When analyzing the performance of a website, despite the complexity and variety of reports available, there are usually only a few metrics that you’re really interested in .  If you run an e-commerce site, an important question you’re probably asking when staring down reports is “how did we convert sales?”.  On the other hand, if you’re site is geared more towards information that powers services, such as a hospital, then maybe the question you are trying to answer is, “how are people getting to the information that we want them to see?”.  More times than not, the last link that was clicked is the one that gets credit for converting a sale or leading visitors to a particular section.  But if you think about your own web navigation habits, you’ll realize that this is often not the case.  You might read a story about the Boston Marathon on Yahoo!, which leads you to read more at the Runner’s World website, where there is an ad for Nike’s newest training shoe, and before you know it, you’ll have a new pair of size 11, Lightning Green XYZ’s in about 7-10 days.

This is where Multi-Channel Funnels reports comes into play.  Multi-Channel Funnels provides a 30-day tracking analysis of how one click, leads to another click, leads to another click, leads to a sale!  By looking at the chain of events that leads users toward your desired destinations, you can get a better idea of which paths are more effective, not just which links.  Multi-Channel Funnels reports are offered as part of the Google Analytics palette of tools, and they offer a great informational video that only takes about three minutes to watch.  Check it out at http://www.google.com/analytics/analytics-funnels.html, and get a better understanding of which paths have more footprints on them.

Just a couple of years ago, eons in the tech world, embedding video into a website seemed to cause more of a distraction than a benefit for most users.  Video files are huge and without a broadband connection, they often took forever to download and often paused in the middle of the streaming process.  Welcome to 2012, where most internet connections are solid enough and fast enough to support a good user experience with videos on websites.  Due to better streaming speeds and sturdier connections, utilizing video as a medium in webpages is exploding right now.

OK, OK, video is great, but what is the best way to go about implementing it?

You could always host the video yourself, but this usually entails a great deal of overhead on your part. You have to find a proper third-party plug-in, make sure it works properly in a variety of browsers, and stay on top of any necessary updates for that plug-in.  A better solution might be to leave it to the experts.  Letting a leading video service provider, such as YouTube, Google Video, or Vimeo,  host your video is much more beneficial than trying to do it yourself.  Here are a few reasons why:

1)  Video service providers do all the legwork, and perform all their own updates.  When they have a better product, you have a better product too, and in many cases, those services are free.

2)  High quality compression and speedy delivery to users will keep visitors engaged. These service providers are the best in the industry when it comes to streaming video quality and delivery.

3)  They provide the code instantaneously once you upload your video.  They will also allow you to customize the size, color, and controls of your player.

4)  Social Media integration between YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ is very intertwined, so connecting the social media outlets to your video is a breeze.

If you do need some assistance or want some hints on customizing the appearance of your video, there is a great web article out there by htmlgoodies.com called “How To Add a YouTube Video to Your Web Site“.

Over the past week or two, I have been praising the wonders of Google Analytics (“GA”) and Webmaster Tools in their abilities to process various statistics about individual websites, and how this display of data can help you gauge the performance of your site.  As helpful as GA and Webmaster Tools can be, they are limited in their abilities.  If you have a rather simple site with a few pages and maybe a built-in application or two, then the tools provided by GA may suffice.  But as websites become larger in scope and page count extends farther and farther into the double digits, you can suddenly find yourself trying to tease out factors of performance from a sea of page information without getting a good handle on why certain pages are out-performing others.  This complexity is compounded if you have several inter-related sites that each have their own Google Analytics account.

What you may need is a more sophisticated format that uses GA as a base and extends beyond it to bring complex functionality to webpage analysis while keeping the user experience as easy as possible.  This is where GA Data Grabber can help out.  The Google Analytics blog posted an article last month, detailing how PBS uses GA Data Grabber to analyze a variety of metrics across more than one hundred websites.  GA Data Grabber downloads data from your site-dedicated Google Analytics accounts, brings all that data together, and then works in Microsoft Excel to produce reports and graphs based on a wide array of metrics of your choosing.  Not only can this application save you time, but it can also eliminate errors caused by the manual input of report information.  I think it’s worth it to reduce your team’s headaches, and if your firm is willing to spend a little cash, GA Data Grabber can go a long way for you.

A multitude of businesses like yours have invested a decent chunk of change in a web development firm in order to get a top-notch website with a clean look that is easily navigated, visually stimulating, and chock full of clever keywords and search engine optimizers.  Now that the digital face of your company is in place, it’s time to find out if those keywords and optimizers are bringing results.

Well, we’ve got just the thing for you.  To go along with Webmaster Tools, which we introduced in last week’s blog, Google Analytics (GA) is a whole toolbox of features that you can use to get an in-depth look at how well different assets of your site are performing.  GA can provide detailed visitor analysis–displaying page performance from top-to-bottom, along with insight on correcting under-performing pages.

The best part is, Google provides a wealth of resources that will train you on how to use GA, including free tutorials presented by Google Analytics IQ Lessons.  If you want a heavy, in-depth crash course, Google also holds day-long seminars around the world through a network of partners.  Toss that in with informational videos on YouTube’s GoogleAnalytics Channel, and you have all the resources you need to better understand the metrics behind website performance.