Nina McHale ninermac.net

Transcription

1 Nina McHale ninermac.net

2 I live in Colorado now, but I grew up in La Crosse and graduated from UW-Madison; Now Library Director at Red Rocks Community College; Prior to becoming an administrator, I started out in reference and then moved into web development/it in libraries; Most of my experience is academic, but I worked for a few years at the Arapahoe Library District in suburban Denver.

3 Some Assumptions Some Limitations Web Metrics and What They Mean/Can Tell Us Questions We Can/Should Ask, Based on Web Data Time for Your Questions

4 You have Google Analytics (GA) or a similar analytics program installed on your library s web site(s); 15/25 (68%) have Google Analytics; 2/25 have Piwik You have access to the dashboard for GA or the analytics tools you use; You are looking to do something meaningful with all of the statistics silently collecting over the hours, days, months, and years.

5 Analytics software uses IP addresses to record use: GA and other tools are recording user behavior of (and a client ID) not Nina McHale; will be a different person, even sometimes on the same day; IPs are dynamically assigned in many larger networks and may change; This actually protects user privacy. Our web presence silos : web site(s), catalog, Overdrive, LibGuides We can analytics assign tracking code to individual tools; These tools are used by our patrons as one big web presence. Analytics software was developed for e-commerce We re not looking to make a sale, and sometimes users exiting our site- for example, if they re going to Overdrive or an electronic database isn t a bad thing.

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8 Users (formerly Visitors ) New versus Returning: simply, has someone been to the library s web site before? Demographics: Age, Gender, Interests Location: report can be broken down by city, but remember limitations of IP addresses Language: when a user sets a language preference in their browser Technology: web browser and operating system (Mac, PC, gaming console) Network: in-library, Comcast, etc. Mobile: what percent of your users are mobile? Which devices do they use?

9 How does our web traffic compare to our foot traffic? and how do we feel about that? Do we want to promote online more? Why/why not? What are the hourly/daily/weekly/monthly use patterns like? What are similiarities to/differences from physical location(s)? Are there any staffing impacts or changes/reallocations to job duties or skills that might be made? What is our ratio of New versus Returning Users? Are we welcoming to both? Do the numbers about age, gender, and interest category align with what you know about your in-person users? For example, if you know your online users are mostly men from ages with interest in sports and, would that change how you market things real things and virtual things either in the library on on the library web site?

10 Are users coming from where you d expect? If you re a district that covers multiple municipalities or a broad rural area, does the data paint a useful, or maybe even a surprising, picture, of your users activity? Are we supporting technology in the way our users expect? Are we mobile friendly, i.e., how does the site look on our most popular mobile devices? Screen resolutions: does our site look good at 1366 x 768 (or whatever your most popular resolution is)? Again, what are the staffing/skills impacts? Are we letting them use a web browser they like while they re IN the library? How do users move through our site when they re on it? (metric: Users Flow) Does that match our expectations? Why or why not? What changes can we make to improve user experience?

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13 Channels: How are people getting to our web site? Referral: linking from another site, i.e., the city, your catalog, Overdrive Direct: typing in a URL into the browser address bar, yourlibrary.org, yourlibrary.org/hours Organic Search: typing Appleton Public Library into the browser search bar Social: linking from social media to your library s site

14 How are our patrons getting to our site? What are your percentages for each of the four acquisition methods? Referral: Are they linking from a parent institution? Local media? The catalog? Overdrive? Evanced, LibGuides, etc? Any surprises? Direct: Are people using an old/outdated/otherwise undesirable URL? Do we need a marketing campaign for the web site as an entity unto itself? Organic Search: What search terms or phrases are getting people to our site? What do people call our library? Social: Is our social media presence/campaign driving traffic to our site?

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16 Site Content: All of the pages on the site, ranked in order of most to least popular (in terms of how many times the page was visited) Exit Pages: The last page of the site someone was on when they clicked a link that took them to another site Keep in mind, another site could be the catalog

17 Are our top-hit pages: What we expected are we spending time where we should? Error-free? Up-to-date? Useful? Note: don t attempt to force users to places/pages they don t want to go! Do we like where people are going when they leave our site? Are our top exit pages our catalog, Overdrive, electronic resources, etc? Are we tasking web work appropriately? Do we have enough staff to support the site? Do we have enough staff to contribute content? Are we developing content that our users like/find engaging?

18 Sharing is caring! Tabby Farney, Director of Web Services and Emerging Technologies, University of Colorado Colorado Springs Just like with IRL (in-real-life) library space use, the numbers are a compelling part of our story, and we need to tell our stakeholders, from our colleagues to our bosses to our community, that story Infographics can be a fun way to engage people with numbers and overcome jargon Example infographic: Piktochart.com Free basic level

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20 Advanced analytics topics: Goals & Benchmarking Filtering & Segmenting Events & Conversions Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Avinash Kaushik: Web Analytics in an Hour A Day (Wiley, 2007) Web Analytics 2.0 (Wiley, 2010) Blog: Farney & McHale: Web Analytics for Information Professionals (ALA, 2013)

21 Contact: