Jonny Wilkinson, Islamabad and gay men in puffa jackets
The preparation that goes into launching a website is only the first step in ensuring its ongoing success and relevance. The key to ensuring visitors find what they like and like what they find lies with analytical tracking tools - an abundant source of data on the habits of your site's visitors.
It seems the rule of thumb when scouring these resources is if you're there for business you skim data from the top, and if you're there for entertainment you dive straight to the bottom. A few moments delving into Zone's analytics for 2010 is no exception. In fact it's the perfect source of trivia, intrigue and gossip for a wintery afternoon, inspired by Gizmodo's recent insights into mobile phones and online dating.
I found the referring keywords list alone to be an endless string of revelations. Who would believe for example that more people are referred to our site by the search term 'Jonny Wilkinson' than MD 'Jon Davie'? Or that our content editor Charlie Cottrell is a better-performing phrase than 'Zone Digital Content'?
In fact certain people at Zone appear to have an almost celebrity status out there on the web. Charlie (73 referrals), Lauren (41), Adrian (40), Marc (29) and Adam (23) are our best performing ambassadors. While Charlie may reign supreme on Google however, I should in the interests of fairness point out that Paul, Dom and Karen lay claim to the sole referrals received from Yahoo!, AOL and Bing respectively. And not to be outdone, Matt Simpson may have only attracted nine people to the site, but they stay for an average of over seven minutes - almost three times more than the average visitor.
The further you delve into the referrals list, past client names, blog posts and the occasional out-dated confusion over 'what zone is Camden in?', you soon find yourself enveloped within the detritus of the internet and the unfathomable motives of some of its users. Take referral number 1,267: 'images of gay men in shiny Puffa jackets'. Nice of them to drop by, but is the undoubted disappointment felt by that particular Googler upon arrival at our site in any way related to phrase 894: 'you are making a spectacle of yourself'?
I feel this is about as far as I should stray into the voyeuristic underbelly of analytics. Except perhaps to tantalise with a final couple of unanswered questions: are the rumours true about our Pakistani venture: 'The Content Zone Ltd Islamabad'? And exactly what is it with certain members of staff appearing alongside more 'risqué' keywords? A case of mistaken identity, no doubt.
