A big number that meant little
Oakfield Climbing Club is made up. One week its social page gets 900 visits, double the usual. The captain is thrilled.
But only three people joined the club that week, the same as before. The visits were real. The goal did not move. Analytics show what happened, so you must ask what it means.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can read analytics against success criteria and say what they do and do not show.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Analytics | counts and measures of how people use a site or channel |
| Visit | one person's time on a site or page |
| Link click | a press on a link |
| Conversion rate | out of every 100 visits, how many did what you wanted |
| Benchmark | a target number that counts as success |
| Indicator | a measure that points to how well something is doing |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter: what you already know
Have a go
Starter: what you already know
4 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Indicators count what people do
Common indicators are hits, visits, link clicks, length of visit and the conversion rate. A hit is one request for a file, so one page can cause many hits and overstate the audience. A visit is closer to a person.
Tools that collect these include web analytics software, the insight pages that social media sites offer, and dashboards that gather several channels together.
What each indicator can and cannot tell you
| Indicator | It can show | It cannot show |
|---|---|---|
| Hits | How busy a server is | How many people came |
| Visits | How many people came | Why they came |
| Link clicks | What caught attention | Whether they liked what they found |
| Length of visit | How long people stayed | If they stayed because it was interesting or confusing |
| Conversion rate | How many did what you wanted | Why the others did not |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.