5 Ways of Analyzing Website Visitor Behavior: Understanding these will help you to tailor your website optimally

Before beginning research on visitors to college campuses, several questions needed to be addressed. The first question being "who visits college campuses?" Potential visitors include the local community, tourists, potential students, visiting professors and lecturers and high school and elementary students. The second question involved brainstorming on things they potentially need when visiting, which includes a navigation system, schedule of events, food, necessities, entertainment and resources. The third question encompasses another set of questions;

"why are they visiting?' 'What is their area of interest?' 'Where are they from?' 'What are their demographics?' 'How are they getting there?' 'How much and what are they spending their money on while there?' 'How often do they visit?' 'What is their affiliation/relation to campus?' 'How much disposable income do they have?'

In beginning research, there wasn't a resource that contained the answers to all of these questions, but I did find a website titled the Visitor Studies Association; an archive of articles based on visitor behavior.

Visitor Studies Association "VSA is today’s premier professional organization focusing on all facets of the visitor experience in museums, zoos, nature centers, visitor centers, historic sites, parks and other informal learning settings. We’re committed to understanding and enhancing visitor experiences in informal learning settings through research, evaluation, and dialogue."

Two particularly relevant articles I stumbled upon were Non-Visitor Research and Motivational Factors and the Visitor Experience. This research take more of a sociological/psychological approach since statistical data on visitors to college campuses in general does not exist.

[Visitors - Visiting Faculty and College Athletics]

http://depts.washington.edu/sswweb/faculty/newfacguide.html

Guide for New and Visiting Faculty

Visiting Faculty Housing Services (Temporary housing information)

UW Faculty/Staff Guide (A Guide to Administrative and Business Services) 

UW Directories

SSW Contact List

Campus Info/UW Services

Campus Mapping Service (maps a walking route to anywhere on campus)

Parking Services 

UW Benefits

A Quick Guide to the University

Campus News & Events

UW Club

University Bookstore

UW Work/Life (Childcare services for Faculty & Staff)

Seattle & Local Info 

UW Arts, Culture & Sports

College Athletics

Fans vs. Spectators: An Analysis of Those Who Attend Intercollegiate Football Games 

Matthew J. Robinson, Galen T. Trail, Ronald J. Dick, Andrew J. Gillentine

  -More than 40 million individuals attended intercollegiate football games across the four divisions sponsored by the NCAA

-Model based on the relationship between motives and points of attachment that classified attendees as either spectators or fans

-A fan’s consumption behavior may differ from a spectator’s and vice versa: thus each may need to be marketed to differently.

                  -Marketing is specific to divisions

-Based on achievement, overarching motive, spectator motive, organizational, identification, player identification, sport identification

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics

Last month we talked about using analytics data to conquer the task of writing dynamic content and beat writer’s block. Today, we’re going to dig a little deeper into our analytics for more information. How many ways can you find the seed of life in your numbers? How many other root words can you find that you haven’t previously thought of?