Website analytics tools can contribute to design decisions to improve the online experience of visitors but also to inform site owners, business owners about the performance of their sites. However, in most cases, eBusiness Managers, Website Managers or Web Services Managers, start posting website analytics tools as a ‘good to have’ tool. Instead of measuring performance and comparing it to business objectives, they often pass on crude analysis data to senior management, without any other explanations or recommendations for site development. In order to exploit the potential supply of site analytics tools, the following major problems should be avoided:
1) Non-targeted business objectives: In many organizations, responsible business owners in the lower part of a business website have not yet defined their business objectives for their sub-divisions. For example, the lower part of the site may be customer support, which may be divided into self-help tools (e.g. frequently asked questions, download drivers, etc.), support contact details, credentials, user credentials, etc. . Evaluating site performance or a small portion of a site is only important, if the average performance can be compared to the intended objectives. If business owners do not set business goals, the analysis will not determine the performance of the site. EBusiness Managers or webmasters who are in charge of submitting site analytics tools need to help business owners define business objectives that detail the sub-components of their website (see also, “Who Should Set Business Objectives”, Steve Telleen).
2) Site owners or site class owners who are trained to understand analytical reports: In many organizations, domain owners or business owners of a particular website are unable to use site analytics tools reports as many of them do not understand the benefits of such a measurement method. EBusiness Managers need to define as a starting point the benefits and importance of this performance measure as an integral part of their web performance appraisal system. The second step involves quantifying the measurement and how the measured data can help business owners further improve their sub-site components (e.g., switching roaming or linking components, providing and updating the category 'most used links', etc.). If business owners are irrational and / or untrained in how to use the amount from the site analysis report, they will probably not even start reading the reports and all attempts to evaluate the site performance using the site analysis tools are thwarted.
3) Database analysis tool points are not related: Site analytics tools measure time-defined data points such as number of pages viewed, number of unique visitors, number of visits, etc. However, these data points do not give any value. For example a high number of viewed pages may indicate that site visitors are lost through roaming and browsing more pages to find what they are looking for compared to a lower number of viewed pages, which may indicate that site visitors are getting their information directly. a few clicks due to active site navigation. It is important for Web analysts, to link individual data points to find the amount that can be translated into site development and that the value can be passed on to business owners to inform them about the performance of their particular site. For example to measure online support performance, Web analysts should measure and link the following key performance indicators (KPI):
Adherence = total amount of time spent viewing all pages in the support category divided by the total number of site visitors different from the support category and
Focus = average number of pages visited in the support category divided by total number of pages in the support category.
For online support sticking to and focusing on them should be minimal, indicating that navigating a particular support works well (e.g., site visitors need fewer clicks and less time to reach a specific support page). It is important that the rated data points of the site analytics tools are related to each other and that these data points are not limited to a particular category on the site. If data points are unrelated to each other and are unlimited in a particular category, they do not give any value or worse when translated which can lead to an incorrect design decision.
4) There are not enough skilled human resources resources available for report analysis: Website analytics tools only track and maintain online visitor behavior. Website analytics tools cannot translate estimated data. In order to get value from measured data, dedicated Web analysts need to continuously analyze the collected data. The main task of Web analysts is to integrate each limited data to find KPIs. These KPIs allow Web analysts to discover design changes to enhance site visitor information. In addition, Web analysts need to be able to associate analytics data with site construction (see also, “When Not Using Website Analysis Tools”.
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