Website analytics consulting is one of the many consulting services Pearl Lemon Consulting offers. Let’s take a look at how web analytics works and a few examples of it.
All these metrics sound similar, but they are not the same. This includes pageviews, unique pageviews, new visitors, and returning visitors. It is possible to make ill-informed decisions if you aren’t familiar with what website analytics mean. Avoid making ill-informed decisions.
How does web analytics work?
It is the process of collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the data generated by users visiting and interacting with websites. Web analytics serves as a tool for tracking user behavior, optimizing user experience and flow, and gaining insights that can support business objectives such as increasing sales.
Identifying opportunities for improvement can be done using data you collect about how people interact with your site.
Examples of web analytics
Amount of pageviews
Pages viewed on your site are counted as pageviews. When a browser loads a page from your site, it counts as a pageview (or view).
This would mean several views if someone viewed your site, reloaded the page and then viewed it again. Views would be counted for people who view your website for one page, then view a second page, then return to the original page.
Pageviews that are unique
The unique number of views on a page in a session represents the total number of times that page was viewed. As we’ll see below, a unique pageview is a collection of pageviews generated by a single user using a particular session.
If someone views the same page twice (or more times) in one session, they will only be counted once when calculating unique pageviews.
Sessions
Sessions are an aggregation of interactions on your website within a given time frame – including page views as well as CTA clicks and events.
Each web analytics tool has its own time frame for a session. The standard session duration for traffic analytics tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot is 30 minutes.
User sessions end and new sessions begin based on the following events: A) 30 minutes have passed since the user last logged in, B) midnight has fallen, or C) the user comes from one traffic source, leaves, and then returns from another.
Visitor new to this site
Depending on your web analytics tool, new visitors can also be referred to as new users, new visitors or new sessions.
New visitors to your site are visitors who are visiting it for the first time. Those who lose interest will make up for it over time by bringing in a steady flow of new visitors.
A unique identifier identifies these individuals. You install HubSpot tracking code on your website, for example, when using HubSpot. In this case, your site visitors will be tracked by a cookie placed by the tracking code in their browser.
Visitors who return
The number of returning users (or visitors) on your website is the number of visitors who have already been to your site. Some web analytics tools – such as Google Analytics – include this metric. As part of Google Analytics’ Audience reports, you can see what percentage of new visitors your website receives compared to returning visitors.
We offer new and returning visitor metrics, but we can also show you how well you retain visitors and how successful you are at attracting new traffic.
Sources of traffic
You can see where your site visitors come from by looking at the traffic sources. The tracking code on your site collects this metric, as does visitor information.
According to the web analytics tool you are using, there are different traffic sources you can track. Among HubSpot’s types of traffic are:
- SEO (organic search)
- References
- Social media organic
- Marketing via email
- Pay-per-click
- Social Media Ads
- Traffic from direct sources
Rate of bounce
In web analytics, the bounce rate is the rate at which visitors leave your site after viewing just one page. Site-wide bounce rate or page-level bounce rate are two different ways to look at bounce rate. A bounce rate on a page is the percentage of visitors who didn’t go to another page on your website after landing on it.
Generally, any bounce rate below 40% is considered good, any bounce rate between 40% and 70% is considered average, and anything above 70% is considered high.
