Let’s assume you have been collecting analytics data for 2 or 3 months and you now want to start making sense of it. It is easy to dive in and be drawn to charts that show visits to your site and either despair or pat yourself on the back depending upon the number of visits recorded.

Before you start looking at all of the data and charts, it is as well to put some structure on your approach. Just collecting the data without any context for it, is going to be rather meaningless. So what might you be looking for? It is important to set a few Key Performance Indications (KPI’s) so you can determine how your website is performing over time.

If we take visits as an example, what do you want to know? is it total visits, new visitors or returning visitors, or perhaps it is unique visitors? What about bounce rate? This can be very valuable in determining how well key pages perform. Then, of course, there is the question of which pages are most popular, and which ones are the main entry or landing pages to the site.

You will most likely improve the value of this information if you segment it. The first port of call ought to be the source of the visit, was it via a search engine, a referral site or maybe a paid search campaign? You are probably going to want a handle on all of this information on one form or another. In the coming weeks I will delve more deeply into this and start offering guidance on a structured approach to managing all of this data.