Identifying Content Elements via Omniture SiteCatalyst
Page naming and content identification techniques are key elements into creating and maintaining relevant material that speaks to the target audience. It helps easily identify and potentially correct portions of the site that either are performing well/poorly from a user consumption standpoint.
Below is what you will need to leverage this technique.
What you need:
- s.pageName variable
- s.channel (for capturing site section)
- Enable pathing on s.pageName and channel
The first step is to decide on data capture strategy for the page name. There are 3 free options available and one that might require using the Omniture Consulting team.
The first option is the easiest from an implementation perspective. That method allows SiteCatalyst to capture the URL and pass that as the page name.
Pros:
- Easiest to implement (no coding required).
- Append on any and all useful information via SAINT classifications.
- Save on correlation allocation as page name, section, subsection, etc. would all be classifications of the page name and would all be included with inclusion of page name.
- Easy to maintain if URLs aren’t frequently added.
Cons:
- If frequent additions are made (i.e. new URLs are added on a consistent basis), maintenance would need to be performed to remove “None”.
- If pages have same base URL, but vary with either query string parameter or UPPER or lower case, they will be counted as separate pages. This also includes “http” vs “https” and “www” vs “non-www”.
The second option is to grab the HTML <title> tag and pass that into the s.pageName variable.
Pros:
- Easy global solution to code.
- Ability to use SAINT to add in classifications.
Cons:
- Only worth wild if HTML title tag is unique on each and every page that SiteCatalyst code resides on.
- Not recommended if SEO is done on the site (since title tags can and will change).
The third option is to leverage dynamic page name tracking via JavaScript logic.
Pros:
- Display page name based on dynamic logic from the content present or being pushed from the database.
- Recommended as dynamic logic can factor in subtle variations that might occur to user input error.
- Easiest to leverage as new pages are added.
Cons:
- Requires dynamic logic to be developed by tech resources.
The last option is incorporating the pageName plugin provided by Omniture Consulting. This plugin creates the page name based on the URL structure on the site. The plug-in can be configured to include or exclude portions of the URL. Talk to your account manager about this option if you would like to know more about it.
Next, on every page of the site set the pageName and channel variable (optional) to the appropriate page name and to the site section respectively. Now you will be able to see and optimize site content to better suit your end users. You can also create calculated metrics to provide further insight. They are: Page Views per Visit (page views / visits) and Visits per Unique Visitor (visits / unique visitor).
Written by:
Dorian D. Regester
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
One thing to note is that if you use SAINT Classifications to create your “friendly” page names, you will not be able to see Pathing which is critical.
Wow this is a great resource.. I’m enjoying it.. good article