Just read though 2 articles, one on visitor duration and another on visitor pathing about the ideas of ThinkMetrics CEO about what not to measure using Web Analytics tools.

Actually, I have fallen into a couple of the traps and misconceptions that are mentioned in the first article.

You should not analyze what search engines are sending you traffic. You should not analyze what paths people take through your website. You should not analyze the average duration your visitors spend on a visit, or the average number of pages they read. None of these things will help you in the slightest, and in some cases they will even mislead you.

I think we’re all looking for information that is actionable - but usually not find that - we’ll look at metrics that stick out.  One metric is how long the average visitor spends on a site.   A couple of weeks ago I posted about the average length of a visit indicates customer interest and prsented the following chart.

My client on the bottom chart, whose average visit is 50% longer than two of my other clients who sell the exact same services, seemed to have some advantage over the other two but I could not figure out why his visits lasted longer of if he had higher sales because of that.   So, I did some analysis and this is what I found:

The average visit lasted longer because this client had a "Virtual tour" of his products (house plans) on the site.   An analysis of the total time spent in each part (function) of his site showed that almost 50% of all the time spent on the site was viewing virtual tour pictures which take tend to be viewed longer (37 seconds per view, on average) and as a result - visits last longer (but not for everyone).

Here’s the methodology to figure this chart out:

Total Visits * time spent per Average Visit = total time in seconds spent on site.

Total time spent per section / Total time on site = % of time spent on section

70% of all the time spent on the site this month was on either looking at interactive graphical virtural reality tours or looking at house style pages.

The two other sites don’t have a virtual reality section, so they don’t generate vists that last as long.

Ok, the conclusion that the ThinkMetrics guy proposes is to:

It is therefore absolutely essential that you separate out committed readers from scanning visitors before you calculate average duration and average page views. This will typically show you that those people who do spend time on the site are spending twice as long as you had previously imagined. 

 I strongly recommend you think about what constitutes a scanning visitor. It’s not just someone who only looks at one page. If someone views three pages in 25 seconds then leaves, it’s pretty obvious they just scanned those pages looking for something, but didn’t find it. You need to determine — for your site — how long it should take to determine what the site has to offer. strongly recommend you think about what constitutes a scanning visitor. It’s not just someone who only looks at one page. If someone views three pages in 25 seconds then leaves, it’s pretty obvious they just scanned those pages looking for something, but didn’t find it. You need to determine — for your site — how long it should take to determine what the site has to offer.

So, they want us to figure out how long it should take to figure out what a site has to offer and then segement betweend the percentage of traffic that left before that time and the percent that stayed longer.  I’m going to try that myself.