Based on the book Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics - by Brian Clifton
All 'SEO & Analytics' posts in date order i.e. newest first. Click on the post title to read in full.
SEO is getting harder! If you are active with search engine optimisation (SEO), then you will be aware of the issue of “not provided” showing in your Google Analytics reports for organic visits. This post updates the situation plotting the growing impact over time and the differentiation of tech-savvy versus tech-savvy web users.
It never ceases to amaze me how much emphasis organisations still put on measuring website volume – “How many visits (or conversions) did our last campaign generate?” It surprises me because volume metrics are a very useful guide to failure – but not success. That is, low traffic and conversion numbers tell you that something went wrong. For example, wrong message, wrong audience, wrong timing, or a landing page error – but they are a very blunt metric for success. A key meaning for measuring success is knowing which visits and conversions are your high value ones. In other words, which visitors are the most profitable to acquire. This can be measured directly if you are a transactional site, or indirectly as new leads/contacts/advocates. That is the principal behind optimisation – focusing your efforts on attracting/converting your most valuable visitors and pages. Dave Chaffey is a SEO expert, distinguished author, active blogger, Google Analytics Read the full article…
Google Analytics recognises 41 search engines by default. Although this is constantly being added to, there are of course a great many other search engines in the world – language and region specific, as well as price comparison and vertical portals. This hack is for anyone who manages SEO at a regional level i.e to be able to differentiate regional variations of search engines. For example, the default Search Engine list for Google Analytics shows aggregate search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN etc., this hack shows regional specific ones for your SEO efforts. April 2011 – New async hack launchedThis hack has been completely revised for the latest GA async code. Further info >> [ Now 100+ additional SEs + GA defaults (140+ domains). You no longer need to re-define the default set of search engines as this hack now prepends new search engines to GA’s list. For details Read the full article…
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been a part of my background since starting my career in the digital industry (since 1997). In fact it remains a major part of working with clients, though now social media is a bigger part of the mix. Hence I still speak at conferences such as SES London – as I did recently. http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/2010/02/12/interview-with-brian-clifton-author-of-advanced-web-metrics-with-google-analytics/ I was therefore honoured when Kelvin Newman asked me to do a pre-show SES interview for his SiteVisibility blog. Below is reprint of the interview I did last month. I reproduce here to keep my thoughts in one place…
As you may have heard, bing.com is the new search engine from Microsoft. Although tracking bing.com visitors in Google Analytics will take place automatically, the caveat is, that at present it is reported as a standard referrer – as if a link from another website. That means it is not grouped with other search engines in your reports and no keyword information is available. This update allows you to track Bing.com as a search engine in Google Analytics with visitor keyword detail. April 2011 – New async hack launchedThis hack has been completely revised for the latest GA async code. Further info >> Background Search still has a long way to go in helping people efficiently find information other than for product search, so reading the Bing press release certainly caught my attention. Also see my latest post tracking regional search engines. Although Google will no doubt apply a Read the full article…
Many people use Google Analytics for Search Engine Optimisation. As you may know, I started my digital life way back(!) in 1997 in web development and SEO – odd as it seems now, at that time Alta Vista was the Google of its day and Google was still a university project at Standford called Backrub. Although I now focus more on the overall performance of websites for clients, I am still very active when it comes to search engine optimisation. I was therefore honoured when Dave Chaffey asked me to do an interview for his Marketing Insights blog. Below is reprint of the interview I did last month. I reporduce here to keep my thoughts in one place… BTW, I am a regular reader of Dave’s material – both at Marketing Insights and his work for eConsultancy . Both are great resources for the digital marketer – end of plug Read the full article…
On Weds 30th May, I had the pleasure of attending SES Milan for the first time. I started my career with web development and SEO back in 1997(!), so over the years I have been to many of the SES events. Its great to observe that the search market has evolved since those “smoke-n-mirror days” as well as discover country/regional differences around the world. As a pan-EMEA manager I am ashamed to admit that my language abilities are poor – just English and a small amount of Russian (I am always amazed at how some people can simply switch between languages – both in thought and speech. Or do they always think in their native language I wonder?). Of course SES events are held in their local language and Milan was no exception. So many thanks to Sante Achille (SES moderator) who found the time to summarise the Measuring Search Read the full article…
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