Improving the User Experience with Site Analytics
Posted: April 21st, 2009
Having a presence in the online world is quickly becoming common, and everyone from companies to the average Joe is leaving their digital footprint on it. This is exemplified through the many product pages, online albums of family pictures, and candid consumer reviews that exist on the Internet. But just as it is worthwhile to make a positive contribution to the offline world in which we live, it is equally as important to do so on the web.
The User Experience (UX)
Many of us are taking the bold step from simply being content consumers who watch clips on YouTube and listen to podcasts, to content producers who review local restaurants and blog about our favourite hobbies. And while it may be fun to see something we created available to people around the globe, it would be more meaningful to create something that other people truly enjoy consuming. In other words, we should aim to provide the best experience possible to the users of our website.
Companies should think of every visitor to their site as potential customers, and giving them a positive web experience is just good business. Reeling in traffic through a pay-per-click campaign is only the first step, while a memorable UX is the path to sales. Webmasters who focus on UX also tend to passively receive more natural backlinks, which is always great for search engine optimization.
Gauging the outcomes of our endeavours for delivering a valuable user experience can be accomplished through website analytics. In addition to tracking results, the data that analytics software provides may be put to work in improving the user experience.
Relevant Site Analytics Data
Every type of website, regardless of its raison d’être, has a means to track UX with the range of metrics out there. Some of information gathered by web analytics may be inconsequential for your particular site, while you should definitely keep your eye on other statistics. The situations below illustrate this idea and suggest a few things that may be relevant to you.
1. Blogs:
- feed subscribers
- number of other blogs that talk about yours
- amount of republished content (posts)
2. Video Sites:
- view count
- number of videos seen per visitor
- downloads/uploads
3. Online Arcades:
- number of games played
- time spent on site
More To Come…
Hopefully this post sheds some light on the importance of tracking UX with site analytics, whether you’re engaged in search engine marketing or only SEO.
That’s it for now, but I intend to expand further on this subject with actionable take-homes within the next month or so. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe by email if you haven’t yet already.
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