Everyone is now well aware how much the Internet, social media and technology played a big role in the new Administration’s election. In my recent visit with our Government clients in D.C., I noticed a lot of excitement – and apprehension – about this new tech savvy Administration ability.  Almost everyone I spoke to referred to ‘gathering metrics for the Transition Team”. There seemed to be renewed interest in the web analytic programs and even more importantly – moving from gathering ‘Data’ to creating ‘Actionable’ reports.  Improving on line communication is coming of age.

While there are award winning web sites (SSA, USA.gov) many of the government web analytic programs I know have struggled to stay on top of their programs – most often because limited manpower, unavailable skill sets, budget and most famously confusion around OMB Federal Guidelines. Just getting basic stats is all many programs could get deployed. Yet with the renewed energy around ‘open communication ‘ and ‘moving into the 21st Century’ many agencies will probably be revisiting their web analytics programs for ways to improve.

So here are a few thoughts about optimizing your program:

Put the Horse before the Cart!!

• Determine the Key Performance Indicators for your web site before you start creating reports
• Understand the how to collect accurate data for your specific situation
• Create a strategy to get the most out of the data you collect
• Know what your end users audiences are and how they like to receive information.

Leverage WebTrends great flexibility and customize your program

• Create a relevant templates, dashboards and reports for your specific end users based on your KPI strategy – this will engage your end users and lead to successful adoption.
• Deploy – Review – Revise – Redeploy… Web Design and Web Analytics should be considered a ‘marriage’. One affects the other as new content is added to the website or as the appetite for advanced analytics increases.
• And as always, consider partnering with WebTrends Professional Services to get to value sooner.

If you’ve got any questions or topics you’d like to see addressed specific to the challenges (and successes) of government websites, please don’t hesitate to comment or reach out to me directly.

“Me want cookies!”   This is what I hear many of my Government clients say – more specifically they want to understand cookies in relation to their web analytics.  I have come to call this the “Cookie Monster” issue since there is so much confusion.  So for my post here (and with many thanks to DJ) I thought Let’s start with dessert first!

Below I have listed from most accurate to less accurate the ways visitors are identified on-line:

1. Authenticated:  The technique by which access to Internet or intranet resources requires the user to enter a username and password as identification.  This is the only way to count visitors “across machines”, as no matter where they log in they are identified correctly.  Cookies are really just tracking unique computers!
2. Persistent Cookies :  A text file containing a random identification string that “lives” on the visitors computer.  Using the value stored in this cookie, WebTrends can identify if you’ve been to the site before and identify you as a “new” or “returning” visitor (but can’t tell anything else about you… it’s a random number after all!).  This is also used to provide “unique visitor” counts in WebTrends.
3. Session Cookies : A text file containing a random identification string that only remains in the computer’s memory for the length of the visit, or “session”.  It does not live on the machine after you navigate away from the site that set it, so there is no way to identify visitors that have been to the site before.
4. IP Address : Internet Protocol Address is used to identify a computer connect to the internet.  Since there are only so many IP addresses to go around, more often than not individual machines end up sharing the same IP address due to the use of proxy servers (used by large organizations like companies and universities), internet service providers or even home wireless routers.

(more…)