Introduction to analysis

When you are new to analytics, and perhaps even data analysis is general, the sheer amount of analytics data can be a bit overwhelming. We have several specific articles, for example about analyzing the bounce rate and the time spent on pages, how to track engagement, and so on. These are great when you want to delve deeper, but for now, let's look at the more basic information.

To start with, your analytics data can be split into two categories: data about your visitors, and data about visitor behavior. We'll begin with the visitors.

About your visitors

One part of understanding how visitors use your website and why, is to understand who your visitors are. By understanding your visitors, you can learn who your customers or main target groups are, where campaigns will be most effective, and get an idea of your visitors' loyalty. To get to know your visitors, you should look at the following:

1. Number of visits. How many visits do you get each month? Are there seasonal differences?

2. Number of visitors. How many visitors do you get each month? Remember that a visitor can visit more than once in the selected date range.

3. Average visits per visitor. To get a better understanding of the relationship between visits and visitors, you can calculate the average number of visitors per visitor. Do your visitors return often?

4. Returning visitors. How many of your visitors have been to your website before?

5. New visitors. And the opposite, how many new visitors do you get each month?

6. Location. Where are your visitors from? Are they local? Global?

7. Channel. How did the visitors find your website? Did they use a search engine? Did they come from a different website?

8. Device. Which device do your visitors prefer?

Now that you have this information, it's time for the fun part: looking for patterns. There are already suggestions to look for seasonal changes, but there are more patterns to look for. Are your new visitors from the same location as your returning visitors, or are you growing in a specific geographical location? Do you have an increase in mobile users at the same time as visitors from social media is increasing? Basically, how do all these numbers related to each other?

About visitor behavior

Once you have a basic understanding of your visitors, it's time to look at how they act on your website. This will tell you which content they like, how they are navigating on your website, and what information they are engaging with. To understand the behavior, you should start by looking at this:

1. Entry pages. Which is the first page the visitors see? Do they start on the home page or further down the structure?

2. Bounce rate. How many leave from the entry page? Is this a page that should make them leave?

3. Most viewed pages. Which pages are your visitors most interested in? Are they similar to the entry pages, or are those mainly serving as paths to the main pages?

4. Average time on page. How much time do the visitors spend on the main pages? Is it enough to read the most important information?

5. Exit pages. Where do your visitors leave? Are these pages where you want them to leave?

6. Average actions per visit. How many actions (clicks, downloads, etc) per visitor before they leave the website? Are they engaging with it?

Just like before, try to find patterns in this information. Are the visitors more engaged on certain pages? Are they staying longer on some page types but move on quickly on other page types? Is that logical or may there be an underlying issue? How are the visitors navigating on the website? Do they stay on the same pages where they entered or do they leave on completely different pages? How does that relate to what the visitors should do on your website?

Combining the two

Now that you have an understanding of your visitors and of your visitor behavior, it's time to combine the two sets of information. Are the entry pages the same for different channels? Do returning visitors stay longer than new visitors? Are there differences between visitors using a mobile and visitors using a desktop? Do changes in number of visits affect the number of actions per visit?

Even when you just look at the basic analytics information, you can see that there are many questions you can answer. The best way to approach the analysis is to start with a purpose. What is it that you want or need to know? Then you specify which information you need to answer those questions. Once you know that, you can use your analytics to answer your questions. And if you find that the data you currently have doesn't answer your question, it's time to move on to more advanced analyses, and perhaps set up some goals and events.

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