Archive for the ‘Analytics’ Category

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Google Plus: All You Need To Know About Google +

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Whether you are celebrating it’s arrival or wishing it away because you don’t want to keep track of yet another social network, Google Plus is here.  We will soon find out whether it is here to stay or a quick fad, but my guess is that this is the real deal.  If you haven’t had the chance to join yet make sure to go check it out.  And, If you are like me and you are thinking HOLY COW there is so much to learn and read.. Here are a few resources I found helpful gathered all in one place.

What is Google Plus and How Do I Use It:

How to Get Started With Google Plus: This is a great guide to getting started on Google + it gives great info and screenshots, but it’s a little less overwhelming than the Google Plus Collaborative Doc (below).

Google Plus a Collaborative Document: This is literally a guide to using Google Plus.  The Table of Contents lays out the document so that you can jump around and learn about the areas that you need help with.  This is probably the most in depth and useful guide I have come across.

The Google Plus Cheat Sheet: Exactly what it sounds like, a cheat sheet or glossary of terms on how to use Google Plus and what things mean…So, in case you don’t have the time (or patience) to go through the doc above.

10 Awesome Video Tips for Getting More out of Google + Don’t like to read? Check out these quick video tips!

How to: Get Your Own Google+ Vanity URL: Since Google Plus doesn’t offer vanity URL’s as of now for fear of spammers figuring out millions of Google+ users email account information, gplus.to has created a small app that makes it easy to create your own Vanity URL to make it easy to share your Google Plus Profile with your friends.

How to Get Google+ On My Phone:

Get Google+ On Your iPhone! And iOS App was released today making it possible for iPhone users to get Google Plus on their iPhones.  It’s been available since the beginning on Android phones and all you need to do is go to the Droid Market, to download your Google+ app for Free.

How To Use Google Plus for Business/Marketing:

10 Things CMOs Need to Know About Google+ Chris Brogan compares Google+ to the launch of Facebook and the leap people made from Myspace to Facebook.  Giving reasons such as Google is the King of Search so they will probably have their social network affect search, they are starting up business pages, it’s connections with gmail and other Google tools you already use and it’s fast growth in it’s first two weeks of it’s launch he thinks it’s the next BIG thing!

3 Ways to Use Google Plus in Your Content Marketing Efforts A lot of great tips here on Google Plus for content marketing as well as  a great list of related articles about Google Plus, such as “Can Google+ Rival Facebook and Twitter? Some Initial Thoughts” and “Top 6 Articles On Google Plus to help you Get the Most Out of Your Experience.”

Google + Now Part of Google Analytics: You can now track your social interaction as well on your Google Analytics by adding a bit of code to your sites.  Currently this tracks Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.  There isn’t a code yet to track LinkedIn interactions.

More On Google +:

5 Ways Journalists are Using Google Plus
5 Chrome Extensions that Improve Google+
What Your Business Needs To Know About Google+
How does the Google +1 Button Affect Search

The more I research, explore, play and use Google + the more I like it.  It’s incredibly connected, dynamic and the uses are endless. For example…

It recognizes when I take a picture with my Android, and then without me uploading or doing anything it is already in my photos on Google Plus asking me if I want to share it.

My new Tag line: Google Plus… It’s So Smart, It’s Spooky!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Maine SEO

 

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Posted in Analytics, Google, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines, Social Media | 5 Comments »


Free Online Graders: My Top 5 Favorite Online Graders

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Although Online graders, especially free ones are not completely accurate, they are still worth a peek. It can give you some good ideas on how to improve your sites and where you stand at present. So, without further ado here they are…

1. Facebook EdgeRank Checker: This one is probably my favorite so far just because it’s so new.  In my post, “Facebook EdgeRank: What Is It and Why Should you Care?”, I talk a little bit about what EdgeRank is and how the formula works.  This free online grader allows you to quickly check your page’s rank and gives you tips on how you can improve it.  Make sure to check often as recency is part of the formula, so your EdgeRank can change as your posts age.

2.Hubspot Website Grader According to Hubspot their “algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.”  The Flyte New Media website got a 97!

The website grader bases it’s formula on many different factors including whether or not your site has a blog, indexed web pages, SEO, MozRank, linking domains, Social Media Links, traffic and more.  Check it out for your score today!

3. Hubspot Blog Grader Hubspot Blog Grader gave The Maine SEO blog a score of 92! Which means we ranked ranked 54,207 out of the approximately 757,812 other blogs that they’ve graded.  Not bad.  The blog grader bases it’s grade off of many different factors, it looks at RSS subscriptions, email subscriptions, twitter  and Facebook links.  It also analyzes your blog posts focusing on frequency of posts, average post length, average number of links and images in posts, how many comments you received, tweets and retweets, Facebook likes and sharing abilities. Although it may not be 100% accurate it does give you a great idea of what you can do to make your blog more SEO and user friendly.

4. PageRank Checker Your page rank is a numeric value that Google associates with your page based on links to your page.  Every link in Google’s mind is a vote for your page and the more votes the more important or your web page is considered, therefore giving you a high ranking.  Also, the rank of or importance of the site that is referring you plays a role in how much weight that vote has.  This is important because Page Rank is one of the factors used to determine where you will rank is search results. This Page Rank checker allows you to find out where you stand simply by entering your URL.

5. Online Video Grader The Pixability Online Video Grader measures how you use video on your website, how you rank on Google and other video search engines, and how effective your YouTube channel is.

And, Twitter Grader is kinda fun, although not in my top 5.  What Twitter Grader is trying to measure is the power, reach and authority of a twitter account.  In other words, when you tweet, what kind of an impact does it have? It’s not in my top simply because it doesn’t really give you a great idea of what to do to improve, however it gives you a score and some tips, I just don’t feel they have much of an impact.

My advice would be to not get too hung up on different numbers and grades that you receive.  As I said before these graders are by no means 100% accurate but they are a fun tool to get an idea of some ways you can improve.  If you have any different graders that you use and would like to share let us know in the comments section. :)

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Maine SEO

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Posted in Analytics, SEO Tools | 1 Comment »


How to Decrease Your Bounce Rate in Google Analytics

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

A while back, I wrote about what a good bounce rate in Google Analytics was. What it boils down to is that there is no good bounce rate, because every website or webpage is going to have a different goal. Some sites/pages will have a higher bounce rate because they are more informational; while others are going to have a low bounce rate because they are just one page of many that users want to read through.

Maybe you want a high bounce rate

A high bounce rate is only a problem when people leave your website without doing what you want them to do. Depending on the webpage, it might lend itself to having a high bounce rate. For example:

  • Blogposts tend to have high bounce rates because they are so targeted and answer a singular question the searcher has.
  • Landing pages (from a paid campaign or other type of landing page) force users to make a simple choice: convert (sign up, buy, call, contact, etc.) or leave the page.
  • Well optimized pages that give searchers all the information they need.

So the first question is: is it a certain page that has a high bounce rate (if yes, see above)? Or, is it your entire website?

Maybe you want your bounce rate a little lower…

If visitors simply aren’t converting on your website (and a high bounce rate is to blame), there are a few things you can try.

  • Optimize. Whether it’s a landing page or just a regular page on your website, users may have found your website and been led to believe it was something it wasn’t. It simply wasn’t well optimized. Perhaps it’s time to go back to your keyword analysis and reevaluate what you’re optimizing for.
  • Create more pages. It might be that your page is optimized for too many terms. In this instance, users may or may not find what they need because the page has too much information on it. If this is the case, it’s time to create more targeted pages that are optimized for more specific keywords.
  • Don’t forget your call to action. Did you forget to keep it simple, stupid? Make it easy for your users to take the next step and contact you, buy now, or sign up.

So you see, it’s not always about making your bounce rate lower, sometimes you want it to be higher!

Nicki Hicks
Florida SEO

Posted in Analytics | 1 Comment »


How to Measure Success: Step 3 of 4 on Getting the Most SEO Bang for Your Buck

Monday, March 21st, 2011

This is part three in a four part series on the 4 Steps to Getting the Most SEO Bang for your Buck.

Now that you’ve optimized your web presence, it’s time to start measuring. It won’t do much to research and optimize, if you don’t measure your results!

Search Engine Rankings

It’s critical to measure rankings to make sure you’re doing well on the search for the keywords you’ve optimized your website and/or blog for. However, it’s pointless to measure your rankings if you don’t know if people are actually coming to your website using those keywords. Sure, you may rank well for certain keywords – like your brand name – but if no one is using those keywords to find you, then ranking #1 is useless!

I recommend using a tool like Raven Tools to measure rankings. Unfortunately, it is a paid service, but there are a ton of other great features beyond getting rankings.

Google Analytics

To make sure visitors are coming to your website using the keywords you’ve optimized for, use a tool like Google Analytics. Using the search engine and keyword reports, you can quickly see what keywords visitors use when they come to your website. Don’t see the ones you want to be seeing? Go back and try to optimize for them again.

Google Webmaster Tools

Installing Google Webmaster Tools is one more way to be proactive about your website. Sure, you’ll get some statistics including crawl rates, incoming links, and even keywords; but what’s really helpful are the error messages. Before you find out from a customer or visitor that you have broken links on your website, you can find out from Webmaster Tools first.

Incoming Links

Even though search engines are a bit secretive, you can find out how many incoming links from a number of sources, including:

  • Google Webmaster Tools – I mentioned it already, and you’ll see some of the most powerful incoming links to your site. The number of incoming links, however, is lower than the actual number of links.
  • Yahoo Site Explorer – Slightly more accurate, but destined to disintegrate (thanks to the Bing/Yahoo merger), this is another great (free!) tool.
  • Open Site Explorer – A paid tool from SEOmoz. OSE is by far the most accurate tool I’ve seen and a great resource for a competitive link analysis too!

There are a ton of other measurement tools out there, but these are the major ones. Next time, we’ll talk about the final step in getting the most SEO bang for your buck: repeat.

Photo credit: aussiegall

Nicki Hicks
Measure, measure, measure!

Posted in Analytics, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments »


High Bounce Rates and Blogs

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Bounce Rates at Blogs

Rich,

I’ve noticed that I have a very high bounce rate on my blog. What would cause such a high bounce rate and how can I lower it?

Bouncing in Bethel

Dear Bouncing,

First off, for those readers who aren’t familiar with the term “bounce rate,” it’s a metric in Google Analytics for measuring the percentage of people who visit only one page on your site or blog before exiting.

I feel blogs will always have higher bounce rates than websites, as very often people are just visiting to read your most recent post. Even if they subscribe to your blog via RSS or email at that point, it will still probably count as a bounce since many subscription methods will take them off site or process their request without requiring them to visit another page.

If you are monetizing your blog with ads or affiliate links, then a high bounce rate may reflect that people are clicking on those affiliate and ad links, which is good news for your bottom line.

If you have a lead generation blog (like the flyteblog), where you’re using your blog to increase your search engine visibility and funnel that traffic to your website, e-commerce site or other online property, then a high bounce rate may be demonstrating that your tactics are effective!

In short, I wouldn’t use bounce rate as a leading indicator of how effective your blog is; visits, repeat visitors, subscribers, search volume and other metrics are going to be much more important to your business overall.

If you are still concerned about your bounce rate, you’ll need to find ways of leading visitors from one post to another. One tool that could help is the Yet Another Related Post Plugin (for WordPress.) It will find 5 related posts from your blog and create links to each one…that can help both your search engine visibility as well as your audience, as they will discover other quality content that relates to the post they’re currently reading.

Rich Brooks
Business Blogger

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Posted in Analytics, Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Analytics for Social Media (from SMX East)

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The following is a recap from a session at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East. Follow the conference and this session on Twitter.

Social Media Analytics with Jack Bauer

Preparation is key. Start with a social media checklist.

Part 1: Discovery

Identify your business objectives

  • Increase brand awareness
  • Increase brand trust
  • Increase interaction with customers
  • Increase brand loyalty
  • Sell more [your service/product]
  • Better understanding of user behavoir

What characteristics do you want associated with your brand?

  • Great customer service
  • Convenience
  • Low prices
  • Refreshing

How much time and resources are you willing to invest?

A few stats

  • 67% of Twitter users who follow a brand, are more like to buy that brand’s products
  • 60% of Facebook users who like a brand are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend
  • 74% of consumers are influence on buying decisions by fellow socializers

Part 2: Understanding your Audience

Listening – your parents were onto something

  • How are your customers using social media
  • Where are they participating?
  • Are they currently interacting with companies via social media?
  • What are they already saying about you?
  • What is their activity level on each social network?

Part 3: Defining KPIs

  • Define KPIs specific to each business objective
  • Cool social media marketing analytics
  • Use KPIs to measure, like:
    • Share of voice – Brand mentions/total mentions
    • Audience engagement – Comments + Shares + Trackbacks/Total Views
    • Conversation reach – Total people participating/Total audience views

Examples of Actionable KPIs

  • Number of people in a specific location who follow us on Twitter
  • Reduction in support costs
  • Number of product improvement suggestions from Facebook fans
  • Increase in product reviews & ratings
  • Reduction in sales cycles

Other KPIs to consider

  • Volume of consumer-created buzz
  • Seasonality of buzz
  • Rate of virality
  • Embeds/installs
  • Increases in searches
  • Rankings improvemnts
  • Demographics
  • Interaction/engagement rates
  • Number of interactions
  • Store locator views
  • Registrations by channel

KPI Evolution

  • The key to successful social media measurement is asking questions

Part 4: Tools for Insight

  • Scout Labs
  • Radian 6

Configuration Tips

Setup separate searches for:

  • Brand mentions
  • Product mentions
  • Events
  • Promotions
  • Competitors
  • Product launches

Taylor Pratt, Raven Internet Marketing Tools

Social Media Metrics

Content-oriented social media

Consumption = branding and organic social media presence

Benefits

  • Traffic
    • Unique visits/page visits
    • CPM revenue
  • Visibility
    • Branding/buzz
    • Links
      • Long tail traffic
      • Search rankings (leads/sales)
  • Stickiness
    • Newsletter/RSS subscribers
    • Return visitors

Quantitative Metrics (KPIs)

  • Engagement
    • Comments (Not including spam, but do include negative comments)
    • Social votes/bookmarks
  • Consumption – traffic count
  • Micro-conversions
    • Subscribers
    • Fans/followers
  • Virality
    • Social shares/mentions
    • Links

Granular Metrics: Links

  • Volume of links for a number of pieces of content
  • Amount of links based on number of visits
  • Shift in link count over time
  • Competitive link growth
  • Links by category/topic
  • Links by social channel

Micro-conversions/Engagement

  • Bookmarks
  • Downloads
  • Favorites
  • Feedback
  • Forward to a friend
  • Groups
  • Install widget
  • Invite/refer
  • Uploads
  • Wishlists

URL shorteners

  • bit.ly
  • Google URL shortener (Goo.gl)

Comment engagement

  • Bring social comments into your blog with Disqus
  • Conversion rate = # visitor comments/# pieces of content
  • Compare to regular content vs. promoted content

Google Analytics

Google URL Builder

  • Create trackable link (Google URL builder)
    • Campaign name
    • Promotion start date
    • Delivery method
    • Medium
    • Format
  • Shorten your trackable link
  • Add your shortened trackable link
  • Track your URL in Google Analytics

Advanced Segments

  • Segment social visits from regular visits through Advanced Segments
  • Tie Advanced Segments to Goals

Other GA social analytics sources

  • Content > Content by title > Entrance Source
  • Click Map (content overlay)
  • Infographic tracking through GA
  • Google Social Analytics - GreaseMonkey for Firefox/Chrome
  • Google Analytics for Facebook pages – FBML markup

Social Sharing Measurement

Data Use

  • Start with a baseline measurement
  • Then do monthly audits

Takeaways

  • Social media metrics vary with strategies, goals, sites, etc.
  • Track anything possible for insight
  • Social media is not just about numbers
  • Measuring social media does not = ROI for social media

Jordan Kasteler, BlueGlass Interactive Inc.

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Posted in Analytics, Expert Advice, Social Media, Training, Conferences, Webinars | 2 Comments »


Credit Where Credit is Due: Demystifying Attribution (from SMX East)

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The following is a recap from a session at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East. Follow the conference and session on Twitter.

Cross Channel Attribution

  • Unified Tracking: track interaction of the user with all media channels at one place.
  • Attribute and Analyze
    • Model how different factors contribute to conversion
    • Model how factors interact with each other
  • Optimize: Allocate media spend based on cross-channel models

Unified Tracking

  • On average, there are 4-6 touchpoints across before conversion
  • Conversion Data (over 10,000) for several clients
  • Identify key variables influencing conversions
  • The more time it takes to convert, the less likely a conversion will take place.
  • Relative importance of conversions
    • 70% time to convert
    • 20% first touch source
    • 7% search engine
    • 3% brand term

What is the chief limitation of revenue attribution?

Conclusions

  • First prerequisite: unified tracking program
  • Attribution is a partial solution
  • Attribution + Algorithmic Optimization is the solution for answering the media mix question

Siddharth Shah, Efficient Frontier

Improving ROI through Web Analytics

Success means different things to different people.

Test A/B pages with bounce rate, but be sure to check conversion rates down the funnel!

3 Tips for Better Attribution

  1. Look at the whole picture
  2. Use a fair measure of success
  3. Know your limits

1. Look at the whole picture

  • Window shopping
  • Entering the store
  • Asking questions
  • Trying it on
  • Buying it

Look at the whole sales cycle

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Consideration
  • Purchase
  • Retention

Solution: create a weighted metric

Assigning value to behaviors for “assists”

Which is more valuable?

  • Identify online behaviors that correlate with conversion
  • Analyze trends to assign to corresponding value
    • Regression Analysis – built into MS Excel
  • Optimize to align with weighted metric

When to use weighted metrics

  • Long sales cycles
  • Multiple “successes”
  • Offline sales
  • Efficient campaigns

2. Use a fair measure of success

The problem with “last click”

Tools that are starting to get the message

  • Omniture Markeitng Channels
  • Google Search Trends
  • Google Analytics “first click” hack
  • Interim solution: combine first + last click

3. Know your limits

  • Correlation does not imply causation
  • No crystal ball
  • Review regularly

Always be testing!

David Sprinkle, ROI Labs

Demystifying Attribution: Two myths

Myth 1: We need to be perfect in order to do it

You don’t need to have a PhD in Math to get attribution right

The perfect is the enemy of the good. -Voltaire

Evolution of Attribution Management

  • Last click
  • Even
  • Exclusions
  • Rules based
  • Algorithmic

Myth 2: Isn’t attribution just about moving money around?

Just because you have the same amount of money at the end of the month doesn’t mean you should attribute where it comes from so that next month you can optimize accordingly.

Adam Goldberg, ClearSaleing

Demystifying Attribution

Deep down:

  • Consumers are constatntly moving around the purchase path
  • Multiple touchpoints could all lead to a conversion

Early on looking at attribution:

  • Lots of data, no clear takeaways
  • Data would only show certain channels based on system redirects
  • Or to get the whole picture, you were looking at a hefty price tag

First steps toward attribution:

  • Attribution through an ad serving platform
  • Able to track 2 channels and 10 touch points
  • Found a 15% overlap in revenue attributed
  • Proved the need for a deeper level of understanding

What they needed to make some impact:

  • A solution built to track all digital activities
  • Easy to implement with strong customer support
  • Flexible in its attribution models and accommodated multiple views
  • Ability to report back at an actual profit level

In action: affiliate valuation

  • Ensure affiliates aren’t over inflating credit
  • On last click model, affiliate was converting over 10%
  • Affiliate was only ‘introducing’ the transaction 2% of the time
  • Action: renegotiate pricing structure

In action: network valuation

  • Better evaluate individual network performance (consumer path and strength of performance)
  • Layer in segmentation (acquisition, LTV)
  • Use data to make more targeted and efficient buys

Mixed Media Modeling

  • Weight the incrementality of channel buys
  • Assign credit in a conversion path against these findings
  • Allows for real time ‘exclusion’ set
  • Leads to more accurate judgement on each individual channel’s impact

Danielle Smith, Range Online Media

More coverage of this session

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Actionable Metrics and Diagnostics (from SMX East)

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The following is a recap from a session at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East. Follow the conference and session on Twitter.

Optimize the Google Store: SEO in 15 minutes

Steps

  1. Sign up for Webmaster Tools email forwarding
  2. Utilize search queries
  3. Focus on one item

1. Webmaster Tools email forwarding: Receive site alerts from Google straight to your inbox

  • Malware notification
  • Alerts in crawl errors

2. Make the most of search queries

  • Highlight/star the terms for which you want to rank
  • Deprioritize queries that are unlikely to help your conversions

Focus on starred search queries within Webmaster Tools

Improve your query in search results:

  • Check for appealing titles and snippets (descriptive and matches user’s intent)
  • Learn tips from the other results

Sell like hot cakes!

3. Target your content to match your audience (Keywords)

  • Write content that matches your query terms
  • Webmaster Tools provides an overview of keywords

Check for duplicates in results

  • May be possible to consolidate PageRank between duplicate/near duplicate pages
  • Pages displayed should be diverse in content

Reduce duplicate content

  • Check search queries
  • Review HTML suggestions
  • Select canonical
  • Use 301 permanent redirects where possible
  • Implement rel=”canonical”
  • Utilize URL parameter handling

Improve crawl efficiency

  • Recommend behavior to Googlebot through URL parameter handling
  • Check for 404s
  • Fix broken links: crawl error sources – bring users and linking properties to the right URLs
  • Prioritize your content – internal links
  • Help users and engines quickly find your important pages
  • Verify you’re linking as expected
  • Make text/links accessible
  • Fetch as Googlebot
    • Links and text should be clearly visible
    • URL rewriting/redirect issues uncovered
  • JS loaded text common issues with video, even Video Sitemaps

User happiness: site performance

The recap

  • Email forwarding
  • Search queries
  • Keywords to content
  • Reduce duplicated in crawling and indexing
  • Crawl errors to fix broken links
  • Prioritize content: internal links
  • Verify crawler access: Fetch as Googlebot
  • Site performance review in Google Webmaster Tools

Maile Ohye, Google

18 Metrics to Answer Questions

1. How much SEO do I really have?

Filter out branded traffic

2. Is my site what I think it is about?

Google Webmaster Tools –> keywords (Does Google think my site is about what I do?)

3. Is my site authoritative?

  • SEOmoz authority rank (part 1)
  • How many indexed pages does Google have for you? (part 2)

4. How does my site’s authority stack up against competition’s

  • How many domains link to your’s vs. your competitor’s
  • How many links to your’s vs. your competitor’s
  • (Data warning: link data is inconsistent)

5. Am I a good linkbuilder?

How many links do you have to your homepage? (Google Webmaster Tools links to site à links to homepage only)

6. Was that a valuable link? (A valuable link is one that gives you traffic)

Google Analytics – traffic from links

7. Have I lost some links?

Google Webmaster Tools – check 404 errors for pages that are losing links

8. How spammy is my link profile?

SEOmoz report (Domain mozTrust vs. mozRank – should be very similar)

9. Should I give up on this keyword?

SEOmoz report (backlinking report)

10.  Do I nail the long tail?

  • Look at the number of keywords bringing traffic to your site (Google Analytics)
  • Look at number of landing pages (Google Analytics)
  • How many pages does Google have indexed in my site (site: command)

11.  Is my site a bunch of useless templates?

Crawl vs. Index ratio (just because it’s crawled, doesn’t mean it’s indexed)

12.  Does my site look fat in these jeans?

  • Site performance (Google Webmaster Tools spped)
  • Site speed (YSlow)

13.  Will prospective partners take my call?

Business often starts with PR review

14.  Does my site lack fresh content?

Review site logs to see what your most-crawled pages are

Conrad Saam, Avvo

More Metrics and Diagnostics

Check server log to see how often GoogleBot:

  • Number of pages crawled
  • Canonicalization
  • 302s

Better than rankings reports (combo of Analytics and Webmaster Tools)

  • Query clusters
  • Traffic
  • Search behavior
  • Google impressions and clicks

Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land

Go from Interested to Informed

Social media metrics that count

  • Hit the right target
  • Social metrics for social intelligence
  • Online metrics: bridging the gap
  • Additional resources

Hit the right target

Goals ensure that metrics are aimed at the right targets

Answer these 4 questions before you track social media

  1. What business questions are we trying to have answered?
  2. What are we planning/willing to do with the findings?
  3. What are our short-term goals for our social media program?
  4. What are our long-term goals for our social media program?

Social media goals

  • Increase brand awareness
  • Decrease customer attrition
  • Uncover valuable market insights and trends

Social metrics for social intelligence

  • Brand awareness metrics:
    • Volumes of conversation around your brand
    • Volumes of conversation around your competitors
    • Affinity groups and influencers
    • Sites where your brand conversation happens
  • Audience sentiment metrics:
    • Audience sentiment around your brand
    • Audience sentiment around your compeititor’s brand
    • Audience affinity groups and influencers
  • Corporate engagement
  • Outcomes and findings:
    • Causes in shifts and spikes in volume
    • Causes in shifts and spikes in sentiment
    • Insights and ongoing metrics that track back to your original goal

Vicki Blair, Visible Technologies

More coverage of this session

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4 Google Analytics Reports to See If Your Blogpost (or Web page) is Getting the “Right” Traffic

Monday, September 13th, 2010

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post called What is a Good Bounce Rate in Google Analytics? As it turns out, it ended up being one of the most visited posts on the blog.

The amount of traffic I get from this post got me to thinking:

  • Do you always get the kind of traffic you’re hoping for from blogposts?
  • If so, how would you find out?
  • If not, is it possible to backtrack and try again?

The truth of the matter is a lot of us write blogposts with SEO in mind. [Hopefully those posts naturally balance content with keywords...but that's a topic for another time.] But how many of us double check that the content we created is doing well for those keywords after the fact? Here’s how you can use Google Analytics to do just that.

Content Detail

Let’s start off simple. How much traffic is the page in question getting? Is it still getting traffic after being published or has it gone stale after 6 months or a year?

How about traffic stats – how many unique visitors? How much time do they spend on the page? What’s the bounce rate like – do visitors bounce after reading the post?

The takeaway

  • If traffic fell off over time, maybe it’s time to repost the content somewhere. Try giving it a major overhaul and submitting it to an article marketing site or guest blogging it.
  • If you’re still getting traffic but time on page seems a little low, try reorganizing the post. Do you split the content up with headers, bullets, etc.? Or try rewriting the copy to keep the reader hooked until the end of the post.
  • If your bounce rate is higher than you’d like (which is typical for blogposts), do you have a call to action to entice the reader to stay on the site?

Navigation Summary

We’ll look next at entrance sources outside of your website, but which pages did visitors come from on your site or blog?

The takeaway

If the goal is to decrease bounce rate, think about the linking strategy you use from other pages.

Entrance Sources

How are visitors getting to your page or post? Is it direct, search engine, or referral traffic? The Entrance Sources report will show a mixture of all three sources.

The takeaway

  • Didn’t get as much bang for your buck out of Twitter or Facebook? Try reposting it and see if you can get some more ReTweets and comments.
  • Looking for more links? Try guest blogging on a similar topic and link to the page or post.
  • Not satisfied with Google visits? Read on and we’ll talk keywords…

Entrance Keywords

Probably the most important report you can run, find out what keywords visitors used at the search engines to get to your post/page.

The takeaway

  • If you’re not doing as well as you thought you would for the keywords you targeted, try spicing up the title. It may not be that you’re ranking poorly, simply that your blopost doesn’t stand out from the rest of results on Google.
  • A title tweak not doing the trick? Make sure you’re tracking your rankings for your top key phrases for the page (using a program like Raven Tools) and tweak the content (naturally) until you’ve got the desired rankings. Rinse and Repeat.

Nicki Hicks
Check and double check

Posted in Analytics, Blogging, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments »


Social Media & Web Marketing Courses in Maine

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Although the leaves aren’t changing yet, they will be soon (sniff!) and that means that classes are getting back in session.

This year I’ll be teaching not one but two classes at the University of Southern Maine:

Web Marketing for Small Business
In this 4 week course you’ll learn how to build an effective web presence for your small business or non-profit. You’ll learn about search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, blogging, social media, e-commerce, traffic reports, and how to build a web site that generates leads and makes sales. (Please be aware, though: this is NOT an HTML course. You’re not learning how to build a web site, but rather how to make a web site that will build your business.)

4 Thursdays, September 30-October 28, 7-9 p.m.
$215 (8 contact hours/ 0.8 CEUs)
Abromson Center, 88 Bedford Street, USM Portland campus

I’m also teaching a brand new course this fall as well:

Social Media Marketing for Businesses (and the People That Run Them)
Sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are certainly popular, but should they be important parts of your marketing strategy? In this two-class course, you’ll learn how these and other popular social media sites can increase the online visibility of your business, and put you in contact with new audiences.

You’ll learn how to setup and optimize profiles on the most popular, influential sites, how to connect with people in the social media sphere, and how to measure your success. You’ll learn the do’s and don’ts of social media, how to build an audience, and how to listen to what people are saying about you and your business.

We’ll talk about social networking, blogging, online video and all the tools your company needs to master this new arena of marketing.

2 Wednesdays, November 10 and 17, 7-9 p.m.
$115 (4 contact hours/ 0.4 CEUs)
USM Library Computer Lab

Hope to see you there!

Rich Brooks
You Can Call Me “Teach”

Photo credit: Lee Nachtigal

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Posted in Analytics, Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 6 Comments »

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