The document discusses developing a web analytics strategy for libraries. It covers core concepts like visits, unique visitors, page views, bounce rate, and engagement metrics. It also discusses more advanced concepts such as segmenting versus filtering data, benchmarking, and using event tracking. Developing goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) based on the site's objectives is important. Understanding the site, its users, content, and organizational goals is key to creating an effective web analytics strategy.

1. Wireless:
Slides: slideshare.net/ninermac

2. DEVELOPING A WEB ANALYTICS STRATEGY
FOR YOUR LIBRARY:
USING DATA TO MEASURE SUCCESS
Tabatha Farney & Nina McHale
ALA Midwinter
January 25 2013
Seattle, Washington #alamwwa
Slides: slideshare.net/ninermac

3. Our Agenda
• Introductions
• Core Concepts:
• Basic Metrics
• Goals, KPIs, and Conversions
• Segmenting versus Filtering
• Benchmarking
• Event Tracking
• Converting Purpose into Analytics goals

4. Preconference Survey Results

5. Introductions
• In thirty seconds:
• Your name
• Your job title
• Your institution
• What do you want to get out of this preconference?

6. Web Analytics Strategy: I Want One!
• Google Analytics, or AWStats, or Piwik—or use of any of these
individual tools—is NOT a web analytics strategy.
• A monthly or quarterly report of visits and page views sent to
the director or the board is NOT a web analytics strategy.
A web analytics strategy is the structured process of
identifying and evaluating your key performance
indicators on the basis of an organization’s objectives
and website goals—the desired outcomes, or what you
want people to do on the website.

7. Some WA Limitations and Caveats, 1/2
• Avinash Kaushik: “It’s like reading tea leaves.”
• Issues surrounding the use of IP addresses as identifiers:
• Geographical location by ISPs (and DHCP)
• Library/campus network architecture (also including DHCP)
• Information about specific, individual users not available
• Privacy: while most tools don’t collect personally identifying
information (PII), it’s a good idea to have a policy and make a
statement to your users about what you’re collecting.
• Web analytics tools are designed with commercial sites in
mind; we’ll hit library-specific pitfalls to watch out for
throughout!

8. Some WA Limitations and Caveats, 2/2
• Different analytics tools will use different terms to describe
similar concepts (The Digital Analytics Association provides
“official” non-proprietary definitions—see “More Info” slide.)
• …but most importantly:
Don’t shy away from these limitations! Understand
them and explain them to others and make the best effort to
know what exactly web analytics can (and cannot)
reveal about the use of your site(s).

9. Before we get started…
• Log in to your web analytics tool, if you are able to access it,
AND
• Log in to this generic account Google Analytics account at
googleanalytics.com:
• user ID: litawa2012
• Password: wamonkey

10. DEVELOPING A
WEB ANALYTICS STRATEGY
The Core Concepts and Metrics

11. Core Concepts and Metrics
• Visits vs. Unique Visits vs. Page Views
• Visitor Types: New and Returning
• User Technology
• Geographic Data
• Entry and Exit Pages
• Referral Sources
• Bounce Rate
• Engagement Metrics

12. Visits
• Visits are interactions on a website from an individual browser
over a specified period of time.
• Watch for typical patterns; what does a “normal” day or week
look like for your library?
• Are there typical heavy/light use days?
• Do busy hours mirror busy hours of the physical library?
• Is there an “after dinner” spike in evenings?
• Physical library analogy: gate counts (more on this shortly…)

13. Page Views
• Commonly referred to as “hits”
• The number of times that visitors access a single web page or
online document on your site.
• Analytics provides detailed information for every page that’s
tracked on your site (more about what’s tracked later…)
• This data is often the most-requested by non-IT colleagues
and/or web content creators
• The “Long tail” of library web site content:
• Home page always the highest hit
• Hours, databases, popular services, etc. in 2nd-5th place
• There is generally a sharp drop—the “long tail”—thereafter

14. Bounce Rate
• The percentage of visitors who “bounced” from, or left, the site
after viewing only a single page or who stayed on your site for
only a short period of time.
• A good bounce rate, per Avinash Kaushik, is less than 35%
• Library site bounce rates tend to be higher, partially because:
• Labs/commons areas that have home pages set as default in web
browsers can have a negative effect on bounce rates;
• Library sites, unlike ecommerce sites, typically WANT to send users to
other sites, like the catalog, databases, ebooks, electronic reserves.
• What’s your bounce rate? How has it changed in the past
year? If it has, can you think of reasons for the change?

15. Visitors
• Individuals who come to your web site(s) via a web browser.
• As we discussed earlier, no personally identifying information is
collected about visitors; data collected is largely anonymous.
• Physical library analogy: people who activate your gate by
passing through it.
Source: www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/newsitems/porter_security.html

16. Unique Visitors
• Unique visitors are visitors who are counted only once,
regardless of how many times they access your website in a
specific period of time.
• To determine unique visitors, your web analytics tool tracks all
your visitors by either tracking their IP address or installing a
cookie on a visitor’s computer the first time that person visits
your site.
• Back to our gate count analogy: a person would be a unique
visitor to a physical library if s/he were somehow “tagged” on
arrival for the first time today, and NOT counted when re-
entering on the same day.

17. Which to Use: Visitors or Unique Visitors?
• It depends: which metric you choose will depend on what
you’re trying to accomplish with your data
• Using “Unique Visitors” will likely give you a more accurate
count of “How many people?” are using your site
• Using “Visitors” will likely give you a higher count*
*Use for LibQUAL/board reports! ;)

18. Visitor type: New and Returning
• Visited are classified as “new” or “returning,” meaning, quite
simply, whether they have been to your site before or not.
• Neither new nor returning is more important or necessarily
better than the other; however, this metric is still useful for
tracking trends in use:
• A high percentage of new visits indicates that a site is having a great deal
of traffic driven to it, which is a positive.
• A high rate of returning visitors also indicates that library users are loyal
and frequently return to engage with web content, which is also
desirable.
• What are your new versus returning visitors numbers?

19. User Technology Information
• Browser and Operating System:
• Specific versions of browsers and OSs
• Screen resolution, screen colors, Flash versions, and Java support
• Network:
• Services provider
• Host name
• What are your top three OSs and browsers? Compare to two
years ago; what trends do you notice?

20. A Note about Mobile…
• It’s complicated…
• JavaScript support in mobile phone browsers historically spotty
• Service provider issues: 100% of Blackberry users are in NYC?!
• In October 2009, Google Analytics began providing two mobile-
specific metrics: “Overview” (i.e., the number of visitors using
mobile) and “Device.” What percent mobile are your users?
• While this may seem limited, these metrics can be combined
with others to yield a variety of useful information and reports
about mobile use of your site
• There are as yet no industry-specific guidelines about
measuring and analyzing mobile use.

21. Geographic Data
• This metric reports the physical location of your users.
(Everyone you ever show this to will love it!)
• Analytics tools determine geographical location for users by IP
address.
• Why is this problematic?
• Libraries tend to have a regional cluster around a campus or
within the city/county
• Academics: Do you have remote campuses/overseas students?
• Publics: Are there any interesting patterns across the city, county, or area
you serve?

22. Entry and Exit Pages
• Entry (or landing) and exit pages show how users move through
the Internet, arriving at and then departing from library sites.
• Entry=the first page a visitor comes to;
• Exit=the last page a visitor is on before leaving your site.
• Some notes about exit pages in a library web environment:
• Again, library web sites are directories to other sources
• While ecommerce sites might view exits as a failure, that’s not
necessarily the case with library sites
• We can gauge our success in directing our users to other library resources
by tracking outbound links—more on this later!

23. Referral Sources
• Shows you how your visitors became your visitors by reporting
the URLs of the sites they were on when they clicked to enter
your site
• Typical referrers for libraries:
• Catalog pages
• Scheduling software (Evanced)
• Subscribed content (article databases, Overdrive)
• Parent institutions (college, municipality/county)
• What are your top three referrers? Any surprises in the list?

24. Engagement Metrics
• Engagement metrics attempt to provide insight into how far
users are delving into your site
• Pages Per Visit
• The number of pages in your site viewed by a visitor during a single visit
• Visit Duration/Time on Site
• The length of time, typically expressed in minutes, that a visitor spends
on your site for a visit.
• While these are handy metrics, any serious qualitative inquiry
about your site should include usability testing with users.

25. DEVELOPING A
WEB ANALYTICS STRATEGY
Advanced Concepts and Metrics

26. Segmenting or Filtering?
• Why do either?
Helps focus on the data
that really matters.
Example: Removing staff
computers or focusing on
remote users.
• How do they differ?
• Filtering removes data
from the collection
process.
• Segmentation removes
unwanted data at the
report level.

27. Benchmarking
Benchmark = A measurement to compare change
Why Use Benchmarks?
• Gives you a target to reach
• Helps identify reachable goals
Two Types of Benchmarks
• Internal - compare with previous internal data
• External - compare with other similar websites
How to set?
• Internal - Use a comparable time range of data.
• External -Exchange data with similar libraries or use an outside service
(Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, Hitwise)

28. Event Tracking
Event = An action that does not generate a page view.
Events include:
• Interactions with Videos/Audio files Event Tracking is the process
of having your WA tool track
• Downloading documents (PDFs, anyone?)
identified events.
• Embedded widgets
• Outbound Links
• Many dynamic elements
Does your tool track events? <img src=“image_name.jpg" alt=“description”
onClick=“_gaq.push(*‘_trackEvent’, ‘event
• Need to track all your data!
category’, ‘event action’, ‘event name’+);”/>
How to Track Events?
• Typically have to add tracking code to the event

29. WA Goals
Goal [gohl]
noun
1. The anticipate result or objective; often used in planning and
development.
2. A web analytics metric called a conversion.
Conversion = A desired action on a site.

30. Macro or Micro Conversions?
Macro Micro
Conversions = Conversions =
Measure the Measure the
primary purpose secondary
of the site. purposes of the
site.

31. Conversion Rate
Desired Action
Total Visits or Unique Visits = conversion rate
Conversion rates put desired actions in context!
They show the percentage of how often the desired action occurs.
Total Visits or Unique Visits Debate?
 Most of the time your tool already decides for you.

32. Goal Reporting and Conversion Types
Conversions can be anything, but most tools’ “Goal Reports”
focus on:
1. URL Destination – Target end/exit page
2. Visit Duration – Length of stay
3. Pages per Visit – Site engagement
4. Event – Target action on site

33. Breaking Down the Goal Report
Goal Reports = Conversion Reports
Goal Reports include:
• Total number of
conversions
• Conversion rate
• Assigned value amount
(optional)
• Abandonment rate
• Funnel (only for URL
Destination URLs)

34. Why Use Goal Reports?
Your tool does the tracking!
Unfortunately…
• Not all tools come with Goal Reports
• Goal Reports can be limiting – doesn’t fit all
conversions

35. What about KPIs?
KPI = Key Performance Indicator
What do they do?
Measure outcomes based on your site’s objectives/goals
How do I implement them?
 Typically, you use conversion rates. So Goal Reports or
however you track conversions.
Remember KPIs will be unique to the site!

36. Activity! The Directions
• Form groups of 3-4 members
• Your group will assigned a scenario (coming on the next slide)
To finish this activity, be prepared to:
1. Come up with an answer to the question/request
for data;
2. Explain why/how your group came up with that
conclusion.

37. How would you answer these requests?
1. Reference librarians ask: “Where should we implement a chat
reference widget on the web site?”
2. Communications/marketing asks: “Is our Facebook presence
successful?”
3. The library director asks: “What are the busiest hours on our
web site?”
4. The web developers ask: “We want to develop a mobile app.
Which platform should we support?”
5. The Web Team asks: “Which pages on the site are the
poorest performing, and why?”

38. DEVELOPING A
WEB ANALYTICS STRATEGY
Understanding Your Website

39. The Triforce of Understanding Your Site
Users
Site’s
Purpose
Organization
Content Goals

40. Where to Start?
Take Inventory of your Website
Identify the website and any related sites
Locate any related goals or strategic plan to site
Understand the site’s user groups
Do a content audit
Determine the purpose of the site (primary and secondary)

41. Inventory Process: ID the Related Sites
Example of related sites:
• Library catalog
• Databases
• Journal Search (Serials
Solutions)
• Prospector (cooperative
library catalog)
• ILLiad
• LibGuides
• Facebook
• Flickr
• University’s website

42. Inventory Process: Content Audit
Inventory of webpages + evaluation
= Content Audit

43. Approaching a Content Audit
• Create a list of content - all the webpages, documents,
and media (such as videos or audio files)
Most accurate count of content comes directly from the
web server
• Decide how you want to evaluate the content
Most measure basic usage of the page, but other factors
you may want to look at are:
• Last update to the content • Time on page
• Recent usage of the content • Landing page or not
• Bounce rate • Assigned content creator

44. Content Audit Example
Section of a Content Audit
Content Report : Aug. 2011 - July 2012
Page Pageviews % of Total Usage # of pages
Library Homepage 366,946 51% 1
Subject Database pages 117,893 16% 33
Database Index 41,372 6% 21
Databases A-Z pages 17,676 2% 22
Guides (index) 17,403 2% 1
VPN Page 15,515 2% 1
Library Hours 10,167 1% 1
Find (index) 6,381 1% 1
Colorado Statute page 5,511 1% 1

45. Inventory Process: Site Users
List your site’s intended users groups:
• Students?
• Faculty?
• Teenagers?
• Adults? Tip!
Many WA tools collect
• Parents? and report some
demographic data.
• Local community members?
Or consider surveying
• Non-English speaking? your population.
• Mobile users?

46. Inventory Process: Related Goals/Plans
Search for existing planning documents:
• Mission/Vision Statements
• Strategic Plans
• Organizational Goals
Example:
“The Library enhances our users' ability to access information and develop
critical research skills by creating…virtual pathways for them to interact with
Library resources and staff at the most opportune times in their learning
processes.” – Kraemer Family Library’s Mission Statement

47. Inventory Process: Purpose of Site
Why does that website exist?
This defines your website’s success.
Primary Purpose Secondary Purpose
 Main reason the website  Additional, but
was made supported, uses of the
site
 1 per site
 Can have more than 1

48. Finding a Purpose
I want my users to…
• To find the necessary
information
resources quickly
and efficiently.

49. Finding a Purpose con’t
It would be awesome if my users could…
• Find basic information about the library and library services
• Connect with a reference librarian.
• Discover library events and related library news.
• Renew their books online.
• Etc.

50. Inventory Process Wrap-Up
• Be prepared to repeat this process with all your web
presences
• Keep this process simple, but practical
• Be prepared to share
• Document and retain for future

51. DEVELOPING A
WEB ANALYTICS STRATEGY
Designing Measurable Website Goals

52. Goal Writing 101: SMART Goals*
S – Specific
Be clear and exact in what you want
M – Measurable
Set the benchmark
A – Achievable
Be realistic; you already know the site’s current performance
R – Result Based *Based on George Doran’s “There’s a
Outcome is relevant and necessary S.M.A.R.T Way to Write Management’s
Goals and Objectives” published in
T – Timed Management Review in 1971.
Setting a target date

53. Break It Down…
SMART Goal = Objective and KPI
Objective: Should be specific and relevant to the
website’s purpose.
• Typically, have at least one objective for each
identified purpose.
KPI: Measures the specific goal to show if the site is
successful in meeting this goal or not.
• Objectives can have multiple KPIs.

54. Objective Writing
Primary Purpose: To find the necessary information resources
quickly and efficiently.
Potential Objectives
Objective 1: Connect a majority of users that access the
library’s databases in quick and efficient manner.
Objective 2: Users can easily find the library catalog.
Tip: Focus on the major resources or
prioritize the ones you want to analyze.

55. Developing KPIs
Objective 1: Connect a majority of users that access the
library’s databases in quick and efficient manner.
KPI 1. 60% or more of the users that accessed a library
database did so in three or fewer clicks on the site.
KPI 2. Over half the visitors are able to find a library
database in less than minute from entering the site.

56. Power of Conversions
KPI 1. 60% or more of the users that accessed a library
database did so in three or fewer clicks on the site.
Goal Type: URL Destination or Event
+
Advanced Segment: 3 clicks or less
=
Answer!

57. Power of Conversions con’t
KPI 2. Over half the visitors are able to find a library
database in less than minute from entering the site.
Goal Type: URL Destination or Event
+
Advanced Segment: Visit is under 60 secs
=
Answer!

58. Another Example
Secondary Purpose: Connect with a reference librarian.
Objective 1: Increase visitor use of online reference services.
KPI 1: Increase the number of online chats by 10% in the
Spring 2013 semester.
KPI 2: Increase the number of submitted email reference
forms by 5% in the Spring 2013 semester.

59. Objectives and KPI Dos and Don’ts
DO DON’T
Ensure each identified  Go overboard on the object
purpose should have at least and KPI creation
one objective and KPI
 Focus on minute details –
 Make objectives and KPIs objectives should always tie
relevant to the library into the library’s “big picture”
 Use conversions (Goal Report  Forget to segment reports as
feature) necessary

60. Activity: Creating an Objective and KPIs

61. Open Q&A /
Wrap-Up

62. More Info…
• Avinash Kaushik:
• Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
• Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of
Customer Centricity
• Digital Analytics Association: www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org
• GA Conversion University (tutorials)
• Kate Marek: Web Analytics in the Library, ALA TechSource
• Coming soon! Farney & McHale, LITA Guide: Web Analytics
Strategies for Information Professionals

63. Contact Info
Tabatha Farney Nina McHale
Assistant Professor, Web Web Developer
Services Librarian Arapahoe Library District
University of Colorado @ninermac
Colorado Springs ninermac.net/contact
tfarney@uccs.edu