All posts in website analytics

Yesterday at SMX London was full of information and handy tips on Paid Search and Analytics. There were four sessions:

Here’s our write-up of them.

Last Thursday was the first Search Firestarters event, hosted by Google and Only Dead Fish – and we were lucky enough to get an invitation. Here are our top takeaways!

Martin McNulty, from Forward3D

  • Don’t try to attribute your way out of a rubbish marketing campaign. If your marketing is rubbish no attribution model will fix that.
  • Modelling is not measuring – it’s about statistics and odds.
  • Concentrate on what you can control – it’s all very well finding out the volume of search depends on cloud cover, but you can’t control the weather so you can’t do anything about it.
  • Some companies will get most conversions from just one click – there’s not much point doing attribution modelling if it’s only for a couple of conversions.

Like it or not, the deadline for complying with the EU cookie directive is drawing very close. No matter how nonsensical this law seems, the sad reality is that it’s the law – and website owners have no choice but to comply. With the deadline for compliance now less than two months away, the aim of this post is to give you all the facts you need to know, including practical suggestions for ensuring that your site is in line with the new regulations. I’ve put my personal opinion at the end; clue:  like everyone else, I think this law is ludicrous!

What is the EU cookie directive?
For those not already aware, the supposed aim of this legislation is to increase online security and data privacy, giving users more control over what data can be held about them. It addresses concerns with how personal information is held and used. Some users – albeit a small minority – are concerned with what they see as the development of a ‘Big Brother’ society in which their every move is being recorded.

The legislation forces websites to be transparent about how they are using cookies, detailing exactly what information each cookie holds and how long it will be held, and requires them actively to request permission from their users before cookies can be used.

Previously, the law dictated that websites had to explain how they were using cookies and how users can ‘opt out’. Most sites did so in their Privacy Policies, but this isn’t enough under the new law:  users now have to ‘opt in’, having been made fully aware of the implications of doing so.

‘Build websites for users, not search engines’ is the advice continually propounded by insiders at Google. As SEOs, we’re used to looking at websites and analysing how they would be viewed by a search engine. In actual fact, though, there’s a fairly big overlap between what’s helpful for a user and what’s helpful for a search engine, and the user and search engine experiences can often mirror each other. That means that it’s often worth carrying out user testing research in the initial stages of your SEO project to gain valuable insights into how real visitors view and use your site.

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It’s this time of year again! In the previous years my web trends lists were very successful, both as predictions and by traffic or number of shares.

People working in the web industries want to know what’s ahead.

So for 2012 I want to tell you again what’s coming up. Basically I’m not predicting anything here; instead I just list trends you can already see and measure, but which will be obvious next year.

(not provided)

While the search industry has been all abuzz with the bad news of Google SSL search, most average people might not even understand what happened. They may wonder “why is (not provided) my most popular keyword in Google Analytics?” (Other analytics solutions might not even show up this data at all). Also:  how can you fix it?

First off, I want to explain in simple terms what happened. I tried to explain it to my wife recently and she didn’t understand at once. So this is the version she could fathom easily:  Google hides the keywords people use to find your site from now on, or at least a significant part of them. All these hidden keywords are tagged as ‘(not provided)’ in Google Analytics.

On SEOptimise currently (the first week of November) 14,7% of Google search visitors had no keyword sent with its referrer.

The referrer is the page address where they came from. On my own blog, SEO 2.0, the number was even higher, with 16,27% of Google visitors. Also, (not provided) is the most popular “keyword” on both blogs.

Whose referral data gets hidden? All users logged in to Google services get redirected to SSL search now by default.

So all these people hide the keywords they use from the sites they visit. Google and thus the CIA, MI5 or any other secret service can still access these data for at least 18 months.

As an SEO it is essential to report on the metrics that will show the progression of the project that you are working on.

These reports need to provide the client and yourself with actionable information, whilst also being able to outline your KPIs clearly. All reports should ideally include metrics from both on-site and off-site activity, providing the client with a clear understanding of what improvement has been made.

SEO reporting metrics
Image by seoinc

Multiple Choice Exam*

If you want to become qualified in Google Analytics, Google offer an online exam called the Google Analytics Individual Qualification.  It’s a useful qualification to have when working with Google Analytics on your clients’ sites (and you should be using some analytics software!).

I passed the test last week and thought I’d put together a few tips for anyone else who may be thinking of taking the exam.

In recent weeks I have set up Google Webmaster Tools for a number of different clients, some of whom wanted some documentation on how this could be done.

Based on that document I have decided to publish this very basic beginner’s guide for those who are unfamiliar with the set up process of Google Webmaster Tools.

What is Google Webmaster Tools?
Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is a free and easy way for webmasters to view their own website the way that Google sees it. GWT is a free tool that can be used for websites of all sizes, and features information such as:

  • Which of your pages are included in Google’s Index
  • Any errors encountered while crawling your site
  • Search queries that list your site as a result
  • Which sites link to yours
  • And more

This guide covers how to set up GWT in seven easy steps, from creating an account to adding and deleting users and associating your Google Analytics.

Everybody is talking about content farms as if they were the only type of sites hit by the latest large Google update. That’s a very limited viewpoint.

One of the most striking effects of the UK version of Google’s quality update dubbed Panda has been the huge losses by shopping search engines and review sites that focus on price comparison. Not all such services have lost though.

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