Google Analytics: Keeping Us All Humble
I know it’s not a good idea to check my company’s Google Analytics web stats every day, but I can’t help myself. I’m forever curious about who’s coming to the site, from where, and what they are looking at. When we generate a new company promotion I like to see the corresponding spikes in site traffic.
For us, the good news is that our traffic has doubled since we launched our updated site last January. Visitors are staying longer and viewing more of our work. Statistics show they are most interested in who we are, whom we work for and what services we provide, pretty much in that order. All in all, we’re happy with the site. And yet…
I can tell by the average time site visitors spend on various pages that most of them aren’t reading my carefully crafted copy but are only scanning the page or reading headlines and subheads. And to think, after all my hard work! I spent a lot of time trying to make the text informative and entertaining. And based on recommendations from Steve Krug’s insightful book about web usability, Don’t Make Me Think (highly recommended reading) I wrote the copy, then cut it in half, and cut it in half again.
Google Analytics does keep us humble, doesn’t it? The fact is that the majority of web visitors are either incredibly finicky or short on time, or both (as am I). As we build our websites, try as we may to be clever and meaningful, much of what we think is so darn important about our companies and services gets glossed over by the masses.
It’s a lot to ask busy people to give us their attention on the web, so what ends up on a site has to be not only relevant, but also pared down to its essence, and intuitively navigational while still communicating the “personality” of our company or organization. And that’s what makes building an effective website such a challenging, worthwhile and creative endeavor.
Hile Design is a full-service advertising agency based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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Brian Clifton wrote on August 12th, 2009 at 4:01 am :
Nice post, Dave – you made me laugh when I read about your addictedness to Google Analytics. That’s how I got started!
Interesting observation on how people scan web pages rather than read. The analogy I use is the same employed by newspapers:
- people read headlines first to decide if the story interests them
- scan for sub-headlines or bullet points if it’s the right subject matter
- go back to the first paragraph to get an overview of the article
- only then do they continue to read on, if it really is interesting…
So that is how I prioritize my writings – get my thoughts down in prose, then restructure as above. (I’m also a fan of Steve Krug.)
Dave wrote on August 18th, 2009 at 12:58 pm :
Thanks for sharing, Brian. That’s a good, practical approach we can all learn from!