CEDARVILLE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION
APPLIED COMMUNICATION PAGE ANALYSIS

Alex Archambault | Katelyn Byram | Lexi Gresh

Web Analytics | Spring 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary 1

Introduction 3

KPI & Dashboard Analysis. 13

Site Analysis 16

Conclusion & Recommendations 31

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objective of this report is to provide web analytics insight for the Applied
Communication major at Cedarville University. The Department has a web presence that seeks
to inform prospective students, parents, current students, other universities, and potential
employers about the major, its purpose, and its benefits, both professionally and personally.
With this purpose in mind, the Chair of the Department of Communication, Professor Derrick
Green, has expressed specific goals for the Applied Communication page. The client would like to
see increased traffic to the pages, increased interactions with the Ask a Question, Contact Us,
and View a Sample 4-Year Plan features, and an increased number of completed applications
through the Apply Now feature.
To create context for our analysis, we created an introductory description of the
intended audience, a description of their goals, and the relationship between the clients goals
and the audiences goals for the site. We found that they intersected in their intentions for using
the sight. Both the client and the audience are looking for interaction through the use of features
like contact forms and information requests. We also looked at the content to see how individual
pages are doing in bringing in and engaging users of the site. We then analyzed organic searches
to see how many users were coming from search engines such as google, and looked at the
quality of those visits.
We also created a dashboard for the Applied Communication pages to act as a tool that
displays key performance indicators for the site. The dashboard displays monthly key metrics
related to goals for the site. When used consistently, the client can track patterns for site
performance, enabling them to better determine problem areas for the site. Additionally, we ran
analyses to track both the overall performance of the site, as well as detailed insights into
specific sections of insight like navigation and organic search analyses. We found that sessions
that visited the Applied Communication page typically were quite engaged with the sight, citing
long duration of stay and high numbers of pages visited per session.
There are several recommendations based on our findings: The increasing bounce rate
could be remedied by reevaluating the content to be sure that the page provides information and
links that engage the user. We found data indicating low social channeling, which questions the
effectiveness of the clients social media to direct users to their website. We suggest more direct
links on social media that will enable the Applied Communication site to act as a landing page.
Additionally, the client should begin and continue monitoring site behavior through the
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dashboard. They should also continue including a link to the Department or related page in each
social media post so that user behavior can be tracked. The site should also be revised to include
more engaging content so that users are more likely to spend time exploring the Applied
Communication site itself.

INTRODUCTION

THE CLIENT

Our client is the Applied Communication major of the Department of Communication at

Cedarville University. The Applied Communication major is an education program dedicated to
preparing students for a variety of professional contexts by developing skills in leadership,
critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, etc. In the fall of 2014, the Cedarville University had
around 70 declared Applied Communication majors. Under the Applied Communication
program, students are split into three areas of study: Organizational, Strategic, or Public
communication. The Department has recently adopted the motto What cant we do? to
emphasize the diverse range of skill training that the Department provides.
The Department has a web home that is meant to introduce the program of study to
prospective students and families, making the program appeal as a viable option for spiritual,
personal, and career development. However, they currently have difficulty helping their
audience see this concept in a concrete way, especially on the site. Additionally, the Department
is competing with other majors at Cedarville (with the Business major as the primary
competitor, and the study of Social Work as a distant second). According to the client
representative, Department Chair Derrick Green, the Department would like to see improvement
in simplifying and clarifying the content of their site in order to create a more succinct, yet
convincing argument for the value of the Applied Communication major. He would like to see the
site more clearly present the message behind the Department motto What cant we do?
Currently the web design is handled by Simon and Carrington, and approved by Derrick Green.

CLIENT NEEDS & GOALS

The Department of Communication exists to inform prospective students, parents,

current students, other universities, and potential employers about the Department. The website
classifies as a nonprofit. According to client representative, Professor Green, success for the site
would be increased traffic to the Applied Communication page and the conversions of clicking
the Apply Now button and completing an application, as well as interacting with the
Department via the Ask a Question button.
The client has presented several attainable needs that are listed below:

Increase traffic to the Applied Communication webpage

Increase number of completed application through the Apply Now feature

Increase interaction with the Ask a Question feature

Increase usage of the Contact Us feature

Increase views of sample 4-year curriculum

The team would also like to acknowledge and furthermore dismiss several expressed needs that
are not measurable through Google Analytics:

Include social media buttons on each page within the Department

Add link to Financial Aid

Include student testimonial videos

Include a job placement/future employer section

Include a specific page for parents/FAQ

The team proposes the following goals based on the above needs and client interview:
Client Goals:

Increase effectiveness of page

Increase traffic to page

Increase traffic to the Applied Communication webpage

Increase number of completed applications through the Apply Now feature

Increase interaction with the Ask a Question feature

Increase usage of the Contact Us feature

Increase views of sample 4-year curriculum

Prospective Student Goals:

Visitors should click the Apply Now button

Use the Contact Us form

View the About Us page

Increase social media referral effectiveness

Increase referrals from relevant sites

Prospective Parent Goals:

View Financial Aid as next page

View the curriculum for the majors

Use the Contact Us form

Increase referrals from relevant sites

Further discussion of methods and data will be presented in the Site Analysis section of the
report.

TARGET AUDIENCE & PERSONAS

According to Professor Green, the target audiences for the site are prospective students
as well as their parents. He mentioned that currently undeclared Cedarville students would
likely fit into the target audience as well. The secondary audience is comprised of current
students (with a declared major), parents of current students, perspective employers of
Cedarville Communication students, and anyone interested in or with a connection to higher
education including other universities and schools.
The target audience is generally going to be made up of high school students in their
junior or senior year as well as their parents. The majority of the students will be 17-18 years
old, have a limited income, and have relatively the same level of education thus far. The race,
ethnicity and sex of the students will vary as those are not specific to who visits the site. Most of
the students will share the behavior of searching for colleges. They will look at many different
sites and have a set of criteria they are looking for in a school. They will look in the same places
on the sites of different schools to find their priorities and if the school does not offer what they
are looking for, they will likely move on to the next. The students expectation may be very
broad if they are just beginning to look at schools or very detailed if they have looked at
hundreds of university websites. They will expect clear navigation of majors within the
department and tracks within the majors. They will also expect to see a layout of the curriculum
and an easy way to apply. The role of the student can vary, for some students they are the final
decision maker and for others that role goes to their parents. Either way, their opinion of the
school and the site weighs greatly on the likelihood of submitting an application. Students come
from all different backgrounds and so will have many different values, though one value that
most students will have in common is that they are Christians looking to study at a Christian
university.
The parents can come from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, and ages. They will
generally be not too young or too old, but grandparents and siblings may fit in this as well as
they help their loved ones find a place to study. This section of the target audience varies more
than the student section because many families and cultures are different. All parents visiting
the site likely are doing so in order to help their child choose a school, which is a consistent
behavior. Expectations will be similar to the students, and the parents role will either be
influencer or decision-maker. Parents will have a mix of values.

The needs of the audience include finding information about the Department. This
includes majors, activities, staff, and events. The user may want to see the curriculum of a
certain major or the different tracks offered within the major. They may want to hear from
current Cedarville students who are in the major or recent grads who have been successful.
They will want to know the core values and vision of the school and of the Department.

PERSONAS
SARAH | TYPICAL PROSPECTIVE STUDENT

17 years old
High School Senior
Lives in Cincinnati, Ohio
Maintains good grades and is heavily involved
in extracurricular activities
Im looking forward to college. Ive been looking into
a lot of Christian schools around the country, and
there seem to be a lot of great options.
I want to study somewhere that practices what they
preach in terms of quality. If their website and

Typical Web Tasks:

viewing, posting on, and

interacting with social media
sites
reading up on current news and
trends through online news
forums and magazines
accessing music, TV shows,
movies, and other media online
for personal enjoyment
keeping e-mail correspondences
with her teachers, coaches, and
out-of-state relatives

promotional materials dont communicate well, how

will I be able to learn to produce professional-level
work under them?
Sarah is a good student looking for a college that
will help her develop into a thriving young
professional. She is interested in focusing on
Journalism, Public Relations, or Communication at a
school with a well-reputed program.
Sarah has many interests--she is involved in a
lot of extracurricular activities like softball, student
government, volunteering for charities, as well as an

internship with the local newspaper. She is hoping that she can find a program of study
that will allow her some flexibility to pursue all the things she is passionate about.
Sarah is very familiar with navigating the web. She loves social media and is an
active user on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a few news sites. Her cell
phone is her main portal to the web, so she is hardly ever disconnected.
Sarah does not have a lot of patience for poor web design, organization, or
confusing information. When she logs into the web, she expects important information to
find her, not vice versa.
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TIM | TYPICAL PROSPECTIVE PARENT

48 years old
Business analyst
Lives in Cincinnati
Married
Wife is a stay at home mom
Three children

Typical site tasks:

Most college sites look attractive but arent actually

user friendly.

browse financial aid packages

view acceptance rates and test
scores
read mission statement and
objectives
browse majors
view sports pages and updates

I want my son to get an affordable Christian education.

Tim works full time and earns a six-figure income,

and his wife is a stay at home mom.
Their oldest child, a son, is looking for prospective

colleges. He is a junior in high school and is a track athlete.

Tim and his family are active church members and raised their children in a Christian
home. They want their son to get a biblically sound higher education.
They have looked at several websites of Christian colleges and universities and are
confused by the lack of information from each major. They would like to see more faces and read
more stories about what students are doing. They also want a page designed specifically for
parents so they can help their son choose a major.
Tim and his wife are savvy internet users and want the most out of their site exploration.
They want to find substantial and informative information quickly and easily.

REBECCA | TYPICAL UNDECLARED STUDENT

19 years old
Freshman student
Undeclared major
From Columbus, Ohio
Works part time in the dining hall
Its hard to tell what a major is really like from the
website. Ive found more benefit in talking to people who

Typical Web Tasks:

are currently in the major.

I really want to find a good fit here academically, I dont

Browse social media sites

Look at different majors
available at Cedarville
Login to Moodle to complete and
turn in class assignments
Using Cedarvilles find a
person directory to look up
guys in her brother unit (and the
one cute guy in her SPIFO class

want to choose wrong and then have a bunch of classes

to make up
Rebecca started at Cedarville this fall as an
undeclared major. She enjoyed and excelled in her
English and Social science classes in high school, she
also did well in math and science, but did not enjoy
them.

She wants a major that she will be good at and will lead to a job she will enjoy. She has
looked at Cedarvilles Social Work and Applied Communication programs but is having trouble
deciding a best fit. She attended the Social Work major assembly in the fall and is leaning
toward declaring social work, although she is worried that she may not have the emotional
strength to work in the field. She is a strong communicator and is good at building and
maintaining relationships. She wants a job where she can work with and help people.
Rebecca has looked at both webpages of the majors. She really connected with the video
on the Social Work page. She is also interested in Communication, but wishes she had more
information on what students are actually doing with the degree.
The spring majors assembly is coming up and shes planning on attending the
communications majors assembly because theyve promised her Chick-Fil-A.

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COMPARISON OF NEEDS & GOALS

A common theme between the client and the user is the desire for interaction. Clients
want users to navigate the site, using features like Apply Now, Ask a Question, and Contact
Us, and users want more information. The client wants users to view major-specific
information, such as the sample 4-year plan, and the user wants to read it. Included in the desire
for better page effectiveness is the overall page success, as well as increased social media
connections, which are also desired by the user, especially the prospective students. The client
also wants to improve referrals, which implies that the users connection to the site should be
easy and seamless.

SITE GOALS & KEY RESULTS

To analyze goal achievement and page success, the team gathered data that pertained to
several key goals and results as discussed with the client. They are: overall site health, page
success, lead generation, social media, and applications. The site health section provides the
client with a general overview of how well the Applied Communication home page is doing in
regards to number of sessions, time on site, and other metrics. Page success allows the client to
view what percentage of visitors to the home page are also visiting related categories of the
Cedarville site: Applied Communication, Financial Aid, and Application. The client can gauge how
successful the Departments Contact Us request is in the lead generation section. Social Media
includes the key metrics for visit quality as users are referred from Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram. Because our target audience includes prospective students, the Application section of
the dashboard allows the client to view metrics of visitors who visited both the Applied
Communication and an application-related page in the same session. The corresponding metrics
are displayed on the monthly dashboard found in section three of the report.

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ANALYSIS OVERVIEW

In this report we will provide analyses in a number of different areas to try to answer the
question how is the clients part of the site doing? We will look at the overall performance and
talk about how the site is doing as a whole in accomplishing the clients goals. We will look at
the content to see how individual pages are doing in bringing in and engaging users of the site.
We will look at navigation to see how visitors get to key pages and where they go from there.
We will then analyze organic searches to see how many users are coming from search engines
such as google, and to look at the quality of those visits. Lastly, we will look at acquisition to see
what kind of referral sites users are coming from, and how effective those visits are.

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KPI & DASHBOARD ANALYSIS

CLIENT NEEDS, SITE GOALS, & KPIS

When the client was interviewed, he expressed several key needs for the Applied
Communication site. The team then discussed several site goals that were paired with KPIs to
gather relevant data from Google Analytics. The breakdown is listed below:
Figure 2.1
Client Need

Site Goals

KPIs

Increase traffic to Applied

Communication page

Increase overall effectiveness of

Applied Communication site (site
health)

- Number of sessions
- Number of pageviews
- Time on site
- Page depth
- Bounce rate

Increase quality of visit for visitors

Increase page success

- Percent of visitors to other

Applied Communication pages
- Percent of visitors to Financial
Aid pages
- Percent of visitors to
Application-related pages

Monitor the relationship between

the Applied Communication
home page and applications

- Number of pageviews
- Number of unique pageviews
- Average session duration
- Number of entrances
- Percent bounce rate

Increase visitor contact from the

site

Increase information gathering

from the Contact Us page

- Number of pageviews
- Number of unique pageviews
- Average time on page
- Number of entrances
- Percent bounce rate

Increase social media referral

interaction

Increase quality of visits from

social media referrals (Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter)

- Number of sessions
- Number of pageviews
- Average session duration
- Pages/session

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DASHBOARD

This dashboard displays the data for March 2016.

Figure 2.2

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ANALYSIS

In the month of March 2016, the overall health of the Applied Communication site is
reported as doing well. Although sessions are down 25.4% from February 2016, pageviews, time
on site, and page depth have increased and bounce rate has decreased, indicating that visitors to
the site are having quality visits.
Page success for the Applied Communication page is minimal, as it does not successfully
direct visitors to other pages within the major.
Although visitors are spending more time on the Contact Us page, the other lead
generation metrics are down, indicating that visitors are either not finding a valuable contact
form or not seeking additional information about the Department.
All of the social media referrals from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram decreased or
remained at zero, indicating a need to improve the connection between the platforms and the
website. However, now that the Department has integrated more links to social media platforms,
these metrics should be watched in the future for improvement.
The application metrics are more for comparison to see what visitors have visited both
the Applied Communication page and the My Application site as part of their visit. This data
should be watched as it indicates the relationship between the Applied Communication page and
visitors working on their applications.

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SITE ANALYSIS

OVERALL PERFORMANCE
This sections data was gathered using the Cedarville University Off-Campus Filter view in a quarter-byquarter assessment from 4Q 2014 to 1Q 2016, for the /Applied-Communication segment.

Figure 3.1
OVERVIEW OF VISITORS AND ENGAGEMENT

At any given quarter, the site sees around 300

users (an average of 289/quarter between 4Q 2014
and 1Q 2016). Over all assessed quarters, we see
more returning users than new users (Figure 3.1).
The site seems to foster rather effective
engagement, meaning that the sessions reported tend
to interact with multiple pages for a duration of time
that indicates interest. Most sessions last an average of 16.5 minutes in duration, hitting an
average of 25 pages throughout their time. Our users seem to be browsing the Cedarville site
and taking the time to read or interact with pages. We further assessed engagement by looking
at audience frequency to evaluate visitor tenure. However, frequency is low, with an average of
30% of users clocking in at a one single session. Still, this seems to be balanced by the high
session duration, as well as good depth.
The depth of visits was a notable trend in our data. The data shows that over 75% of users
visited 20+ pages per session (Figure 3.2). This seems like a high number of pages for users to be
visiting, which either questions the integrity of our pages in meeting visitors needs or the
simplicity of navigation, or points to a flaw in our filtering (perhaps current students or faculty
are landing here and jumping over to utilities on Cedarvilles website, like Moodle, Cedarville
Email or CedarInfo).

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Figure 3.2

TOPLINE METRICS

Tracking progress through a comparison of 1Q 2016 to the previous quarter and the
corresponding quarter a year before it, we see that our audience has increased in the long term,
marking higher than last years data, but seem to have decreased since the previous session. This
could be attributed to various University marketing events like pushes to apply, or could just
indicate a more popular time of year for prospective families to be researching colleges. Still,
while our traffic is increasing, our pages/session and session duration seem to be steadily
decreasing.
Figure 3.3

Additionally, from our analysis, one issue we noted was that over the past six quarters,
the bounce rate has been increasing. This could be due to a change in the pages content (amount
of information that engages the user, presence of relevant links, etc.), and could be remedied by
reevaluating the content to be sure that the page provides information and links that engage the
user.
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CONTENT ANALYSIS
This sections data was gathered using the Cedarville University Off-Campus Filter view from April 1,
2015 to March 31, 2016, for the /Applied-Communication segment, unless otherwise noted.
PERFORMANCE OF THE PAGES IN THE CLIENTS PART OF THE WEBSITE

For this analysis we used the /Applied-Communciation filter to look at the three pages
within the Applied Communication part of the website including the main Applied
Communication page, the catalog pdf (which actually takes you to a different part of the site),
and the sample four-year plan page.
The Applied Communication home page, in comparison to the other pages in the section,
is doing rather well. It has 1,988 page views with the majority of those being unique pageviews.
This means that over half of the views are actual individuals coming to the site and not just the
same user coming back over and over. However, people only stay on this page for about 37
seconds, which is short compared to time spent on other pages, and the bounce rate is the
highest of all the pages in this section. This does not mean much, considering that there are only
two (really one) other page(s) to compare to, but in looking at the bounce rates of pages within
other communication tracks (such as PWID and BRDM), this bounce rate still seems very high. If
we compare the home page to some other pages, such as the academics page and the home page
of the entire Department (since we have so few pages within our segment), we can get a better
idea of what these numbers mean (Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1
Comparison of Key Metrics
Pageviews Unique Pageviews Average Time on Page Bounce Rate
Applied Communication Home Page
1,988
1,340
0:00:37
78.05%
Sample 4-Year Plan
556
374
0:01:34
0.00%
Academics Page
18,092
4,249
0:00:33
0.00%
Department Home Page
1,450
921
0:00:50
0.00%

The current catalog page is another page within the clients section, but it shows in a
viewer, which Google Analytics cannot track. Therefore, we are unfortunately not able to collect
data for the views and bounce rate of this section.
The last page within this section is the sample four-year plan page. It is considerably less
successful than the homepage with 556 page views, over half of which are unique. However,
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visitors spend an average of 1:34 on this page. This is significantly more time than users are spending on
the home page.
The Applied Communication page is the only one that weve looked at here that does not have a
bounce rate of zero. It instead has a somewhat concerning rate of 78.05%- over three quarters of all
page views! Looking further at the day-by-day data (see Figure 4.2), we can see that the majority of
days throughout the year have a 0% bounce rate, and on only 12 specific days there is a bounce rate of
100%. These 12 days are skewing the data for the entire year. The day of the week seem to make no
difference; the only day not represented is a Tuesday. The spikes in bounce rate also do not necessarily
always correlate with spikes in page views. However, when looking at how the entrances correlate with
the bounce rate (see figure 4.3), the spikes line up almost perfectly.
Figure 4.2

Figure 4.3

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HOW ARE THE PAGES WE WANT PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS TO VISIT DOING BASED UPON
THE CLIENTS AND USERS GOALS FOR THE SITE?

Based on the clients and users goals for the site, the pages within applied communication are
doing all right, but could be better. The bounce rate on the applied communication page was
concerning, but is less so now that we know that the percentage is made up from only 11 days out of the
entire year. The client wants the user to spend time on the page, view videos (which we do not have),
use a link to visit the Departments social media pages (which we also do not have), and eventually
apply. As far as content, it is promising that users are spending so much time on the catalog page, and a
decent amount of time viewing the four-year plan. As far as the users goals go, the catalog page and the
four-year plan provide good information that users would likely be seeking.

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NAVIGATION ANALYSIS
This sections data was gathered using the Cedarville University Off-Campus Filter view from April 1,
2015 to March 31, 2016, with the /Applied-Communication filter applied (325, 317 sessions 11.0% total
sessions), for the /Academics/Communication/Majors/Applied-Communication.aspx page, unless otherwise
noted.
Figures 5.1 and 5.2 show that the majority of visitors are coming to the Applied Communication
page via another page (93.1%), in contrast to the low number of entrances (6.9%). Figure 5.1 displays
the overall percentages and Figure 5.2 shows the calculated numbers.
Most visitors are coming to the Applied Communication page from the Academics page as shown
in Figure 5.2, while smaller percentages of visitors come from related Department pages or other
Cedarville pages.
Figure 5.1

Figure 5.2
Entrances

164

Previous Pages

1,824

Academics Menu

66.5%

Communication Home Page

4.7%

Applied Communication Pages

9.9%

Other Communication Pages

9.2%

Other CU Site Pages

9.3%

Exits

301

Next Pages

1,687

Drilldown

24.3%

Lateral

19.7%

Up

53.5%

Out

15.1%

Back/Exit Rate

(38+301)/1,988 = 339/1,988 = 17.1%

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Again, referring to Figure 5.1, we can see that the retention rate is good for site visitors with the
next page rate (84.9%). There is also a low exit rate (15.1%). Visitors are frequently navigating up to the
Academics page, which reveals that visitors want to explore another major. Visitors are also drilling
down to the Applied Communication sample four-year plan, which is desirable because they are
remaining within the major.
Visitors are travelling laterally to the Faculty and Staff, Communication Academics, Your Future,
Communication, BRDM, and PWID pages, all indicating that the visitor is remaining within the
Department. Both the / and Search pages require more research as to the purpose of the move and the
needs of the visitor.
The in page analytics in Figure 5.3 indicate that visitors are indeed returning to the Academics
page whether that be from the Academics button at the top of the page (34%) or the Academic Majors
and Programs link (33%). These metrics, while not identical, show a similar next page route for
visitors.
Figure 5.3

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COMPARISONS

Department Majors
Figure 5.4 displays topline metrics for the respective majors from April 1, 2015 to March 31,
2016.
Figure 5.4
Major/Metric

Applied
Communication

Broadcasting &
Digital Media

Journalism

Professional Writing &

Information Design

Sessions

1,395

1,824

976

1,559

Visitors

1,195

1,477

885

1,103

Pageviews

41,837

33,037

16, 131

25, 067

Pages/Session

30.0

18.11

16.5

16.1

Avg. Session
Duration

00:17:17

00:12:54

00:12:28

00:12:59

Bounce Rate

9.2%

15.5%

11.2%

18.2%

% New Sessions

37.9%

50.5%

54.2%

45.6%

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Department Home & Academics Page

Figures 5.5 and 5.6 display the Department home and academics page metrics from April 1, 2015
to March 31, 2016.
Home Page

Figure 5.5

Entrances

55

Previous Pages

1,292

Academics Menu

66.5%

Communication Home Page

4.7%

Applied Communication Pages

9.9%

Other Communication Pages

9.8%

Other CU Site Pages

4.6%

Exits

55

Next Pages

1,291

Drilldown

24.3%

Lateral

20.3%

Up

55.1%

Out

15.1%

Back/Exit Rate

(+164)/1,291 = 200/1,988 = 10.1%

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Academics Page

Figure 5.6

Entrances

20

Previous Pages

249

Academics Menu

0.0%

Communication Home Page

5.9%

Applied Communication Pages

52.9%

Other Communication Pages

23.5%

Other CU Site Pages

17.6%

Exits

20

Next Pages

249

Drilldown

76.5%

Lateral

17.6%

Up

5.9%

Out

7.4%

Back/Exit Rate

(0+20)/1,875 = 20/1,875 = 1.1%

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ORGANIC SEARCH ANALYSIS

This sections data was gathered using the Cedarville University Off-Campus Filter view from April 1,
2015 to March 31, 2016, for the /Academics/Communication/Majors/Applied-Communication.aspx
page, unless otherwise noted. This section uses data from the /Applied-Communication segment based
on 325,317 (10.97%) sessions.
It is important to look at how people are coming to the page. Some come through
referrals, email links, social media, etc., but what we will look at in this section is how many
people are coming from organic searches. An organic search is when someone uses a search
engine (such as Google, Yahoo!, or Bing) to search a term to find the page. We will also briefly
look at some key terms that are used in searching for the Applied Communication Page and how
they are less important now than they were in the past.
The majority (64.1%) of sessions within the entire Applied Communication segment
come from organic search. The next channels with the most sessions are direct and then
referrals. While organic search does bring in more users and accounts for more sessions, it has a
bounce rate of 14.3%, while the bounce rate for all channels is a lower 9.2% (Figure 6.1). These
are both much lower than the bounce rate of the entire site (44.2%). Visits that resulted from
organic searches have a higher bounce rate than other channels, but still much lower than the
site as a whole.
Figure 6.1
Quality of Sessions from Organic Searches vs. All Channels
Sessions % New
Sessions

Bounce
Rate

Pages Per
Session

Average Session
Duration

Organic
Search

894

40.8%

14.3%

30.5

18:06

All Channels

1,395

37.9%

9.2%

30.0

17:17

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The session durations from organic searches are the highest of all the channels at
00:18:06, even above referrals, which had the longest session duration from March 2015
through February 2016. Referrals also had more pages per session, which is still the
case. Referrals has 42.6 pages per session while organic search leads to 30.1. This is still a high
number and should be considered when determining the quality of the sessions.
When analyzing the efficiency and results of organic searches, keywords would typically
be considered important. This is no longer the case. We will look briefly at some of the more
common keywords that were tracked by Google Analytics, but keep in mind that the sample we
have taken is only about 10% of all searches, and therefore does not do a very good job of
representing the thousands of keywords used to reach the pages.
The majority of keywords that we can see in google analytics (89.8%) are not provided
which provides no help. Some of the other keywords shown are cedarville university,
Cedarville university majors, and communications degree at cedarville university. It is
important to understand the shift that has taken place within using organic searches and
keywords for analytical data. Key words do not hold the role of importance that they once did.
We now have semantic search. Semantic search improves search accuracy by trying to figure
out what the users intent in searching is. It uses their search history and other information
gathered about the individuals interests and tendencies to come up with the best results for that
person. Because of this, two people that search an identical keyword could come up with
entirely different results.
From the small amount of information that we are able to gather from keyword analyses,
we can see that a lot of people search for the school specifically instead of a specific major at any
university. We can also see that users do not always come in from searching for communication,
as one of the search terms on the list was cedarville history and government.

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ACQUISITION ANALYSIS
This sections data was gathered using the Cedarville University Off-Campus Filter view from April 1,
2015 to March 31, 2016, under the /Applied-Communication segment, unless otherwise noted. Based on
325, 317 (10.97%) sessions.
To assess audience engagement and the effectiveness of our site, it is important to
consider how users are finding our pages. This report measures the various sources that are
directing users to the Applied Communication section of Cedarvilles website by analyzing
sessions that included a pageview of at least of Applied Communication page. Analyzing the path
of traffic, particularly referrals (sessions that are produced by recommendation of an external
source), can be a strong indicator of what sources are most valuable in helping our client achieve
their goals.
ORIGINATING CHANNELS

Most users came from three primary channels: organic search, direct, or referral. Users
who find the site by organic search are being directed to the page as a result of a search engine
like Google or Bing fall under the category of organic search. Users who accessed the site via
direct channel entered the site by intentionally loading the URL by typing it into their navigation
browser or clicking on a bookmark. Users who were directed to the site by a referral came to the
site from an outside source other than a search engine, i.e. a hyperlink fall under the category of
referral. For the Applied Communication pages, sessions were channeled as reported in Figure
7.1 below.
Figure 7.1

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By far, organic search is the greatest channel to the site, boasting over half of all
sessions. Direct and referral fall nearly even at 18.3% and 15.7%, respectively. Paid search,
social and other channels proved least effective, bringing in a projected 0.65% each.
REFERRAL SITES

To better understand which external sites are contributing to our traffic, we observed
the data for referral sites, which indicate pages that are driving new sessions to the Cedarville
site. Referral was our third-highest channel directing users to the site. To have a better
understanding of where users were being referred from, we found the following sources to be
the most true referral sites that are bringing users to the Cedarville website, and eventually
visiting an Applied Communication page. The top 58% of referral sources were a Google login
page and Cedarvilles Moodle homepage, which suggest that those users may be current students
trying to access campus utilities through the pages. But sources like answersingenesis.org,
cincinnatibell.net, collegeatlas.org, and sbc.net all referred around 4% of sessions. In analyzing
the landing pages, we found that all of these referral sites were directing new sessions to the
Cedarville home page, and from there users were eventually making their way to at least one
Applied Communication page.
Next, we needed to assess the quality of these visits by looking into the engagement of
the users in these sessions.
Figure 7.2

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There seems to be impressive engagement from these referrals. Still, this engagement is
not resulting in follow through: none of these referrals resulted in any goal completions. For
example, collegeatlas.com brought in 9 new users that visited an average of 4 pages at 3 minutes
per visit, which implies good engagement, but did not result in any goal completions.

SOCAL REFERRALS

Knowing that the 0.65% of social referrals reported earlier was a projection by Google
Analytics, we ran an analysis of social referrals and found that there were no social referrals to
the Applied Communication pages in the given timeframe.

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CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

Overall, our analyses revealed that the Applied Communication site as a whole is not at
optimal performance. The target audiences are looking for clear and engaging content that will
provide key information and help them to better understand the purpose of the department and
major. By monitoring and analyzing user behavior, the client can better understand how they
can adjust the site to better suit the audiences needs. In order to do this, we recommend the
following:
1. Compared to the goals of the client, the page needs some additions, such as a link to social
media channels and the inclusion of student videos, in order to be more successful. (Refer to
Introduction: Comparison of Needs & Goals)
2. Because the dashboard contains month-by-month metrics, it should be updated frequently.
The metrics for lead generation and applications are especially important to keep an eye on, as
they promote prospective student interaction. (Refer to KPI & Dashboard Analysis)
3. To monitor page success, the next pages for visitors should continue to be analyzed with the
dashboard. As the site becomes more developed, the addition of more prominent links to
Financial Aid and My Application, along with more Applied Communication related subpages,
should increase page success. (Refer to KPI & Dashboard Analysis)
4. The bounce rate has been increasing. This could be due to a change in the pages content
(amount of information that engages the user, presence of relevant links, etc.), and could be
remedied by reevaluating the content to be sure that the page provides information and links
that engage the user. (Refer to Overall Performance)
5. Considering the high activity of the Applied Communication major on social media, the low
data of social channeling indicates a failure in regards to its effectiveness to direct users to their
website. For the major's social media marketing to direct the audience to the web site, it needs
direct links that will enable the Applied Communication site to act as a landing page. (Refer to
Acquisition Analysis)
6. The Department social media site posts need to consistently include a link to the Applied
Communication page so that user behavior can be monitored.

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7. If the client were to add more pages to the Applied Communication site, the user would need
more content to explore. Currently, the other Department majors have much more content
creating a better user experience. This content could include: student testimonials,
communication related careers, and related organizations.
8. The client should continue to research the / and Search pages as next pages so that the
visitors needs can be more fully known. This could include an in-depth page analysis similar to
that of the analysis for the Applied Communication page.

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