Web Analytics Association Delivers 26 Standard Definitions to Promote Consistency across the Rapidly Evolving Web Analytics Community

WASHINGTON, DC - August 23, 2007—At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, CA, today, the Web Analytics Association (WAA) announced a major accomplishment and milestone with the publishing of standard definitions for 26 foundational web analytic metrics covering the areas of visits, content and conversion. The result of a collaborative effort between WAA members, vendors, agencies, practitioners and thought leaders, the new definitions provide consistency of the most widely used terms across the analytics industry. Read more .....

Download the WAA Standards Analytics Definitions Volume at http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/en/cmt/?5

Google Analytics Changes Average Time on Site Calculation

Anybody notice something strange with Google Analytics estimates for average time on site recently. We have seen them increase significantly at the back end of July. At a lost to explain this I was glad to come across Brandt Dainow's post on this very subject. It appears that Google Analytics have recently changed the way it calculates average time on site. According to Google Analytics tech support:

"Previously, the Average Time on Site had been calculated as the total time on site for all visits divided by the total number of visits. Both the total time on site and total number of visits included bounces.

As of July 20, 2007, we began reporting the Average Time on Site as the total time on site for all visits (excluding bounces) divided by the total number of visits (excluding bounces). This change also affected data from earlier dates, not just newer data.

I think this makes a lot of sense particularly if your site has a high bounce rate which would make average session times meaningless - but it would have been nice to have been told.

How to Squeeze More Out of Your Web Analytics

Take a look at this excellent post by Bryan Eisenberg at GrokDotCom

Companies spend serious money gathering and trying to analyze the data they get from the Web — and they want more out of it.

His advice:

Practice Fundamentals — Invest your time and resources in getting the simple things right. Focus on mastering a few key reports to take action on, day after day and score some easy wins. The key to getting value is not in reporting data — not simply in developing insights — but in taking action.

Invest in Training — Any company that's been trying to locate that superstar analyst knows how challenging they can be to recruit and retain in today's market; there isn't a lot of web analytic talent out there. We would say this wouldn't we!

Take a look at the Web Analytics Association. they're doing incredible work especially in terms of education and standards. The Award of Achievement in Web Analytics course the WAA has produced for the University of British Columbia is excellent. Sign up for a course if you can.

Invest an hour a day in the fine analytics books out there. If you prefer hands-on learning, try the WAA Base Camp workshops. and try to attend the Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in October.