Guide to Analyzing Feedback from Web Trends

Where to find the figures to include in the report

How many times was the site visited?
(General Statistics)

What dates and times had peak amounts of traffic?
(General Statistics)

How many people entered the URLs from the newsletter and/or other publications?
(See Documentation page 296 to find out how to specify “unique URLs”)

What sites did visitors come from?
(Referrers & Keywords)

What words did visitors enter on search engines that brought them to the site?
(Referrers and Keywords)

What pages did visitors visit?
(General Statistics>Top Pages)

How many times did visitors download documents like pdfs?
(Resources Accessed>Top Files Downloaded)

What pages were visitors viewing when they left?
(Resources Accessed>Top Exit Pages)

What paths did they take?
(Resources Accessed>Top Paths Through Site)

How long did visitors stay?
(Activity Statistics>By Length of Visit

Meaning of Questions

How many times was the site visited?
These figures will show drop-offs or surges in traffic that might have something to do with how well we are
communicating.

What dates and times had peak amounts of traffic?
These figures will tell us when people visit and therefore when to post new material. For example, if the
site experiences the most traffic on Mondays, it makes sense to post new material on Mondays so that the
most people will see it.

How many people entered the URLs from the newsletter and/or other publications?
These figures will tell us how effective our paper communication is, or at least how many people are
reading it.

What sites did visitors come from?
This information will tell us how many users simply type in or bookmark the SEI’s URL, which sites link
to ours, and how many of the visitors are internal to the SEI. This will also tell us the search engines our
visitors are using so that we can maximize our visibility with those search engines.

What words did visitors enter on search engines that brought them to the site?
We can use this information to figure out what people are looking for (or expect to find) on the SEI site.

What pages did visitors visit?
Using this information, we can focus our communications improvements on sites that experience heavy
traffic.

How many times did visitors download documents like pdfs?
This information is an indicator of not only what visitors are interested in, but in their levels of interest. If
visitors are willing to download documents from the site, they are very interested in the information they
request.

What pages were visitors viewing when they left?
If many visitors leave the site at a certain page, this could be an indication that that page is not
communicating effectively or that the page simply did not contain what the visitor was looking for.

How long did visitors stay?
This information could tell us how valuable visitors find the information in the site. By investing more
time in the site, visitors show that they value the information therein.

What paths did visitors take through the site?
This information tells us how visitors navigate the site, whether it is intuitive or not. By studying the
patterns within the site, we can find out a little about how people expect things to go.

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