Each internal CampusPress website is set up to record hits and basic visitor information. You can use this information to determine which webpages are the most beneficial on your website, and where you get users from. This post will briefly describe how to check these site statistics, and view information that you can use to improve your site.
Jetpack – A WordPress Plugin for Analytics and More
Jetpack is a WordPress plugin created and maintained by the creators of WordPress, the website CMS used to power CampusPress. This plugin offers custom editing blocks, settings to improve loading times, site statistics and analytics, and other great features. The feature we’re focusing on is the Site Stats dashboard of the plugin.
Accessing the Site Stats dashboard
The Site Stats dashboard can be accessed from the admin dashboard on your CampusPress website. Once signed in and viewing the dashboard, hover over the Jetpack option in the left-side menu and click on Site Stats in the popup menu.
From this dashboard, you can view a graph displaying the trend of visits over the last 28 days to your site. Useful statistics, such as total views for the last day and all-time information is shown below the trend bar graph. Websites sending traffic your way (Referrers) and visited pages are displayed in tables, organized by the most popular referrer/page. By default, statistics of the current day are displayed, with previous data being accessible by clicking on dates in the trend bar graph.
Access and View Advanced Details
More statistics relating to visitors and trends can be accessed by signing up for a free WordPress.com account. By creating a WordPress account with your Siena Heights University email address, you can link your CampusPress site with WordPress. This will allow you to view an advanced statistics dashboard, showing information on countries, users, and more.
Please note: Siena Heights University is in no way associated with WordPress.com or it’s affiliates, and signing up for a WordPress account are unrelated to your official Siena Heights University accounts. If you do not wish to sign up for WordPress account, you do not need to do so to access these statistics. Please contact Ben Robert (brobert@sienaheights.edu) if you would like to view these statistics without signing up for a free account.
Why Statistics are Important
Stats are cool and everything, but why look at them? Analyzing these stats provide insights and data that can be used to create a better user experience for website visitors. You can determine what pages get the most views, and what parts of your website get the most use.
Understanding user behavior is also key to optimizing a website for accessibility and ease of use. For example, if you have a page for department information that gets a lot of views, you may want to consider adding it to your website header (if not added already). Inversely, if a page featured prominently on the website does not get a lot of clicks, you may want to move content around to promote more popular pages.
Important Notes about Certain Referrals
When reviewing statistics in your dashboard, you may notice reoccurring referrers. Below is a short list of some of those referrers and why you are seeing them:
- informationtechnology.sienaheights.edu – An IT-hosted webpage that handled redirection from your old Weebly site. For example, visiting shulibrary.sienaheights.edu will automatically re-direct you to sites.sienaheights.edu/library. Other sites that may see this are Financial Aid, Enrollment, McNair, Student Support Services, Engage, Reslife, Career Services, among many others. This redirection will stay in place for the foreseeable future as the old Weebly domains continue to be visited from old and outdated links.
- wordpress-sienaheights.hestage.com – A Human Element (entity that manages the main website for SHU) development website for SHU. You may see this website appear in your stats as this page is used to test features and links on the main website. This website is not to be used for anything official.
- Search Engines – Different search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others, that refer to your website via their search results. Sometimes the search results are passed along in your stats, which can be useful for knowing how visitors get to your site from the various search engines.
- sienaheights.edu – The main SHU website managed by Marketing and Human Element. Marketing may link your internal webpage on the main website for various reasons, which is where this referrer can come from. If you have any questions regarding the linking of your internal resources on the main site, contact Marketing.