Context is Queen

You're a web analyst for a company and are handed the following report on search traffic to your website.  What would you do to provide context to the data?  Explain what context does for your reporting to management.

A number of things can be done with the information displayed above depending on the context of which it is viewed at. First though is to list what exactly is shown. The following things can be identified from this display:

• Visits to a site or page, and the percent of total this represents.
• Pages per visit, including the site average.
• Average duration of the visits, as well as the site average.
• New visit percentage, also with site average.
• Bounce rate, again with site average.
• A graph showing visits per day through a six month period.

 With these measurements in mind I would say that this data provides useful information in the context of site activity by users. We can see how many people visited the site, how many of them were new, how long they were there, the number of pages, and how many left. From the actual numbers it appears the site isn't retaining many visitors well. They don't even remain a full minute and most of the traffic is new instead of returning. The bounce rate is also higher than I'd probably like to see, and the pages per visit lower. All this tells me that there is likely something driving people away from the site which needs to be addressed. 

As shown in this example the context of the data can have a significant effect on whether something is working well or not. It can also help determine what exactly is wrong or right which allows attention to be better focused. Using this information a report can be generated to management to help guarantee the most successful path is found and followed.