Web Analytics: Define, Collect, Report, Repeat

Many sites are dedicated to Web Analytics, which, along with a Web Usability Program and Strategic Business Metrics, round out the Web Measurement portion of Web Operations Management (see the WOM Primer for background).  Here I'll concentrate on how to set up Web Analytics in your organization to help support your overall Web Operations Management.  This needs to be done in three steps: 1) define what to measure, 2) set up systems to measure, then 3) report.  If any of these are missing or broken, then your Web Analytics will not be effective (regardless of how slick or cutting edge your analytics tool is).  So, here is how to set up effective Web Analytics, step-by-step:

1) Define what to measure

Here you want to concentrate on the goals of your Web site, which should flow from the top level Web Guiding Principles and your overall Web strategy.  If set up correctly, these should be the kinds of metrics that everyone at the institution would care about (from the top down).  The important thing here is to focus on your *goals* and not just whatever your statistics tool gags out by default.  Make sure to consider your overall Web presence holistically, which may mean not just focusing on one tool but across multiple channels (for instance, you may want to measure how people are reading your blogs as well).

2) Set up systems to measure

Looking at what metrics to measure, the next step is figuring out how to measure them.  This may require adding a new tool to your arsenal (for instance, you may need to use FeedBurner to track blog subscribes).  You may decide that it's ok to only post an overall Web Analytics report every quarter, in which case it may be fine if it needs some manual steps to pull together.  That said, in addition to the tools and process for pulling together the stats, you may also need to change your core systems or content entry processes.  For example, if you decide it is important to see which topics are of most interest, then you may need to have a shared taxonomy across systems (and the training to ensure everyone uses the terms in the same way). 

3) Report

This step is important but easy to overlook.  If in step 1 you've defined metrics that are important to your organization, then fortunately there will be demand for the reports.  In step 2 you may have set up systems that still need some manual work to put together reports, so you also need to make sure you have the resources to do the work.  Once the reports are generated, you then need to widely broadcast them.  If you aren't having people discuss (and probably contest) the metrics, then they probably either aren't the right metrics or aren't being distributed widely enough.  These reports should help drive your organization's Web site in the right direction.  One way this will happen, for a large organization, is when different groups within your organization start comparing themselves so there's a natural competition to improve the metrics (which, as defined in step 1, are the right metrics and not just page views or something that your analytics packages happens to easily produce).

4) Repeat

Of course, the above three steps are more of a part of an ongoing cycle than a one-time event.  In fact, you may wish to start small now by going through the first three steps quickly and then revisiting. In addition, the metrics themselves will flow back from Measurement back up to Web Operations Management Strategy and back through the overall WOM cycle (which may end up impacting which metrics are collected once it goes through Governance and Measurement).   There are also other little mini feedback loops that go on, with Web Product Management looking at the statistics to determine what is working and what isn't on the Web, which then may require new statistics to dig into problems that are uncovered.

The three steps of 1) define what to measure, 2) set up systems to measure, and 3) reporting should help improve your Web Analytics program.  Every once in a while, these steps should be repeated to better hone your Analytics and, moreover, to improve your site overall.