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The ROI Revolution Blog

« April 2006 | May 2006 | June 2006 »

Measuring the Success of Your SEO Campaigns

May 27, 2006

Very interesting article by Jill Whalen, owner of High Rankings on swearing off a single-minded focus on er, um *rankings* and measuring your true SEO success through web analytics

The rankings queen now says that rankings are not worth the SERP's (define) they're painted on:

It's time you learn that ranking reports are not your friend. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that they are closer to being meaningless drivel to everyone other than your boss's over-inflated ego.

Well, what gives? What's the new numero uno? According to Jill:

There's a new kid on the block and she's just as much fun to play with as ranking reports. In fact, she's a whole lot more fun, and not only that, she pays for herself over and over again. Her name is web analytics and she's going to be your new best friend!

Here's what Jill had to say about Google Analytics:

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Getting the Full Value of Google Analytics: The Importance of Monetizing Your Goals

May 23, 2006

Google Analytics is so customizable it can sometimes be challenging to decide exactly what the best route to take for your situation would be. When you set up Google Analytics, the call on whether or not to monetize your goals can be one that is particularly baffling, but it doesn't have to be.

I'll spell it out: if you don't have a straight-up e-commerce site, monetize your goals. You'll be glad you did!

If you DO have e-commerce enabled, then there are a total of 81 reports available in Google Analytics, and 43 of those reports contain financial information. So 53% of the total number of reports offered use financial data to convey complete sets of data. Plus, this is data you really want - - what the return on investment is on a certain campaign or your revenue from that transaction, etc.

Ok, so far everybody out there is nodding their heads saying, "Yeah, that's common sense for an e-commerce site! Tell me something I don't know".

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Say Goodbye to Expensive Analytics

May 19, 2006

Intuit's Avinash Kaushik started blogging earlier this week. The blog is called Occam's Razor after William of Ockham's famous principle: "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity."

Kaushik's blog has already proven to be a keenly written and enlightening read. In his latest post, Kaushik offers a few suggestions to those spending a boatload on web analytics:

1. Apply for a free Google Analytics account at GA Sign Up Page
2. Once you get the code implement Google Analytics on your website in parallel with your favorite expensive analytics tool
3. Get a comfort level for delta between the two sets of key numbers (you know visitors, conversions, page views etc etc) and create a multiplier (my tool shows visitors 10% higher and page views 10% lower than Google). You will use this multiplier in future to compare year over year trends if you want to.
4. Cancel the contract with your favorite expensive analytics vendor and take that $50k or $100k or $200k and: 1) Hire a smart analyst for between $50k to whatever maybe your areas great salary 2) Put the rest of the money in your pocket.

Makes a lot of sense when put that way, doesn't it? You can save a lot of money, just by switching to a free utility like Google Analytics. As Kaushik says, "Your smart analyst will be able to extract just as much value from GA than your old tool, in fact my prediction is that it will be a lot more."

So, basically, don't multiple your entities--in this case, your web analytics spend--beyond necessity. Turns out William of Ockham knew a thing or two about web analytics.

Hat tip to Andy Beal

Lee Odden Interviews Eric T. Peterson

May 17, 2006

Over at the Online Marketing Blog, Lee Odden has posted an interview with Web Analytics Demystified author Eric T. Peterson. As Odden writes:

"When you think of authorities on web analytics, one person that should be on your list is Eric T. Peterson."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Anyway, great questions from Odden, and, as usual, Peterson's clear, well-informed answers about the field make for enlightening reading.

Read the interview.

Google Analytics Early Adopter Andy Beal Earns "40 Under 40" leadership Award

May 16, 2006

The Triangle Business Journal announced the winners of its 40 Under 40 Leadership Awards in its May 12 issue. Not surprising in the least was inclusion of Andy Beal, President and CEO of Fortune Interactive and Google Analytics early adopter.

Unfortunately, the Triangle Business Journal does not post certain 'list' articles online, so I can't link out the article (although they did publish a press release of the award winners ). Needless to say, it's a great profile on a very down-to-earth guy.

Andy talks a bit about his now-famous admiration of Sir Richard Branson, his leadership style ("I try to empower people to make decisions."), and his goals for the company ("...change the way search engine marketing is provided as a service to client.").

I am particularly impressed with Andy's commitment to customer service (when asked "what is your hot button?"). He's quoted in the article as saying:

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Customize Your Google Analytics Dashboard

May 12, 2006

With over 80 comprehensive reports right out of the box, Google Analytics can get a little overwhelming for the average user. Since there is data within each Google Analytics account that can benefit each and every department of the typical organization, though, it's important that everyone have quick and easy access to the information that they need most.

That's why there are three handy predefined Dashboards available in every profile: Executive, Marketer, and Webmaster. Each provides a hand-picked selection of the most applicable Google Analytics reports for any given job. The Executive Dashboard gives fast, top-view analysis of a website's performance. Marketer Dashboard focuses on the various advertising and media campaigns driving to the traffic. The Webmaster Dashboard is a great resource for the creative department, giving them a snapshot of design-centric visitors metrics: screen resolution, browser version, operating system, etc. Each of these Dashboards gives quick and clear answers to the questions that every member of your organization has about your website, all in an attractive, easy-to-read format.

Now, for the great news for Google Analytics users: you can now customize the Default Dashboard of a specific Google Analytics user, giving them immediate access to the information they need to do their job. Here are the details:

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Google Analytics Outlined in New Chapter of O'Reilly Book

May 7, 2006

John Bambenek, an academic professional for the University of Illinois, wrote a nice review of the second edition of an O'Reilly book entitled "Google: The Missing Manual" by Sarah Milstein, Jude Biersdorfer, Rael Dornfest, and (whew!) Matthew MacDonald.

In keeping with the 2nd edition's release in March, 2006 (covering all things Google) there is a new chapter on Google Analytics.

John had this to say about Google Analytics in his review:

However, the most interesting chapter is on a tool not yet publicly available (you have to request an account and they grant them on a slow but ongoing basis), Google Analytics.

Google Analytics harnesses the power of Google to get the most data and statistics out of your website visitors. It helps you know what keywords work, what your visitors are interested in, and what pages are or are not popular.

Of course you and I know Google Analytics does so much more, but IMO a nice marker of something that is making an impact in the technology space is when it gets written about in an O'Reilly technical book/manual.

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Microsoft Invests in a 'Google Analytics' Contender?

May 5, 2006

Check this out (via MarketingVox):

Microsoft will also announce the acquisition of privately held web analytics company DeepMetrix and plans to build new analytics capabilities into adCenter by expanding DeepMetrix's technology.

and from eWeek:

By incorporating the traffic intelligence features into its online array, Microsoft can better compete with Google. That's because Google recently introduced its own DeepMetrix-like feature, which it calls Google Analytics.

Microsoft's move reminds me of a quote I heard long, long ago (attributed to Rudyard Kipling, 1865 - 1936):

They copied all they could follow
but they couldn't copy my mind
so I left them sweating and stealing
a year and a half behind.

Come to think about it, it has been almost a year and a half since Google bought Urchin.

Google Analytics Case Studies to be Presented

May 4, 2006

About a month and a half ago I made it a point to go to Atlanta, GA to attend one of the regional one day ad:Tech conferences. I did it to hear from analytics guru Jim Sterne and others about the latest and greatest practices in analytics, interactive marketing, market segmentation, and so on.

One of the unexpected benefits I obtained while at the conference was learning about local interactive marketing associations. I was thrilled to learn that there was a very strong interactive marketing association in the Raleigh-Durham, NC area (close to our offices in Raleigh). I have already joined our local association (Triangle Interactive Marketing Association).

This month's program is on Web Analytics Best Practices.

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Collecting Web Data: A Look at Web Analytics Methodology

May 1, 2006

A few months back, I posted briefly on Script-Based Versus Log-Based Tracking, discussing the differences between various web analytics data collection methods. With more and more questions cropping up about reporting discrepencies between the two types, I felt the time was right to revisit the topic and put some key concerns to rest.

Logfile Analysis, the older of the two methods, simply counts the hits made in the web server logs and stores the data in an easily-readable, easily-managable format. This method is based on server-side data collection; there is nothing stored on the visitor's computer, nothing that runs in their browser.

In the late 1990s, search engine spiders were increasingly present on the web, and made a considerable impact on the logfiles of the sites they crawled. Along with web proxies, the popularity of consumer Internet service (and subsequent rise in dynamic IP assignment), and browse caching, it became apparent that logfile analysis needed a breath of fresh air. Supplementing logfile analysis with cookie tracking and robot exclude lists helped to solve some of the problem, but a second method was already being developed.

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