In the previous article, 'Continual Conversion Rate Improvement Part I', I talked about how optimizing a website's conversion rate can have a huge impact on the bottom line. Improving your conversion rate is an on-going process, not a quick fix. Every little thing matters, and so it pays to pay attention to the details. Discount Tire found out just how true this is.

This quote is from the case study "How Discount Tire boost sales with Google Analytics" on Internet Retailer:

Discount Tire used Google Analytics to determine, for example, the most effective language to use in its checkout process. By replacing the note on its checkout button from "Purchase and make a reservation" to "Check out and make a reservation," it led to a 14% increase in sales in a single week, says e-business supervisor Mike Bolland.

Continue reading "Continual Conversion Rate Improvement Part II" »

As you may know, conversion rate is the percentage of people who complete a certain action on your site like making a purchase or submitting a form. The conversion rate is one of the ways to accurately measure just how well your site is performing its job.

Improving conversion rate has a huge impact: raising the conversion rate from 1% to 2% would represent a 100% increase in goal completion. For an e-commerce site, that would mean double the revenue! When you increase your conversion rate, you get more sales from your existing traffic which saves on marketing expenses, customer acquisition cost goes down, and the customer retention rate goes up.

Continue reading "Continual Conversion Rate Improvement Part One" »

Matthew D. Sarrel, a consultant and former PC Magazine Labs technical director, wrote a nice overview of website analytics, published today on the ABC News website and had a bit to say about Google Analytics.

First his thesis:

By understanding a few simple metrics, you'll learn a lot about how your site is structured, how it functions, and the products and information that you offer. It's important to know whether your Web site is boosting your bottom line by bringing in new customers and visitors and retaining loyal ones.

Now the bit about Google Analytics:

Who should you choose to provide the right solution? One basic tool is Google Analytics. Free for AdWords customers, Google Analytics provides basic Web analytics. Ideal for pay-per-click advertisers, it provides excellent keyword reporting and AdWords return-on-investment reports, which advertisers can then use to tweak their ad campaigns. The service also includes executive summaries for traffic, e-commerce and conversion trends, and powerful trend-reporting features to help you understand how site traffic varies over time.

Continue reading "PC Mag article on "your site stats"" »

We had the opportunity to interview Alden DeSoto, Editor of the Google Analytics Conversion University and the Voice of Urchin (so named because Alden was the
narrator of the Urchin tour on urchin.com), and asked him some questions about the move to Mountain View, the mission of Conversion University, and the importance of web analytics to sites large and small.

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ROI Revolution: It's been just over a year since the Urchin team moved from the former home of Urchin in San Diego, CA (due to Google's purchase of Urchin Software) to Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA. What's it been like over the last 12 months?

Alden DeSoto: Hard work, but fun and incredibly stimulating. I feel like we get to do really big things here. Like rolling out Google Analytics to everyone who wants it, and for free. We're helping so many businesses this way and I love meeting customers and hearing about their successes. And, Google itself is an amazing place. There are a lot of brilliant and really passionate people around here. It's one of these places where you'll sit down to lunch at a table with someone you don't know and end up having a fascinating conversation. And, we get authors and speakers doing presentations at Google all the time. Some of these people are my personal heroes--Jimmy Carter and last week, Al Gore. So, I'd say I get continually re-inspired here at Google. It's hard to imagine being anyplace else.

ROI: What's your background, Alden, and how has your role changed since the Urchin buyout by Google?

AD: My background is in communications. Before Urchin (I joined Urchin in October of 2003), I was a writer at Sun Microsystems and Siebel Systems, here in Silicon Valley. I also spent a year in Guatemala working for an NGO, developing and teaching a computer literacy curriculum for Guatemalan high school students. I basically like to use my writing ability to help people.

At Urchin, my job was copywriter-technical writer-corporate communications all rolled into one. But, my mission was to help people understand how they could use Urchin to be more successful online. And, as editor of Conversion University, that is still basically my mission here at Google. The more information that is out there on how to actually use Google Analytics to market more effectively, to build a better site, to create more compelling content, the better businesses are going to do. And, the more useful the web will be to your average person or consumer. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the day that when I click on a search result, I can always expect to land on a landing page that shows me what I'm looking for, without having to hunt around. It's frustrating for me (and it makes me sad for the business), when I end up leaving a poorly designed site because I can't find what I'm looking for. So, I guess I'm trying to help create a better experience for myself and everyone else!

Continue reading "Interview with Google Analytics' Alden DeSoto" »

Some exciting news from the developers about some great feature additions to Google Analytics. Here's the official announcement at the Help Center, and here's a quick overview of what has been added:

• Localized time zone: Now you don't have to convert your data from Pacific Standard Time.
• Rename Your Accounts: If "UA-12345" isn't descriptive enough, now you can change it to whatever you want.
• Language Preference Support: Change your UI language setting with the new My Account link at the top of each Google Analytics page.

The best part of the announcement, though:

"We're adding support for more users and sending new invites all the time."

There has been such a huge demand for this free tool that, as Timothy posted last week, Google Analytics invitation codes have started showing up on eBay. With increased capacity for new accounts, this might mean that new sign-ups won't have to wait quite as long as before to get a peek into their website's performance, and they might not have to resort to bidding wars. So, if (for whatever reason) you've been waiting to sign up, now's the time.

All the above changes are being rolled out to all Google Analytics users and should be available in their accounts currently, or within the next few days.

What do you think about the new features? How are you planning on using them in your current Google Analytics setup? Any feature requests that didn't make it into this round of updates? We'd love to hear what you have to say.

Back in mid-January I predicted that Google Analytics invitation codes would eventually make it to that great American bastion of electronic free enterprise (i.e. eBay.com). I have to admit that it took a little while longer than I thought to finally reach a critical mass (today's count 27) of invitation codes online, for sale to the highest bidder.

Anyway, if you're still waiting for your Google Analytics invitation code wait no longer! Bid or buy it now on eBay.

For clarity, the listings on eBay for invitation codes are from individuals not associated with ROI Revolution or Google Analytics in any way.

OK, now that you've got your 'golden ticket' what are you going to do with it?

How about taking exactly 60 minutes and learning the 10 steps to setting up your Google Analytics installation right the first time? Join Meredith Smith (conversion specialist) and me live for a fast-paced, free and fun Google Analytics training interactive web-enabled teleseminar where we peel back the curtains and reveal the secrets to unlocking the *power* of Google Analytics on your website or blog.

Here's what we'll cover:

Continue reading "Google Analytics Invitation Codes on eBay" »

With log-based web analytics utilities like Urchin Software, tracking downloaded files is easy. Your web logs register a hit whenever someone grabs a pdf or views a movie.

With a script-based package like Google Analytics, it's not possible to call the Javascript from pdfs, wmvs, avis, etc. So how can you tell when someone has taken the time to watch that video it took you days to create, or read your pdf whitepaper outlining the benefits your business offers over its competition?

Continue reading "Tracking Downloads with Google Analytics" »