Visit Depths

Visit depth (or page views per visitor) is the numbers of pages viewed on your site during an average visit.

A high value is a sign that your site captures your visitors interest (a visitor who spends more time on your site and goes deeper inside will generate more page views than an visitor who just glanced at the home page and left). In that respect, this report is the opposite of the bounce rate report.

Note that there is no 'right' value for visit depth. It is used to compare traffic patterns over time on a given site. For instance, if you redesign your navigation and the visit depth suddenly drops, then it is a sign that your visitors may be confused and unable to navigate the new site. Seeing that report drop is an alarm bell telling you that something might be wrong.

A poor or dropping visit depth can be caused by two general factors:

• Poorly targeted traffic: People come to your site but they are not looking for the service/product you are offering so they leave. Site design is not an issue in this case. The marketing strategy is what needs to be adjusted.
• Poorly designed site: People come to your site for the right reasons but their experience is not positive enough to convince them to stay a while and browse through it. In this case, site design is what must be addressed.

We present Visit Depth in different ways:

Average visit depth over time for the entire website:

Have you made changes to your site recently? If your visit depth goes up afterwards it's a sure way to confirm that the changes are having a positive impact and that your site is better at retaining visitors. Visit depth over time can be accessed from the main stats menu > TRAFFIC OVER TIME

Average visit depth per referrer:

This helps you figure out if some referrers are sending you bad traffic compared to others. Do you need to re-evaluate relationships with sites that are not sending you high quality traffic? Are your email, affiliate, other marketing campaigns yielding high page views per visit? This metric will help you answer these questions. Visit depth per referrer can be accessed from the main stats menu > TRAFFIC ORIGIN > Referrers

Average visit depth per entrance page:

People may enter your site through a variety of pages ; the visit depth per entrance page helps you figure out which pages are good at retaining traffic and introducing the visitor into the site, and which ones are leading them away. If a page has a low visit depth ratio, you need to evaluate its contents: is it optimally organized? Does it contain the right calls to action? Visit depth per entrance page can be accessed from the main stats menu > NAVIGATION > Entrance Pages

Average visit depth per browser/operating system/screen size:

People access your site with a variety of equipments ; the visit depth per equipment reports (browser/OS/screen size) allows you to spot equipments for which your site is not optimized. Do you see a low visit depth from Opera on Mac? Then you may need to view your site under that configuration to see what might be the matter. This is especially important when looking at screen sizes. Are there a bunch of screen sizes for which visit depth drops? If yes, simulate that screen size with your browser and see if your site is rendering properly. Chances are it is not. Visit depth per equipment can be accessed from the main stats menu > EQUIPMENT USED

Visit depth for individual users:

In the 'Click-Path' column of this report you can see the depth of each individual visit, along with the pages viewed and the duration of the visit. Click on the cell for full details about the visit, including time spent on each page. Visit depth for individual visitors can be accessed from the main stats menu > DETAILS VISITORS