shiftLearning

Analytics

Although the term most commonly refers to a free service offered by Google, in a larger sense it refers to the primary tool for understanding the strength of one's online content. With statistics ranging from the rudimentary ebb and flow of your hit count, to the precise number of unique visitors from Perrysburg, Ohio making over $50,000 a year, the insights are limited only by your mastery of this tool.

Generate a simple action plan based on 3 insights from your analytics data

3 insights, minimum: each one from separate areas of the analytics report (visitors, content, etc.)

An action plan detailing: the website  you analyzed, the insight (including the supporting data, or screenshot cropped to show the graph/chart), and a recommendation for how to act on that data.

Login to Google Analytics with the username / password = shiftlearning / [password contained in separate e-mail]. Note: If you are logged in with your personal Google/Gmail account, you must log out first.

Choose a site report to analyze.

Browse the various reports (Visitors, Traffic Sources, etc.), various comparison features (click on the date range, and try out the “compare to past” feature; click on the Visits tab and use the comparison features), and various metrics or maps to drill down into the data.

Push yourself for interesting, non-obvious insights, but note that you will not be graded on the insightful-ness of your insight.

50 points possible

Up to 10 points for each insight/action pair

Up to 20 points for presentation (presenting data clearly and effectively can make or break your recommendation, so spend some time on "packaging")

Points off for cutting corners or other evidence of a lackluster effort.

Creativity is welcome and encouraged

1. Post a response to this exercise with a link to your report (webpage, gDoc, wiki, etc.)
2. Respond to at least one of your class colleague's submissions by replying to their comment on this assignment page.
3. Rate this exercise and explain your rating with comments about specific strengths/ improvement ideas. Anonymous posts are perfectly acceptable, just log out of the site first.
4. UIUC Students: Tag the link “ADV400E6” on delicious.com
5. SU Students: Tag the link "IST400E6" on delicious.com

Google Analytics | free service to monitor and track website activity

Quantcast | free service to monitor website activity, profile your visitors and view the stats of major websites (hulu, abc, etc.)

compete.com | a premium (paid) data service with a free feature to compare the traffic of any 2-3 websites

Introduction to Google Analytics | A self-paced web seminar on the basics of using Google analytics

[Please suggest any links you would like here]