Table of Contents

Google Analytics Report

by lucas tyson

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User Experience (UX)

Initial Observations

Double Loading Google Analytics

After creating a custom segment based off the location of the session to filter out bots, the first thing I noticed was the incredibly low bounce rate, at 0.1% for the past year. As much as I’d like to say that stat is accurate, a bounce rate of under 1% is so unlikely it’s near impossible to achieve. Upon further investigation, I noticed that this issue of an inaccurate bounce rate has been persistent since the website’s inception, which is a very worrying trend. My theory is that Google Analytics (GA) is tracking users at least twice when they enter a webpage. When a user enters the page, a page view is sent to Analytics, but, since we’re loading GA an additional time, a second page view is being loaded.Therefore it’s not being recorded as a bounce and creating an extra page view. When viewing the HTML source code, you can see twoGA scripts in the “<head>” that support this case:

Therefore, it’s safe to assume all data within GAis inaccurate when looking at any stats that are recorded when a page is loaded.

This issue is most likely caused by WordPress having multiple implications of GA used onits platform. For example, two plugins using the GA tracking tool, or a theme having the tracking tool hardcoded in the header file. Unfortunately, this issue can’t be fixed by applying some GA filters to the segments, so to solve this issue you’ll need to solve it within WordPress.Therefore, for the majority of the report I will focus on SEO & UX to critque the website.Nevertheless, when referencing GA stats, I’ll proceed as if it is accurate for readability’s sake.

Solution

There are 2 realistic scenarios in which Google Analytics can be called twice on a website.

  1. A WordPress plugin has been installed that uses Google Analytics, and the theme has built in Google Analytics implementation.
  2. Multiple WordPress plugins have been installed that have Google Analytics implementation.

To solve this issue, delete one of the plugins that use Google Analytics, or remove the UA code from the theme.

Custom Segments

Since The ARTS Project is a local non-profit, with a mission to bring ARTS and culture to Downtown London, I have created a custom segment for GA named “*ARTSProject+LucasTyson”, that filters out all traffic that comes from outside of Ontario. This looks at the data that is only meaningful to The ARTS Project, while also weeding out bot traffic and accidental traffic. All data presented in the document can be assumed that this segment is applied.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Meta Titles

The meta titles for the ARTS Project can be greatly improved, because each title is very short, and does not take advantage of the 60-70meta title character limit Google allows. The optimal meta title strategy would be to include keywords that would most likely be searched by someone who is interested in finding an organization like The ARTS Project. The ARTS Project is focused on the art community within London Ontario, therefore it is best to have a meta title strategy that target’s London Ontario users. Here is a table that outlines current meta titles and my suggested improvements:

Current Meta Title / Suggested Meta Title
Homepage: “The ARTS Project” / “London Ontario Art Community | The ARTS Project”
“Art Classes | The ARTS Project | London ON” / “London Ontario Art Classes | The ARTS Project”
“Adult Classes | The ARTS Project” / “Adult Art Classes in London Ontario | The ARTS Project”
“The ARTS Project | London ON | Gallery, event rentals” / “London Ontario Art Gallery | Event Rentals | The ARTS Project”
“The ARTS Project | Calendar of Events” / “The ARTS Project Event Calendar | London Ontario”

The meta title strategy of moving “The ARTS Project” to the end of the title, was the biggest change with my suggested titles. This is because The ARTS Project is already dominant in the search results for people looking specifically for the organization, due to it’s strong keyword presence in the domain, website content, and meta descriptions. Therefore, it was moved to the end to put priority on increasing relevancy for search results that include “London Ontario”. Moving “London Ontario” closer to the beginning, should help The ARTS Project rank higher on London specific search queries, which is the organizations main audience. Moz has proven that keywords closer to the beginning of the title have a higher impact in SERP rankings. It’s important to note that this strategy will not target users searching “London Ontario”, but rather people searching specific queries such as “art classes in London Ontario”, which is a more practical search query that The ARTS Project would be interested in. The meta descriptions and URL naming conventions are optimized very well for SERP, which is why they aren’t addressed.

SSL Certificate

In 2014, Google announced that improved website security improves SERPrankings. An SSL certificate is a great and free opportunity to verify that you have ownership of a webpage, while verifying that it is secure. Currently, The ARTS Project doesn’t have SSL encryption on their website, and users are presented with this message when they click more info near the URL.

This could result in a higher bounce rate for consumers concerned with their personal security, therefore incorporating an SSL certificate into the website would be beneficial. Adapting the SSL technology of a domain authority such as “Lets Encrypt”, would be the easiest, quickest, and cheapest ($0) option. It’s also important to note that I was once redirected to a new webpage filled with advertisements when accessing the website through organic search, however I haven’t been able to recreate this issue. Therefore, security should be a major priority for The ARTS Project.

User Experience (UX)

Desktop UX

Over the past year, the most popular webpage (aside from the homepage) on the website has been its classes webpage. It generates a total of around 8% of total page views to the site, which comes second to the homepage at 21%. The classes webpage has a poor average time on page of 13 seconds, a poor exit percent of 10%, with a strong number of entrances at 2003. 95% of the webpage’s entrances come from organic search, meaning that it very successful in SEO (all stats from the past year). Since it’s the second most popular web page, we can assume it’s populated with content that users are looking for, and therefore it’s important to improve the user experience. Plus, some classes have payment options and provide revenue to The ARTS Project, so it has an increase in importance.

We can assume the user experience is sub optimal because of these reasons:

  • Provides little information on the classes offered
  • The CTA is a redirect to another webpage

I would suggest the following recommendations to improve the classes webpage:

  • List the classes by category, with a short summary of each class on this webpage
  • Provided detailed information on the class when they click the link, to reduce clutter on this webpage

This solution is optimal because it reduces the number of clicks to get to the information the visitor wants, improving user experience, improving exit %, and the extra content will improve the average time on the page.

Also, since the classes provide a revenue option for The ARTS Project and are at high demand for the web traffic, there should be a higher home page presence for the classes. My suggestion would be to place some of the most popular classes higher up in the grid layout on the homepage in similar fashion to the “Gallery” section, to further promote the classes webpage, since it’s a priority to the visitors. Also, providing pictures with context to the class, in conjunction to the link, will make them stand outand entice the user to engage.

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