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RUNNING AN INTRANET FOR THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN A LARGE COMPANY,
ORGANIZATION OR GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT?
Hear Gerry McGovern speak live on how you can increase
productivity and reduce costs by identifying and better managing
your employees' top tasks. Join our FREE webinar on Tuesday, May
27, 2008 @ 15:00 (GMT, Dublin). SIGN UP TODAY:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/909567396

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Rome: May 23-24 two-day masterclass (PDF)
http://www.technologytransfer.it/docs/deplEng/BP8-McGOVERN%20ING.pdf

Stockholm: June 11: Intranet keynote (PDF)
http://www.abilitypartner.se/Texter/Intranatdagarna%202008.pdf"

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ARE YOUR WEBSITE METRICS RELIABLE?

Not only do many websites have unreliable metrics; they're
usually measuring the wrong things.

"75% of the data Web marketers collect are either misleading or
inaccurate," according to MarketingExperiments, a website
optimization research company

According to MarketingExperiments, poor data quality can be due
to:
Inadequate tracking;
Improperly configured measurement tools;
Faulty test structure and protocols;
Validity threats;
Inconclusive results.

However, many websites have an even deeper problem; they are
obsessed with volume. You'd be surprised how many web managers
measure their success by how many pages were looked at, and/or
how many people visited the site.

Every month my website gets about 20,000 visits and about 40,000
page views. These measures are as close to meaningless as any
set of measures can be. One thing I do know is that most of
these visits come from search engines and most of these visitors
leave pretty much straight away. What does that mean?

For many websites, search engine traffic is a great polluter.
For most websites, search engines throw huge quantities of
useless traffic at the website. The behavior of the small
fraction of people you would actually like to track is often
smothered under the huge piles of search data junk.

Does anybody actually look at all those log files generated by
website traffic analysis software? I've never met anyone who had
the time and energy to dig into the huge reams of data they spew
out and find anything meaningful.

Example: A customer clicks on page A, then leaves after 1
minute. What does that mean? If they stayed for 3 minutes would
that have been better? Why? Supposing the person who spends 3
minutes on the page finds it cluttered and full of verbiage?

Example: A customer clicks on page C, then clicks on page M,
then goes back to page C, then leaves. What does that mean? Did
they think they were going to get something on page M that they
didn't get? Or did they get what they needed on page M, and were
simply using the Back button to navigate out of the site?

We need to radically simplify how we measure the success of our
websites. Here's how:
Identify the top three tasks of your website
Give these tasks to your customers and measure whether or not
they are able to complete them.

If you're a university, a top task should be to find a course.
Observe potential students as they try to find a course on your
website. If you're a health website, finding out the symptoms
for a particular disease is probably a top task. How easy is it
to do that? If you're running an intranet, finding other people
is unquestionably a top task. How easy is it to do that?

Web managers can't spend their days hunched over screens. That
is quite simply not management. Metrics are the lifeblood of
management. The essence of web metrics is the observation of our
customers as they are hunched over their screens. Were they able
to quickly do what they came to do? Web metrics can be boiled
down to two words: task completion.

Gerry McGovern
mailto:gerry@gerrymcgovern.com

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ADVERTISEMENT
Employee Communications Summit, June 4-6
Special offer for New Thinking readers: Quote "SCE5" to get 100
pounds off.
http://www.ragan.co.uk/ecsuk
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Comment on this post at our Giraffe Forum Blog
http://giraffeforum.com/wordpress/2008/05/04/are-your-website-metrics-reliable/#respond

SUBSCRIBE TO NEW THINKING (It's free!)
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PIONEER, BBC, TETRA PAK, IKEA AND ROLLS-ROYCE USE CUSTOMER
CAREWORDS. SEE WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU
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RELATED LINKS

Measuring Success
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/class/cmm.htm

New Thinking Subject Classification
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/class/index.htm

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NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING
By Gerry McGovern - http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
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May 05, 2008 - Volume 13 Number 18
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You may quote freely from this issue once you give proper
attribution. (A link to www.gerrymcgovern.com would be
appreciated.)

Permission to re-publish an individual issue is given, once the

following conditions are met:
* Gerry McGovern is given proper recognition as author
* A link to Gerry McGovern's website is published with the
following text and URL:

Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

* The piece is not modified in any way
* Subscription details for New Thinking are provided
* Gerry McGovern is informed of the re-publication

mailto:gerry@gerrymcgovern.com

WEBSITE LINK FOR THIS ISSUE:
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-05-05-metrics.htm

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HAVE YOU ENJOYED NEW THINKING?

If you have, I'd like to hear about it. (Constructive criticism
is welcome too!) If you have a minute, please send a brief
accolade (about 100 words), describing what you like about the
publication. This may then be published on my website, or in
other promotional material. Please also include your name, title
and organization (if appropriate).

Thank you

Gerry McGovern

Please send accolades to:
mailto:gerry@gerrymcgovern.com

Also, you might pass the word on to someone else, and encourage
them to subscribe.

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PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
New Thinking is published every Monday, 48 weeks a year (two
week break during August and December).
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TECHNICAL PROBLEMS
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_________________________________________________________________
Published by Gerry McGovern (mailto:gerry@gerrymcgovern.com)
Copyright (C) 2008 Gerry McGovern. All rights reserved.




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