A website chatbot is a listening post. Every question is a visitor telling you, in their own words, what they came for. Every “I couldn’t find that on this site” is a page you haven’t written yet. The analytics make that visible; this guide shows how to act on it in about 20 minutes a week.
We use GoChatterBot’s Overview screen as the example. Most chatbot analytics show similar numbers, so the routine carries over.
What the numbers tell you
Here’s what GoChatterBot’s Overview screen shows and what each part is good for. The first group is on every plan, including the free Starter plan; the second is on Growth and Pro.
On every plan
- Conversations, messages, last 7 and last 30 days. Is the chatbot being used, and is use growing?
- Conversations per day. Spikes usually follow something: a newsletter, an event, a change on the site.
- Most asked. The questions visitors ask most often. Your most important content, ranked by demand.
- Recent conversations. A quick way into the transcripts.
- What the chatbot reads. A check that the content types you expect are included.
On Growth and Pro
- Questions it could not answer. Your content gap list.
- Question trends. Most asked questions compared with the previous 30 days: what’s new, what’s rising.
- Pages people chat from. Where visitors are when they give up browsing and ask.
- Busiest hours. When questions arrive.
- Average answer time, follow-ups, visitors and returning visitors. How the chat is being used.
The analytics documentation describes each item.
A 20-minute weekly routine
1. Start with what it couldn’t answer (5 minutes)
Open Questions it could not answer. Sort each question into one of three piles:
- Should be on the site. A real gap. Add it to your list.
- Is on the site, but it wasn’t found. The information exists but is hard to find or worded differently. Note the page.
- Out of scope. Questions about things you don’t do. Nothing to fix, although a short “what we don’t offer” line sometimes helps visitors too.
2. Check the most asked questions (5 minutes)
Your top five questions deserve the clearest answers on the site. Ask each one yourself and read the answer. If an answer is right but awkward, the page behind it is probably awkward too. If a question keeps appearing, add it to your suggested questions so visitors can tap it.
3. Read the bad ratings (5 minutes)
Visitors can mark any answer as good or bad, and a bad rating asks what went wrong: incorrect information, didn’t answer the question, too vague, inappropriate, or other. You’ll see ratings in the transcripts under Conversations. Open the sources each rated answer used and ask: is the page wrong, unclear, or contradicted by another page?
4. Fix one or two things (5 minutes)
Don’t try to fix everything. Pick the gap or unclear page that affects the most visitors, and improve it. Because the chatbot reads your live site, the better answer is available straight away.
Fixing the three kinds of gap
Missing information
Add it to the page a visitor would expect it on. A new standalone page is only needed when the topic doesn’t fit anywhere else. Write the answer as a plain statement (“Parking is free in Lot B after 5 PM”), not as a hint.
Information that exists but isn’t found
Usually a wording problem. Visitors ask about “parking”; your page calls it “visitor access”. Use the words your visitors use, at least once, in a heading or sentence. If the detail sits in a custom field, make sure that field is shared in the chatbot’s Fields settings. If it sits in a PDF, check the PDF has a text layer; see making PDFs readable.
Contradictions
Two pages that disagree, such as an old price on one page and the new one on another, produce confused answers. Search your site for the old detail and update or remove it.
Our guide to writing content an AI chatbot can use has more on each of these.
Read the trends, not just the totals
Once a month, look at the longer view:
- Question trends show topics that are new or growing. A sudden rise in “Is the pool open?” might mean a seasonal page needs updating.
- Pages people chat from point to pages that leave visitors with questions. If a pricing page starts many conversations, it may be missing something.
- Busiest hours show when visitors look for help. If many questions arrive outside office hours, the chatbot is doing work your team would otherwise pick up the next morning.
What good looks like after a month
There is no target number that fits every site, so compare your site with itself. After four weeks of the routine, you’d hope to see:
- The same questions no longer appearing in the unanswered list.
- Your top questions answered from the page you intended, not an old or unrelated one.
- Fewer bad ratings, and the reasons shifting from “incorrect information” to occasional “too vague”.
- Suggested questions that match what visitors really ask first.
If the unanswered list keeps growing, that’s useful too: it usually means a whole topic is missing from the site, and it may deserve its own page.
Keep a simple log
A short running document is enough: the date, the gap, what you changed and on which page. After a couple of months you’ll see the unanswered list shrink and the same questions stop appearing. That is the whole point.
If you’re on the free Starter plan, you can still do most of this routine with the Most asked list and the transcripts. When you want the unanswered-questions list and trends, Growth and Pro add them. See the chatbot analytics feature page for what each plan shows.