Jul 6th 11 Posted by CJ Cunniff

The Value of Behavior

In a webinar I gave recently, entitled “Understanding Website Usage,”,  one specific question was asked several times. “If most of the reports you are suggesting require values to be relavent, how do we assign values to our site activity?” That is one of, if not the most, important questions you can ask regarding  your analytics endeavors.  And once you understand this basic principle... read more

May 5th 11 Posted by Joshua Dodson

How to Use Google Analytics Custom Dashboards

With the introduction of the new Google Analytics interface, there are improvements and modifications to features that we often took for granted in the previous versions. One change that is worth examining more closely is the custom dashboards. Let’s take a closer look at this feature and consider how we may be able to utilize custom dashboards in higher education. When using any dashboard (in Google... read more

Feb 22nd 11 Posted by Kati Davis

3 Program Page Approaches to Steal

Zappos sells shoes. Best Buy sells electronics. Netflix rents movies. Marketing a commodity online is much easier than marketing higher education, right? Wrong. The difference is that there’s a much longer “purchase” cycle in higher education. But over and over again students continually cite a single thing as one of the most important deciding factors: the program. Sure, college... read more

Feb 17th 11 Posted by Joshua Dodson

Always Know Some Valuable Number

At a recent KPI dashboard workshop I conducted with Julie Staggs, I heard a very interesting area of concern from one of the attendees. The attendee said, “I want to always know some valuable number.” This intrigued me for several reasons: 1.    To get something ”valuable,” one must swim through the sea of irrelevance hoping to find something useful. 2.    An underlying concern within... read more

Feb 2nd 11 Posted by CJ Cunniff

Remove the Data That Doesn’t Matter

As promised from my last post I’m going to talk about something that sounds very “advanced” but is actually one of the easiest things to understand in the world of analytics.  Advanced segments are a tool that Google has created to allow us to view a subset of all of our data.  This is a very important topic for us to understand because data in aggregate tends to be one of the root causes... read more

Jan 25th 11 Posted by CJ Cunniff

Sometimes Data Can Lie?

I am an absolutely huge fan of utilizing analytics data to make sound business decisions.  I honestly can’t imagine trying to make very many decisions based on pure gut instinct (maybe I have trust issues with myself?).  With that said, it is important to realize that what most people refer to as sound data for business decisions is potentially a lie (or, at the very least, a stretching of... read more

Jan 18th 11 Posted by CJ Cunniff

Goals… And Values… And Funnels… Oh my!!!

In my last post I told you that we would look two important aspects of tracking the value of your website. Determine the value of each goal that is completed. Setup the paths or actions that a user must take in order to complete the task Part 1:  Determine the value of each goal that is completed. This can be one of the easiest steps or the hardest depending on how accurate you want to be.  The... read more

Jan 11th 11 Posted by CJ Cunniff

You have goals, but is your website aware of them?

Recently, I have been noticing a trend where my clients are confused by the question, “What are the goals of your site?”  Generally, they can tell me what their institutional goals are which they assume are the same for their website.  There is, however, an extremely important distinction between institutional and site goals.  The institutional goals are your end goals.  A website’s goals... read more

Jan 6th 11 Posted by Joshua Dodson

How to Increase Enrollment through Your Website, Part Two

In part one of this blog post we explored ways of increasing website conversion rates by using Google Website Optimizer. In part two we will explore how to increase conversions through search engine marketing techniques. Option 2: Increase visitors This is the option to choose if you want to keep your conversion rate as is, but need to drive more traffic to your website. There are two basic ways to... read more

Dec 22nd 10 Posted by Joshua Dodson

How to Increase Enrollment through Your Website, Part One

You have just been told that you must increase enrollment by 10% for next fall. You know that you either would need to increase your website conversion rate with the same number of visitors or increase the number of visitors to your website with the same conversion rate.  Which do you choose?! In part one of this post we will look at how to increase the conversion rate. In part two we will examine... read more