grant proposals
 Gives a base line to compare with benefits generated
by grant activities
 User surveys or focus groups may be a requirement -
Experience conducting them is a plus
 Forces an organization to spend time and resources on
evaluation and provides funds to do so
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

25. Vote for the Loans - 1962
Defend Your
Existence
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

26. Why Track Metrics
 Provide solid examples of benefits of the project
 Explain what can be done with the available resources
 Demonstrates where future investments might be made
to increase user engagement or other goals
 Supports future funding requests
 Enables better decision making for the organization
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

27. Comments from PhillyHistory User Surveys
 I often visit your site to cheer myself up. I don't know why,
but looking at these old photos lifts my spirits.
 Just keep adding those photos! I have to limit myself to
logging on only once or twice a month because I get
carried away for hours on your site! Thank you for all your
good work.
 Your background articles are exceptional.
 Fantastic endeavor by the city and everyone involved.
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

28. So now that I have all these numbers…
 Don’t get bogged down in the numbers
 Always connect back to your mission
 Tell the story behind the numbers and the surveys – what
do these user comments and visitor stats show us?
 Present the data in an educational and engaging way
 http://selection.datavisualization.ch/
 http://flowingdata.com
 http://wiki.curatecamp.org/index.php/Accessible_Visualiza
tion
DVAG Meeting
21 March 2013

29. 12th and Market Streets, 1914
Philadelphia City Archives via PhillyHistory.org
DVAG Meeting
16 June 2011

30. Tracking Metrics for a Digital Project
DVAG Meeting
March 21 2013
Deborah Boyer
dboyer@azavea.com
info@phillyhistory.org
@debsting
@phillyhistory