Glossary of Web Analytics Terms You Should Know
The fields of web development, marketing and analytics have introduced a variety of terms that we need to understand in order to fully comprehend the metrics we measure with web analytics tools. A complete grasp on these terms can help us better evaluate our website and make strategic decisions for our businesses.
This post is designed for the tech-inclined marketing professional that’s been tasked with implementing fully integrated, data-driven marketing, the tech-inclined small business owner looking to boost the visibility of his site on the web, or those just dipping their toes into web analytics stuff.
A/B Testing — A method of comparing two versions of a webpage or mobile app experience against each other to determine which performs best.
Above The Fold — The top most portion of a webpage that is visible without users having to scroll.
Below The Fold — The portion of a webpage that is not immediately visible when the page loads, that users must scroll to see.
Bounce Rate — The percentage of site visits that are single-page sessions, with the visitor leaving without viewing any other pages.
Cohort — A group of people with a common statistical characteristic.
Conversion — When a user completes some predetermined action on your site.
Direct Referral — Visits to a site by visitors who typed a website’s URL directly into their browser. This also refers to the visitors who clicked on links saved as bookmarks or untagged links within emails.
Entry Page — The first page that a visitor arrives at on a website.
Exit Page — The last page that a visitor accesses during a visit before leaving a website.
Heatmap — A graphical representation of data such as clicks and scrolls that uses a system of color-coding to represent different values.
Link Referrals — A count of all referrals from links on other websites (that are not search engines or social networks) during a selected time period.
Multi-Armed Bandit — A form of A/B testing that uses machine learning algorithms to dynamically allocate traffic to variations that are performing well.
Pageviews — The instance of an Internet user visiting a particular page on a site. A pageview is recorded whenever a full page of your website is viewed or refreshed.
Search Engine Marketing — A digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages, especially with regards to paid advertising.
Search Engine Optimization — The art and science of getting pages to rank higher in search engines such as Google and Bing.
Segmentation — The process of dividing your visitors to your website based on a specific criteria, such as demographics or user behavior.
Social Referrals — A count of all referrals from social networks during a selected time period.
Stickiness — A website’s ability to retain visitors, measured as a number of pages visited per session and minutes per visit (time on site). Stickiness can be achieved through unique, quality content that visitors find valuable, well-structured pages, and appropriately linked resources.
Split Testing — A strategy for conducting controlled, randomized experiments with the goal of improving a conversion metric on a website or mobile app.
Unique Visitor — A distinct individual who requests pages from a website during a specific period.
Web Analytics — The measurement and analysis of data to inform an understanding of user behavior across web pages. The study of web usage behaviors.
Website Optimization — The process of using controlled experimentation to improve a website’s ability to drive business goals.
For the full glossary of web analytics terms you should know, head over to getwebmetrics.com/glossary. The complete glossary serves as a firm foundation for growing your web analytics understanding. I hope it can continue to provide great reference any time you find yourself asking, “What does that mean again?”
