Friday, October 3, 2008

Web usage logs

I found the usage logs on Convio and have begun to analyze them. Some of the data within might be useful, if I can provide context. I was looking to see if anything jumped out on the educational pages, how usage compared in race/nonrace season (who looks us up in Feb, the slowest month? and why?), and how people arrive/depart the site. I want to know if they're looking for educational info and if they found useful information. The available stats, broken down by month, include:
  • time of visits--41% under 30 secs in Sept! even higher in the non-race season-- 70% in Feb
  • pages viewed: in Feb, race info (even at 9 months away), some participatory stuff like volunteer info and calendars, contact us, then eventually education/outreach, below merchandise. In Feb 175 views total, of 4600 visits.
  • people look at work--all usage is lower on the weekends.for both seasons.
  • search: people use the name, not general queries. they already know of our existence, I guess. Breast cancer Austin will still get you there, though.
  • lots of people leave after finding the contact info--that page is 6th on the exit list in Feb. In Sept, race season, it moves down to around 20th. At least the race pieces generally work well, and better than they did last year it seems, if I can make the assumption: contact us was the exit page 900 times in Sept 97, 770 in 2008.
  • entry: in Sept, from race donation pages, from the National site on the find-a-race page, and from local sponsors and big teams. In Feb, they came from the national site (find an affiliate), from volunteer stuff--I did not realize that was so important, although many of those may be repeat visitors--and local media outlets. NONE of them came from health resource sites.
I picked up Don't make me think, the book Dr Bias uses in his usability class, to try and give myself some background on what this stuff might mean and what we need to do to improve it. I will report on that in the next couple of days. There may be more reports that could be helpful also, I'll keep poking around Convio.

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