3 Useful Analytics Lessons of Google Webmaster Tools
It’s probably not the first tool you’d think about to help your web analytics efforts, but Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) provides more data than most webmasters and online businesses know that can really provide value to their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) initiatives. And Google Webmaster Tools is getting better, with regular updates and new data. However, GWT data alone isn’t necessarily what you’re looking for, but cross-referencing GWT data with your regular analytics tool can provide powerful insights.
If you’re not familiar with Google Webmaster Tools, check out Google Webmaster Tools and SEO. If you’ve heard of GWT before, let’s move on.
Continue reading 3 Useful Analytics Lessons of Google Webmaster Tools
Connecting with your visitors/customers to boost conversions
I’m a big fan of Bryan Eisenberg and the way he makes visitor behavior and its relation to web analytics understandable. I learnt quite a few things on behavioral analytics from reading his books and Future Now’s blog and one of the most important lessons has to be the importance of making a connection with the your visitor/prospective customer.
In a nutshell, this concept goes as follows: Your site’s visitors all have goals and don’t have endless patience – They will spend less than 10 seconds evaluating (scanning) your site’s landing page. They have a need and hope your site will fulfil that need. It’s your job to help your visitors by turning the table around when you look at your website to try and see things from the visitor’s perspective. The better you manage to understand your visitors and what they want, the better you can connect with them and the better your conversion rates will be and the lower your landing pages’ bounce rate will be.
Continue reading Connecting with your visitors/customers to boost conversions
Web analytics and Senior Management
A couple of years ago when I got into web analytics one of the top issues that web analysts and marketers faced was trying to convince Senior Management that web analytics has immense business value. Times are different now it seems, as the need for understanding is turning into an extreme hunger for data and knowledge. This can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Segmentation of web analytics data in Google Analytics
Segmentation is a technique that is used to help get to more detailed information on your site’s performance, which is done by slicing and dicing your existing data until you get only the information that’s relevant to your cause. A simple example is the conversion rate. You’ve established that your site’s conversion rate is 3%. Great, but that gives you very little information. By using segmentation you can determine the individual conversion rates for separate streams of traffic, which gives you a clearer direction as to which parts of your online marketing efforts need to be stepped up.
Continue reading Segmentation of web analytics data in Google Analytics
Implementing and developing a leading web analytics tool
Disclaimer: This post is NOT intended to put large web analytics vendors in bad light and to endorse the use of Google Analytics instead.
In my daily work I rely on one of the larger web analytics solution vendors, which over the past two years has provided me with rich data, custom and on the fly reporting and one the whole things were alright. Until we needed better reporting, which we thought would be relatively easy to get since we chose one of the leaders in the market. Little did we know.
I’ve noticed that over the past couple of years it’s become increasingly difficult to work with these guys. It was already quite a feat to get through implementation, which was almost completely unguided and parts of which had to be corrected later on. Bit by bit we learned more about how the solution works and once we deciphered most of the ingeniously chosen terms used solely by this vendor we started to uncover what went wrong during implementation and we obviously needed to correct these issues to get everything sorted.
Continue reading Implementing and developing a leading web analytics tool
The value of page views and why publishers stick to page impressions
Whereas many web analytics practitioners let go of page views quite a while ago, some people on the receiving end of online advertising still hold on to it and assign great value to what has become a hollow metric.
There are few standard metrics that have value when considered on their own, but page view is what “hit” still was two years ago – practically redundant but over-used. A page view itself is not a proper measure for traffic volume and is merely a secondary metric that adds dimension to unique visitors. Examples are the use of newer standardized metrics, which set out page views vs visits to create “bounce (or exit) rate” and “pages per visit” – two metrics both used by Google Analytics (amongst other providers of web analytics solutions) that provide much more meaning to analytics efforts.
Continue reading The value of page views and why publishers stick to page impressions