Random thought: The limits of Google Analytics - it's just data, not information

I'm still wading through Google Analytics to get an idea of how the web site is used so I can have some 'evidence-based' proposals for the site home page and persistent navigation.

One thing that I'm pondering after my last blog post is referrals from Search Engines. If a page is linked to much more often from a search engine results page (SERP) than from another page in your site does that indicate your site is failing the user, or that the user prefers to use a search engine?

If a page is a common exit point does that mean it satisfied the user need, or did it just frustrate them enough to give up?  Does an elongated 'time on page' mean the content engrossed the reader or that they glazed over into catatonia?

If your total page hits go up down after a redesign does that mean you lost popularity or your site is providing the required content with a lot less clicks?

I think I could argue two opposite sides to almost anything Analytics appears to hint at - each supposition on a facet of Analytics would probably make an ideal topic for a formal debate in the vein of 'can money by happiness' or 'is honesty the best policy'

The answer is site Analytics on their own are ambiguous guides to user behaviour - you really need to observe, consult and 'know' your users. 

Analytics' value is in aggregating data so you can visualise behaviours that prompts you to formulate questions like WHY IS IT DOING THAT? IS THAT A GOOD THING?

If only users could be consulted in large numbers at any time that was convenient to me.

PS GA has some tables of Google Queries mapped against how often a page from your site  appeared in a SERP and how often one of your pages was clicked on, referred to as CTR (Click Through Rate).  It makes for interesting perusing, maybe one approach would be to interpret user goal from the search, and then see how closely the target page matched or referred to the goal.  An iterative approach that would probably improve user experience over time, but it would be difficult evaluate the impact.

Analysis of that information is making me think about using Summon's Best Bets

Google Analytics 101: tracking down causes of page hit anomalies

I'm no Google Analytics guru, by any stretch, but over time my understanding and GA's powers seem to be incrementally increasing.  This post is about how GA helped me understand why a particular page ranks high in page hits on our site. If you are not very familiar with GA it may help you a little.

I'm preparing to revamp our web site to work with new responsive web design templates - these will significantly change the access points to our information architecture, but not the architecture itself. Anyway, part of my prep is confirming what clients are accessing most often and greasing the path to it.

This page comes to my attention:
Types of Information Sources - Primary, Secondary, Tertiary & Refereed Journals
Pretty dry supplementary information for information literacy programs I thought. Might get a few clicks at the start of each semester, maybe.

According to GA it was the twelfth most popular page on our website in the first 6 months of 2013 (of currently 1106 pages). Over 12,000 unique page hits.

'Oh noes' I think. Do I have to put a link to it in a prominent place? Who is using this. Why?

So first I use GA  to get a sense of how people are getting to this page, using the content  and navigation summary features (see screencast below)



So what can I learn about why people are being referred to a particular page? What does GA tell us about Google search referrals? Using Traffic Sources, Landing Pages and Search/Organic and Keywords ('nother screencast)



Mystery solved, that particular page appears at the top the Google SERP for types of information.  I can with confidence not worry about whether it should be more prominent in our site structure and nav - the vast majority of use is from a Google search done by the wider public.

Lesson learned - don't accept page hits the concrete truth about how your primary clients are using your site.

Thank you Mister Google.

Removing Library Jargon from our Home page - what Google Analytics tells us

In January I tend to catch up on all my statistics collection for the last year - and if I can, do some cursory analysis.

I've been using Google Analytics Campaigns to track the use of links on the Library's home page - which was  revamped around this time last year after usability testing with students.

After finally biting the 'less library jargon' bullet. Here are some of the changes we made and the differences in clicks between 2011 and 2012.

The Catalogue and the more meaningless Tropicat were replaced by Books, DVDs & more.

Hits up 10%

Bounce rate steady

 Reserve Online replaced by Readings & Past Exams.

Hits up 100%

Bounce rate down 25%

Databases replaced by Journal Articles

Hits up 90%

Bounce rate down 60% (but meaningless as most links are to external sites in the old target page)

Interestingly in the case of Databases we restored some button navigation labelled Databases at the request of some academic staff. Hits about a third of  the number of the Journal Articles link. Overall use of our static listing of databases has dropped around 5%. Rather than go straight to the A-Z listing of databases the new link lists a number or resources and tips (including the A-Z).

The focus of this phase of review/redesign was very much on undergraduates, particularly first year.

Our user testing showed confusion about article searching with significant numbers going to the eJournal portal (an A-Z listing from Serials Solutions) browsing for a likely journal title, then browsing the issues for a relevant article.

Reserve Online had users thinking it was about reserving books, and students didn't draw the link between video materials and our catalogue.

Our corporate CMS template forces us into four columns - previously the column header for these links was 'Finding Resources' - which we trimmed to 'Find' which gave some added context to the link names and hopefully amplified our goal-based approach.

Overall the bounce rate for all home page links dropped 21%, a fair indication that users are having more success in finding what they are looking for when selecting a link.

We also have a Summon search box as the default centrepiece of our home page, its use continues to grow strongly.

Google Analytics and Oracle UCM - not playing nicely

Have had a couple of staff report this to me over the last week - but was having trouble replicating the problem. We have an A-Z button on our home page that had this link
http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/libcomp/az/index.htm?utm_source=LibcompHomePage&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=A2ZButton

I'm using GA to try and track the usage of the button to determine whether it's the best use of that screen real estate.  It's always worked but now it hides the jump to navigation and the dynamically created listing, showing only the H1

But if you remove the GA tracking code and go to http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/libcomp/az/index.htm it works just fine.  I've used lots of GA tracking on home page links for over a year now and I've never seen this behaviour before. Can't find a mention of it elsewhere in the blogosphere. I don't have time to play with it so all I can do is remove the tracking code and worry about it some other time. Would love to hear if anyone out there knows more.