Web Evolution

Guide to Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence

The Business Intelligence gained from analyzing web server logs and data from Internet application systems can be leveraged to formulate plans for evolving your corporate website.

Shorter-than-expected visits, unexpected navigation paths and transaction abandonment prior to completion can suggest design or usability issues that need to be addressed.

It is very useful to analyze the "entry" and "exit" pages to a website.  Visitors frequently enter through a 'back door" rather than through the home page.

This isn't necessarily a problem.  In fact, website visits can often be increased by treating each web page as a "home page".  This involves implementing an appropriate navigation design and making full use of meta tags on all pages.

Because web pages are dynamics, web analytics must account for this.  The content on a given web page can be much different from week to week.

Layout of a Web Page
Web Page Components

Web analytics should also consider pages in a web as sets of visual "components" that have been assembled into webpages.

Some components may be used in multiple pages, while others are not.  Some components contain core content that all visitors see whereas other components might only be visible tor certain categories of users.

The diagram illustrates how a web pages can consist of many discrete components.

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