Intranet analytics – Web Strategy for Everyone

Intranet analytics – get started now

Marcus Österberg — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 21:28:16 +0000

In addition to the suggested tools and solutions for intranet analytics at this site, we’d also like to point out that the chapter on analytics in the book Intranets ‐ handbook for intranet managers now is freely available. Below is a taste, but the full chapter is to be found at intranetanalytics.com

Introduction

The time when major design decisions were made based on subjective measures, like someone’s personal taste, is behind us. At least it should be. Now you can, and should, evaluate almost everything based on data. Previously performed tests, and the insights gained from working with analytics are now readily available to intranet teams. Instead of attending pointless meetings about what shade of blue you ”like”, you can evaluate alternatives based on real users of your intranet. Users, through their clicks, provide signals on what works, how they find things and which routes they take.

This chapter is about how to get started with using analytics in an initial review of an intranet. Often no one knows the usefulness of most of the intranet content and there is little effort toward measuring the impact of the intranet on the performance of the business beyond noting the number of users. For many teams the reason is they do not have a training in basic analytics and which of all the statistics to make use of.

This chapter is a guide for those who want to start evaluating their intranet in a structured way and set tangible business goals for measuring what success looks like on their intranet.

About intranet analytics

The intranet is not just a collection of pages, images and documents. Rather, it is there to support employees in their daily work efficiently carrying out work tasks like; reserving a place on a training course; filing an application for leave or finding the phone number of a person in the human resources department. Working with web analytics for an intranet is about improving or simplifying activities like these, activities that the intranet should support. Intranet analytics is not about accumulating vast amounts of data, it is about using the data to gain insight into the users’ experience of the intranet – with the intent of improving that experience.

Brief description from Wikipedia on analytics on a public website:

”Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of web data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.”

It is easy to focus on analyzing the collected traffic data, however, all kinds of tools can contribute to getting an overview of your intranet performance and should be included in the concept of intranet analytics. Problems such as not fulfilling accessibility requirements, using unnecessarily high resolution images, and many more may be easy to identify without using statistics.

Keep reading about intranet analytics at intranetanalytics.com ›

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Tools to troubleshoot performance issues on your intranet

Marcus Österberg — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 19:13:20 +0000

An obvious hurdle to troubleshoot your intranet is that it is not accessible from services on the web. For instance it’s quite hard for Pingdom’s Website speed test to reach your intranet and many more appreciated tools are useless. But don’t despair, there is still some great tools. Some of them act as plugins to your web browser, other is stand-alone applications for your computer.
Come along!

It’s worth mentioning that my book, Web Strategy for Everyone, also covers backend aspects of intranet performance optimization. Check it out, only cost you ten bucks ›

Speed test for your intranet

For reference when testing your intranet from a mobile device you can use the app Speedtest.net on Android phones and Speedtest for iOS. Some plugins for Firefox requires a plugin called Firebug – you can find Firebug here – which is of great use in other scenarios such as inspecting cookies etcetera.

l.o.r.i (Life-of-Request Info)

Lori is a plugin for Firefox. It shows initial latency (time before first byte), total load-time, page weight and number of connections for every page you visit.

Firefox addons »

Yahoo! YSlow

Analyses a page and give you suggestions on how to better the performance. Install as a plugin in Firefox. Requires the plugin Firebug.

YSlow at Firefox Addons »

Google PageSpeed

Google offers a browser plugin for both Firefox and Chrome to examine pagespeed factors of pages you can access with your browser (logged in, VPN, what-have-you).

Google PageSpeed for Chrome and Firefox »

IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit

If you happen to have a Windows Web Server you can install an extension called “IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit” to do local analysis of factors such as performance and SEO, and get a report of eventual issues.

Get the extension for IIS »

Did I miss any of your favorite tools?

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What is intranet analytics?

Marcus Österberg — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:03:56 +0000

Intranet analytics is to process and act on statistics and information gathered on an intranet. It can range from simple things like see if anyone at all visit a page to evaluate the campaigns you have run in several different channels.
The reason that one should do analytics is to learn how the site is used, act based on data and report to stakeholders the benefits the intranet continually brings to the organisation. The interesting thing to measure is the results of intentional changes, its beneficial effect that is, and usually it is the trend that is relevant rather than statistics in real terms .

There are a plethora of different tools for this and we have assembled a list of suggestions here.

Why intranet analytics?

Intranet analytics is the activity to see if a site lives up to its purpose, if it already meets or is on track to meet the goals of the site. In other words, one must know what one wants to achieve with the intranet to know which metrics are relevant, otherwise it is not very worthwhile to work with intranet analytics.
Choose a few, easy to understand measurements to work with, and ensure that these measurements describe the site’s contribution to the operation’s success or challenges.

This means that you have set up one or more goals, breaking them down into something that can be measured and then use the intranet analytics tool to see if the work makes the intranet approach the goal.

It is worth thinking through the goals we want to measure. For an example, to measure the goal of having many views per visitor does not necessarily mean that visitors appreciate the website – visitor might be lost in the navigation. The same dubious value can be the number of visits, unique visitors, time spent on the site and more.

There are two different types of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and you need both kinds :

Quantitative measurements that provide figures on how the site is performing, for example, all the information about the visitors as a group you can glean in a statistical tool. These measurements provide answers to how, when, and what about the visitors, as what equipment they have, when they visit the site, where they came from and so on.
Qualitative measurements are more of the visitors experience as they themselves put it. These values are more in the form of text than numbers and it could be issues explained in a site survey, interviews and features on the site which allows the visitor to talk about what they thought of their experience or what they have just read.

Your KPIs need to be both quantitative and qualitative and the metrics that are most valuable are those that relate to the business objectives. Among other things, if one conducts some form of commerce on a public website it is easier to connect the commercial purpose of the statistics. Then you prioritise which measurable economic values that are most important to steer towards , for example , it may be the percentage of visitors converting to customers, or average order value per customer.

What measurable business value do your intranet have? When you have such a list of business goals, or measurable use cases, to measure your intranet you are ready to begin doing intranet analytics.

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Tools for intranet analytics

Marcus Österberg — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 18:26:47 +0000

To get started on the subject of intranet analytics I thought some suggestions of tools and products may do the trick. These tools gather the data, get the statistics sorted out and work with analytics for your intranet, or extranet, perhaps.

Intranet analytics

It’s worth mentioning that my book, Web Strategy for Everyone, covers a lot of aspects of intranets and the digital workplace, such as the information architecture, performance optimization and design principles like design with data. Check it out, it only cost you ten bucks ›

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the industry-standard on the public web and is also used by many organizations on their intranets.

Go to Google Analytics »

Piwik

Piwik is a open source alternative for those who don’t want to share data on their users behaviour. Piwik offers a demo you can check out here. Piwik is also capable of crunching server-logs, so there is not really necessary to use client-based techniques for tracking visitors.

Visit piwik.org »

IBM Unica NetInsight

Unica is designed to be used on-premise instead of cloud-based solutions like Google Analytics that leak visitor data to third parties.

IBM Digital Analytics (formerly Coremetrics Web Analytics)

Offers, among other features, comparative benchmarks and knowledge of how the best performers reach their successes.

View screenshots of Digital Analytics etc at IBM.com »

Angelfish Web Analytics for Intranets

Web analytics software which can be installed on-premise (ie. within your network) to control collected data. Sometimes intranet/extranet analytics need to store customer data and other sensitive information most prefer to keep close.

analytics.angelfishstats.com

Woopra

How do the users engage with the intranet?

Woopra.com »

NextSTAT Web Analytics & Traffic Statistics

Hosts the solution for you and all you do is put a tracking-code on your pages.

Go to nextstat.com »

GoStats

Got hit counters as well as website analytics.

Go to Gostats.com »

Chartbeat

Lists some major publishing firms as their customers.

Go to chartbeat.com »

Webtrends Reinvigorate

Works with realtime data and heatmaps.

Check out reinvigorate.net »

GoSquared

Claims to be the simplest analytics in the world.

Go to GoSquared.com »

Clicky Real Time Web Analytics

You can inspect an individual visitors journey on your intranet. Live demo here.

Go to Clicky.com »

gauges

Provides an overview to see all websites on a single page.

Go to get.gaug.es »

HitsLink Web Analytics

Visual presentation of a website’s performance. Public demo can be found here.

VisiStat

Offers proactive tools on where to make improvement of your pages. Public demo here.

Check out VisiStat here »

Webtrends

Founded 1993 and support multi-channel measurement.

Adobe Analytics (formerly Omniture)

AWStats Log Analyzer

Open source tool that analyzes the web server logs and display the data on a web page. Used at lots of web hosting firms.

Check out AWStats at Sourceforge.com »

OneStat

Services starting at 125 USD per year.

See packages of OneStats »

Crazy Egg

Tracking user behaviour made simple with Crazy Egg.

Go to Crazy Egg »

ClickTale

Records users sessions on the intranet for you to analyze.

See more at clicktale.com »

Optimizely

Perform A/B-testing or multivariate testing on your intranet.

Go to optimizely.com »

Heap

Instant and also retroactive analytics on your data.

Go to heapanalytics.com »

Snowplow Analytics

Snowplow Analytics main feature is as an event data pipeline, which makes it ideal to track users on multiple channels – perfect for digital workplace analytics!

Go to snowplowanalytics.com »

Cardio Analytics for Sharepoint and Office 365

Designed specifically for Microsoft SharePoint, Cardio Analytics stands by the belief that a business can only manage what it measures. These measurements aims to play a huge role in savings, productivity and overall success. Analytic reports are shown in a simple and easily understood fashion. Available in on-prem as well as cloud-based solutions.

Go to intlock.com »

Sitespeed.io

Sitespeed.io is one of the tools to check the intranet’s performance, as in how fast its perceived to be, but also some guidance for the intranet content. Pretty much qualitative analytics, if not performed on a quantitative scale.

Did we leave out your favourite analytics tool? Please post a comment.

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