Web Site Navigation Analysis

Transcription

1 Web Site Navigation Analysis WebTrends 851 SW 6th Ave., Suite 700 Portland, OR fax US Toll Free: WEBTRENDS ( ) WebTrends Sales For offices worldwide, visit webtrends.com A Comprehensive Perspective OVERVIEW Web sites today are sophisticated elements of companies strategies designed to effectively and efficiently sell products, generate sales leads, offer service and communicate with customers and suppliers. Ensuring that your web site visitors can easily access the information they are looking for and complete a task, make a decision to buy, or otherwise convert, is accomplished through effective web site navigation and content. Both navigation and content are critical in creating a positive customer experience and higher conversion rates one of the main measures used in evaluating web site effectiveness. To fully understand the opportunities to modify and improve navigation and, as a result, influence visitors to complete your business goals, consider the three distinct forms of web site navigation: 1. Global Navigation - Global navigation links by definition are present on every page to allow visitors to navigate to major sections or functional areas of your site, providing a hierarchical categorization scheme for all of your site s content. Global links are typically organized in top-level navigation bars or side menus, and may also be repeated at the bottom of pages. 2. Local Navigation - Local navigation links are typically located in a navigation bar on the left side of web pages, and allow visitors to navigate to different topics within a major section. These are also sometimes called category links. 3. Contextual Navigation - Contextual navigation links, or page-level navigation, relate specifically to the particular page, document or object, and appear in the active window of your web pages the main part of the page where all the body content is located. These might include See Also links, callouts for special features or offers, images or graphics, hyperlinked words or phrases, and more. CONTENTS 2005 WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved. The Five Key Areas of Navigation Analysis and Measurement 2 Popular Content 3 Black Hole Content 5 Page Performance 7 Path Performance 9 Business Scenario Performance 11 Measuring True Abandonment 12 Qualifying Scenarios with Product and Campaign Information 13 Managing Web Site Navigation is a Process 14

2 Once we got analytics pulled into our team, it became something that we could own and drive. With WebTrends, we now have the insight we need to meet our business goals. Identifying which of these navigation systems are working to help achieve your business goals, or which are confusing visitors, can be difficult. In fact, a well-planned site might incorporate input from a wide-range of disciplines including human psychology, scenario design, usability testing, web development, and information architecture to name a few all in order to help ensure that the site s initial navigation systems are effective. However, once the site is built you must then delve into the area of web analytics popularly called Navigation Analysis to understand whether visitors are navigating your site as you had expected, and what you can do to streamline interactions and improve both visitors experiences and your business results. Navigation Analysis describes the process of tracking the pages viewed, links clicked on, paths taken and business scenarios completed or abandoned by web site visitors from the moment they enter your site until they leave it. Because of the different types of navigation systems, and the thousands of possible paths and pages that can comprise even a small business web site, Navigation Analysis becomes a challenge from both a technical standpoint (how to process the data quickly and accurately) and an end-user s perspective (how to interpret the data in a meaningful and actionable manner). THE FIVE KEY AREAS OF NAVIGATION ANALYSIS AND MEASUREMENT To meet this challenge, Navigation Analysis must include reports that cover all the design elements and navigation possibilities. WebTrends 7 complete Navigation Analysis includes five key areas of measurement: 1. POPULAR CONTENT Identifies a site s most popular content through top viewed pages Highlights content interests by grouping pages into content groups and sub-content groups 2. BLACK HOLE CONTENT Identifies where people are falling out of your web site though singlepage visits and top exit pages 3. PAGE PERFORMANCE popular content black holes scenario performance page performance path design Visually reveals the value of your page real estate with on page web metrics and link analysis as you browse the site Augments page analysis with visual path analysis and conversion funnels 4. PATH PERFORMANCE Measures all of the site s traveled paths, including Top Paths through the site, paths from a specific page (Forward Paths) and paths to a specific page (Reverse Paths) Next generation Visual Path Analysis presents new visual funnels and diagrams for easier decision-making 5. BUSINESS SCENARIO PERFORMANCE Measures specific, configurable business scenarios that represent steps visitors take to complete a site s business goals and objectives, such as a purchase or registration process Next generation visualization adds abandonment points, providing the unique ability to clearly discover which pages and paths visitors take to arrive at conversion points and the paths they follow after abandoning scenarios WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

3 To understand the return on your navigation design, and the overall return on investment of your web site, a thorough set of tools and reports is required. Rather than overload the user with long reports loaded with difficult to comprehend information, WebTrends 7 strategically approaches Navigation Analysis, focusing on the following tenants: Intuitive: business users need to be able to easily interpret navigation analysis and determine what to do in order to improve business results Interactive: business users need complete insight into navigation and must be able to move between different navigation reports in order to examine page, path and scenario navigation more easily Integrated: business users need insight from navigation analysis integrated into their workflow to more easily identify problems and determine the actions to take in order to optimize navigation WebTrends thorough library of reports combined with next generation visualization technologies offer the most complete, intuitive, interactive and integrated set of tools to improve your site s navigation and achieve your conversion goals. 1. Popular Content The first area to focus on with navigation analysis is high-level statistics what is your most popular content? The key reports you ll use are: 1. Top Pages 2. Top Entry Pages 3. Top Content Groups Entry Pages are one of the most obvious to understand; they are the first page of a visitor s visit. The most popular Entry Pages and Top Pages viewed should mesh with the content the business desires its visitors to see, whether that is a page detailing What s New in the product, a campaign detailing a sale, or a branding element. Since Top Page statistics relate to individual pages, caution should be used when there are several pages that have essentially the same function but different URLs. A more comprehensive approach in this situation is to analyze these pages as related groups of content within a site. This broader approach rolls up individual pages into groups that are determined to have roughly the same purpose, role, meaning or content, called Content Groups WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

4 This report gauges the relative popularity of specific content areas.this insight may enhance where promotions are placed, where campaigns land, what specific areas need attention, or where navigation could be improved.a next step would be to correlate Content Group analysis with Top Pages to determine the most viewed pages within that Content Group, and, for instance, identify which pages would be most appropriate as featured links to specific content areas. SUMMARY: POPULAR CONTENT Questions Answered: Are there particular pages visitors are gravitating towards that were not expected? For example, technical support issues for a given product. Is there an opportunity to reorder, reprioritize or remove under-utilized pages? How much time do visitors spend viewing my core content? What it doesn t tell you: How did visitors find a given page? And what pages did they view after they visited that page? When people left the site, what content did they last look at? Was the page a help or hindrance to conversion goals on your web site? What were the most popular areas of a given page? Conclusion: Use Popular Content analysis to examine individual pages and to gain an initial, topline understanding for whether page content interests your visitors. Avoid drawing conclusions on the success of your overall navigation strategy based solely on Popular Content; you need the larger context of optimal paths leading to conversion, scenario conversion effectiveness and insight into campaign and search engine performance for complete understanding WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

5 2. Black Hole Content The next component of navigation analysis looks at the areas of the site where people tend to leave, also known as your site s black holes. Knowing what content is unpopular provides the opportunity to improve your site, and this is equally as important as evaluating your most popular content, since it represents valuable web site real estate that is not being used. The key reports to identify your black holes are: 1. Top Exit Pages 2. Single-Page Visits black holes popular content scenario performance page performance path design Exit pages indicate that the visitor either concluded their business on your site (desirable) or that they left without fulfilling your desired outcome (undesirable). It s critical that you examine Top Exit pages with an understanding of what you want visitors to do on your site. For example, measuring Top Exit Pages against Top Pages creates a simple Exit Ratio (the number of Exits divided by the number of Views). Typically a high exit ratio is undesirable, but this depends on the context of the page. For example, a high exit ratio on your Thank You for Ordering page is a positive indicator that your conversion processes are performing well. Single-Page Visits is another valuable report for understanding where content holes are in your web site and where navigation can be improved. The report below identifies pages that are the only page viewed during a visit. In other words, these are the pages where visitors most often immediately leave your site after just having arrived WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

6 This report lists the number of Single-Page Visits generated by various pages.this web site did not separate Intranet traffic out of the reporting profile, which is why you see Intranet home listed as the fourth top single-page visit. In this Single-Page Visits report, the vast majority of customers viewed the homepage only, followed by the campaign redirect page only. Clearly, it is not desirable to have visitors view just the homepage and leave. Visitors may be overwhelmed by the information on the page, the page may have loaded too slowly, or they may have simply determined that they are at the wrong web site. All have significant impacts for a web site designer. An additional way to interpret the data would be to add another dimension or filter, such as viewing Single-Page Visits for new visitors and returning visitors separately. Or, you can compare the Top Exit Pages to Single-Page Visits to identify the Single-Page Visits of greatest concern. SUMMARY: BLACK HOLE CONTENT Questions Answered: From which content do visitors most frequently leave? Is there something about that page that encourages them to leave? Which pages cause the most Single-Page Visits? Can these pages be redesigned to help prevent this? Do new visitors have accurate perceptions about what the site offers? Are your ads or search engine listings giving the correct impression? Is your unique value proposition clearly explained on top Single- Page Visits? What it doesn t tell you: Where did people enter the site before hitting the black hole, and where did they go after they left? Did any of the visitors understand the business purpose of your site? For example, did they begin to take the actions you wanted them to? What context drew visitors to your site? Was it a marketing campaign or search engine keyword? Conclusion: Use Black Hole analysis to find out where gaps in site content and navigation exist, and work to reduce those deficiencies. Avoid drawing conclusions on the success of your overall navigation strategy from Black Hole analysis; just as with Popular Content, you need the greater context of optimal paths leading to conversion, scenario conversion effectiveness and insight into campaign and search engine performance WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

7 3. Page Performance Once you understand the basics which are the best performing pages and which are the worst the next critical analysis allows you to look into specific details of page performance, including the clickthrough on specific navigation design elements, such as links, buttons and graphics. WebTrends 7 provides breakthrough visualization with a new feature called, WebTrends SmartView. SmartView includes all the required information to fully evaluate popular content black holes scenario performance page performance path design real estate on any given page. With SmartView you can view web metrics superimposed on your actual web pages as you browse them, greatly reducing the effort required to interpret page-level navigation analysis. Color-coded clickthrough overlays clearly identify the links and content that engage visitors, as well as those that don t. WebTrends SmartView offers easy-to- understand, color-coded metrics on link clickthrough making decisions about page real estate easier. SmartView employs three visualization techniques to make navigation analysis intuitive, interactive, and integrated into the environment of the typical business user: 1. On page metrics. Simply browse your site using SmartView and accurate web metrics are displayed right on the page and on the links they correspond to, allowing you to examine the number and percentage of clicks a given link or area of the page receives in relation to all the other links and real estate on that page. 2. Color-coding. Each link is color-coded to allow you to visually identify the hot spots of the page and evaluate the most popular real estate and content. 3. Dynamic visual diagrams: Visual path and scenario reports are provided for every page in the left panel of SmartView (see figure below) allowing you to evaluate page performance with the context of overall site navigation and business ROI. A user can easily see the complete paths visitors take before or after hitting the page. With SmartView s dynamic reporting capabilities, business users can simply click on a link in the right panel to browse to the next page and the reports in the left panel will immediately be updated to show results for that new page WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

8 In addition to examining the paths and scenarios around a given page, the left panel of SmartView provides important page statistics such as view time, the number of views the page received, what pages were viewed immediately before and after that page, and conversion for your critical web site goals. WebTrends SmartView displays a visual diagram of a Top Pages with Previous Page Viewed report on the left to identify the pages most commonly viewed by visitors to reach the web page in the right panel. The visual rendering of web analytics and path analysis information as you browse your web site page-by-page can be a powerful tool to help you quickly ascertain the effectiveness of certain areas and take decisive actions to improve results. SUMMARY: PAGE PERFORMANCE Questions Answered: Which links are the most popular on my page? Which on page advertisements are performing well? What paths are visitors taking before and after they land on this page? What it doesn t tell you: Which campaigns drive the most conversions at the lowest cost? Do visitors from different geographic regions behave differently in my conversion scenarios? Are my web site conversion points in the optimal areas of the page and are they performing well? Conclusion: WebTrends SmartView provides the most comprehensive, intuitive way to analyze your initial page results, saving valuable time spent correlating data to the actual page. Focusing on page performance allows you to optimize page interactions and ultimately improve the number of visitors performing the actions you want them to take boosting conversion and web site ROI. Move to Path Analysis and Scenario Analysis reports for detailed examination of visitors reactions to conversion processes (by campaign or product) and overall site navigation WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

9 4. Path Performance Supermarkets have traditionally been good students of monitoring consumer behavior to encourage browsing and impulse buying, and to increase the average purchase per consumer. For example, placing necessities such as eggs and milk at the back of the store encourages consumers to buy other goods they see as they stock up on the staples. With similar goals in mind, path analysis traces the paths of your web site visitors as they move through your site, page to page. This detailed, popular content black holes scenario performance page performance path design but overarching view of visitor behavior helps you determine which content and products draw the most interest and how you can optimize the design of your site to achieve your business goals, whether that is servicing customers more effectively or increasing their average order size. While path analysis is extremely valuable, interpreting the information and making decisions based on it has been very difficult due to the heavy reliance on tables and one-dimensional graphs to represent the data. WebTrends 7 incorporates new technologies that use visual diagrams to graphically depict path analysis and ease decision-making. Now a marketer can easily get a visual understanding of how visitors are moving through his web site, whether that is looking at a path that is one-page deep, to viewing the most traveled paths through the site. Reports in this category include: 1. Paths, Forward - shows the paths visitors followed away from a specific page. 2. Paths, Reverse - shows the paths visitors followed to arrive at a specific page. 3. Single Level Paths, Forward and Reverse - identifies the pages most commonly viewed immediately before and after a specific page; sometimes referred to as Previous Pages and Next Pages. 4. Content Path Analysis - examines how visitors move through sections or topical areas of your site. Path analysis reports can now be rendered as visual diagrams to make interpretation easier.this report shows popular arrival and departure paths for a specific page WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

10 In the report below, the visualization can also be displayed in a form that resembles traditional web analytics tables. The difference is the detail and interactivity that the report supports; in one view users can see the pages that drove the most visitors to a specific page, as well as what pages were most commonly viewed next. They can also expand this report to display up to 10 Previous and Next Pages for any specific page. Summary: path Performance Questions Answered: What are the most traveled paths through the overall site? Is my site architecture leading visitors to my core destination pages? How many pages does a visitor typically have to view before reaching a destination page? What it doesn t tell you: What are the conversion rates for my core business goals for example, selling products? Which links on a specific web page are the most popular? What is the abandonment of my conversion points along my business scenario? Are there unnecessary steps that I am asking my visitors to take in reaching a destination page?? Conclusion: WebTrends 7 Visual Path Analysis is an intuitive and interactive way to understand the way visitors navigate a site. However, considering path popularity without the context of conversion doesn t tell the whole story. Move on to Scenario Analysis with its focus on abandonment paths to analyze specific business scenarios WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

11 5. Business Scenario Performance 5-Point Scenario Analysis is breakthrough conversion analysis that provides the unique ability to view the entire conversion process in an easy-to-understand visual format. Where most solutions only provide the fall-out rate from step to step, WebTrends 5-Point Scenario Analysis provides actionable insight into 5 critical areas to help you optimize your conversion process, namely: 1. Inflow: The pages and programs that are driving visitors into your conversion scenario 2. Fallout: Insight that tells you at which step a visitor leaves your conversion scenario 3. Abandonment: Of the visitors that fallout, how many left the site immediately 4. Detours: Insight that identifies the information that led visitors out of your scenario 5. Step Jumping: Identify which steps visitors find confusing or skip altogether With this insight at your fingertips you will be able to go beyond just what is happening with your conversion scenario and truly understand why its happening so you can make an actionable decisions and see your conversion rate for a specific process and the site overall improve By identifying major entry points and drop-off points within a conversion scenario, business users can optimize conversion steps and encourage more visitors to continue moving from step to step toward conversion. Four of the five elements in 5-point Scenario Analysis ar illustrated in the above chart. 1. Top entry pages into a scenario step 2. Fall-out, the percent of people who left the scenario at that step 3. Abandonment, the number of visitors that left the site altogether 4. Detours, the pages on the site that are drawing visitors out of the scenario All of these perspectives are necessary for complete conversion analysis. In particular, an understanding of abandonment (3 & 4) is critical to getting more visitors to convert; knowing where visitors drop-out and why is essential for any effort to improve results WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

12 MEASURING TRUE ABANDONMENT While most web analytics solutions typically identify someone that abandons a conversion scenario as a visitor who abandoned the process forever, this is often not the case. WebTrends 7 introduces a new view of Scenario Analysis called Step Jumping or Step Transitions, which allows you to determine whether abandoners re-enter scenarios at a later time during the same browsing session, what steps they re-enter at, and whether they end up completing the process and converting. This insight is critical to getting an accurate picture of abandonment and provides a revealing look at why visitors might be abandoning a step, only to re-enter and complete the conversion process later. Scenario Analysis (with Step Transitions), pictured below, is the fifth component of 5-point Scenario Analysis and is made possible by tracking unique visitors through their browsing session, allowing you to see how visitors progress dynamically from one step to the next. For example, if you see a large number of visitors exiting the scenario at the started checkout step in your Purchase Conversion Funnel (with Scenario Entry and Exit Pages) report, you can then check your Step Transition report to determine if they are re-entering the scenario at other steps and whether they end up completing checkout. Use the Purchase Conversion Funnel (with Step Transitions) report to determine how visitors dynamically flow through your conversion scenarios. With the Step Transitions report you can discover: If a large portion of visitors are stuck on or confused by a conversion step leaving step 3 and re-entering at step 2. Whether the majority of visitors skip a conversion step going from step 2 to step 4 indicating an opportunity to condense your conversion process for efficiency. If visitors leave the checkout page (the last step) and re-enter at the first step to view product details again WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.

13 QUALIFYING SCENARIOS WITH PRODUCT AND CAMPAIGN INFORMATION WebTrends 7 also allows you to tie conversion analysis to a specific product, campaign, or search engine and search phrase, providing insight into the quality of visitors those efforts attract, as well as ultimate conversion rates for each. Scenarios are often tied to specific activities, programs or products an organization is trying to promote, and analyzing conversion performance for these dedicated scenarios is vital. Linking conversion data with a second dimension, such as a product category or a campaign, gives further strategic insight into the quality of visitors that are responding to that campaign or product. For example, upon launching a new campaign, analyzing the conversion process is critical to determining whether the campaign is performing well. The questions a marketer needs to answer are: Is the campaign reaching my visitor acquisition target? How qualified are the visitors? Are they reaching my desired conversion event? Or is a large proportion of visitors abandoning early in the process, showcasing a low-level of commitment or poor targeting? How does the conversion performance of this campaign compare to other campaigns and other marketing efforts? These questions can only be answered by linking the scenario and campaign dimension together. Once they are answered, the marketer can then make further budgetary and merchandising decisions to improve results. SUMMARY: BUSINESS SCENARIO PERFORMANCE Questions Answered: For my given scenario, how do visitors typically get there? Are they coming in through relevant marketing campaigns? What percent of my visitors make it through the conversion process? Step by step, where is dropout the greatest? Can I improve the process? Where does my audience go if they don t finish my scenario? What other areas of the site do they continue to browse? Do they re-enter scenarios after viewing additional site content? What it doesn t tell you: What are the links on the page that are most attractive to my visitors? Is my conversion rate higher for certain products or campaigns? WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved. Conclusion: Conversion is one of the most relevant metrics to understand your site s ROI. WebTrends Visual Scenario Analysis with abandonment paths provides the most intuitive means to understand and optimize conversion behavior. WebTrends Visual Scenario Analysis, together with the multiple ways of applying it, offers you the most complete view of the performance of your business scenarios.

14 MANAGING WEB SITE NAVIGATION IS A PROCESS Measuring and managing the navigation design of your web site is critical to creating and sustaining a competitive advantage for your business. Effective navigation analysis enables companies to identify and justify needed navigation enhancements, and later prove ROI, so that every path offered to visitors is a profitable one. Proper navigation provides an opportunity to increase profit and ROI by: Providing visitors with the easiest paths to what they want to find Enabling customers to complete their objectives and the organization s business goals Creating stronger, long-term relationships with your customers through better user experiences Optimizing conversion processes and maximizing ROI from acquisition efforts There are a number of ways to perform navigation analysis and each method you ve learned about performs a critical role in helping you evaluate the effectiveness of navigation systems and understand the behavior of your visitors. Companies must invest in complete and integrated web analytics solutions that capture the right information and present it to people in an intuitive and relevant way. The effectiveness of your site s navigation and your ability to improve it, depend on having a solution such as WebTrends 7 that allows you to easily interpret visitor behavior patterns through visualization and accurate visitor tracking, as well as through complete insight into all five areas of Navigation Analysis including popular content, black hole content, and the performance of your pages, paths and business scenarios. Once armed with this data, web design teams and marketing managers can effectively manage and improve scenario completion, increasing the business ROI of their web sites. ABOUT WEBTRENDS Thousands of web-smart organizations worldwide, including more than half of the Fortune and Global 500, rely on WebTrends to improve their web site conversions and optimize their marketing performance for maximum return on investment. As the worldwide market leader for web analytics, WebTrends has become the trusted standard not only for award-winning technology, but also for a full range of consulting services and unmatched industry expertise. By delivering accurate and actionable metrics through both on-demand and software options, WebTrends ensures that its customers are positioned for both immediate and long-term success with a solution that can adapt to ever-changing business and technical requirements. For more information, visit WebTrends 7,WebTrends and the WebTrends logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of WebTrends Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions.all other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies WebTrends Inc.All rights reserved.wp10907 MF 0705