Two-Cents on SEO

Programs and automated tools such as WebPosition Gold typically are not preferred by Search Engine Optimization firms and frowned upon by the actual search engines. Search Engine Optimization has been most successful through more manual processes. While software can add some advantages such as tracking previous initiatives and generating ranking reports, the auto-submission and content development components typically don't work well and at times, can be penalized by the search engines.

An example:
1) Google penalizes duplicate content. So if these programs create two sets of similar content for two different companies and the content is uploaded to the sites, then Google could potentially see it as duplicate content and penalize the companies.

I believe the best approach to SEO is 3-tiered:

1) Submissions
Manually submit your site (homepage and major directories) to the engines and directories. Make sure to hit DMOZ, etc. Use Google SiteMaps as a tool for Google.com - it is powerful and offers great reporting. Also check your robots.txt files to ensure those are properly setup. Keep this process consistent but don't spam the engines - rather re-submit if there is a dramatic change.

2) Content
Content is king. As Google has stated - become an expert on your site subject matter and write about it. Then consider keyword density, internal links, etc. Properly coded sites play into this equation as well. Dynamic sites are difficult so use neat url's. CSS vs. tables definitely helps and there are many hidden tricks you can use with CSS that are not considered spam. Plus H1 tags should contain prominent keywords as they get prominent consideration.

3) Strategic Linking
We've all heard of Google PageRank. Well Google isn't the only one considering this - we believe other engines now consider the relevancy of strategic links - of course taking the concept from Google. Don't worry about link farms and linking to every Joe.com site. Link to sites that have a good PageRank as this will be more important. Consider partners, vendors, etc - get listed with them. Think of a business analogy - it's who you know. Knowing every business owner in Burlington may not be helpful, but knowing 10 who can improve your business is helpful. Same concept with PageRank.

Prioritization
Google generates almost 50% of web searches so I'd suggest putting 50% of your efforts in Google. Then Yahoo!, MSN, Ask and a few others. Keep in mind - having a top 30 listing in 30 engines means a lot less than having top 10 in 10.

Use Analytics to measure performance and track improvements. You could also use Google Alerts to monitor performance for specific keywords.

Web Analytics vs. Web Analysis

The area I want to address centers around the fundamental difference of web analytics and web analysis.

Web analytics is a product that typically collects information through log files or cookie tracking and then formulates the data into reports that we can analyze. Some products include Google Analytics, Urchin Software, ClickTracks, Omniture, Webalizer, etc. What these products don't do is analyze the data, review historical patterns, determine outcomes and make decisions.

This is what leads us to the human side of the industry - web analysis. This is the sister of web analytics; it is what makes web analytic products valuable. To date most of the industry has been focused on the product and reviewing stats like visits, hits, page views, etc. Great information but sometimes meaningless when it comes to truly gauging website and marketing performance. Analysis will dive in deeper and look at things like conversions, organic vs. paid search activity, funnel processes and visitor segmentation. A web analytics product will generate much of the data needed but now we need marketing and business analysts to interpret the results and make decisions or recommendations on areas of marketing, web design and business strategy.

We will see a movement in this industry towards more business intelligence driven by our currently underserved Key Performance Inidcator (KPI) market. Maybe what we'll see is KPI's drive the need for more web analysis because the web analytic reports will be much more customizable towards each business.

So where is your company at?
Are you paying for a web analytics product and not doing the analysis?

Improving Web Analytics

I was listening to an old podcast from Stephan Spencer's website that was Jim Sterne asking audience participants at E-Metrics 2004 to list their 10 Nastiest Web Analytics Problems. Well, there were quite a few so I decided to pick out a few that I think are still relevant today...

Implementation - Customers don't know how to setup tools themselves properly
and end up getting incorrect data - with both tagging or log analysis solutions.
Comment from Dave - This is still an issue today. Even with Google Analytics giving away the product for free, there is still a need for Professional Services to provide implementation, training, support and consulting. Google has decided to partner with industry experts to provide these Professional Services for Google Analytics.

Expectation - Customers need more than just a tool or product that supplies data. They need analysts who can interpret the data and provide ansers and recomendations.

Mirroring Data Across Applications & Making sense of multiple data sets

Web Analytics Tools and Marketing is a lot of work. Most individuals can't handle more work - can setup, but not provide ongoing analysis due to resource constraints.

Analytics is not tracking on new browsers (PDA) and Capturing Online Move to Offline

Timely Access to Data & Determining which KPI's are Needed, Plus Data Overload!

Aligning Analytics with a Single Individual - Selecting Online Business Coordinator

Executive Sponsorship or Buy-In and Educating Executives on Web Analytics

Search Engine Effectiveness

Ever wonder if search engines are an effective online marketing tool. Well, based on a recent report by MediaPost, a survey by Outsell notes 71 percent stated they feel Google search ads are effective as compared to 62 percent for Yahoo and 49 percent for MSN (Microsoft just can't win in this new medium!). Very impressive trends indeed - considering the number of both online and offline media choices available today.

One must ask though, what factors are pushing these respondents to consider the search engines effective. Was it a hunch? An increase in revenue? I assume it was a combination of a few factors but most likely no hard-lined statistics to determine the "true" effectiveness.

Enter now, Google Analytics! Now we can transform that hunch into an informed decision. With analytics you have the ability to measure the effectiveness of an individual search engine including organic and paid activity along with individual keyword performance. This is critical as search engines are typically the leading source of referral traffic to websites and understanding the effectiveness of each one can have a large impact on the success of your site.

In the next post we'll dive into some Analytics and look at different key performance indicators that can measure search engine effectiveness.

It's The Trending

Clients often ask us to validate or reconcile the statisitcs that Google Analytics or Urchin Software provide. This is an almost impossible task that can take weeks to accomplish and usually provides inconclusive results. We advise our clients to begin by focusing on trend in the data over time rather than laboring over the details of the numbers. Then, when they make specific changes to their site or advertising they can dig deeper into the data because they know exactly what changes were made.

So why do I bring this up now? I read two interesting things this morning that reminded me of this tenant.

First, Bob Cringely has a great piece about Google and their AdWords customer service. The article was actually about a friend who was fighting Google over some AdWords charges. In the article Bob references some visitation data that his friend used in his fight with Google:

Visitor Sessions per Month
Jan 06 = 386 visits (Google account active = $555.99)
Feb 06 = 328 visits (Google account active = $1,893.26)
Mar 06 = 348 visits (Google account paused)
Apr 06 = 410 visits (Google account paused)
May 06 = 916 visits (Google account active = $751.03)

These data show the number of visits and the Google AdWords cost per month. The numbers are interesting for the client because the visitation increased even when his AdWords account was paused. Those are some pretty important numbers, especially when you're evaluating the value of your Google AdWords account. Notice they're not some obscure statistic about the number of times a manager clicked on a blue icon. It's just visits per month, a nice standard analytics number that can help the individual make an informed business decision.

Second, Avinash Kaushik has a fantastic blog post titled Data Quality Sucks, Let'’s Just Get Over It concerning the quality of analytics data and how to make informed decisions based on your comfort level with the data. He stresses that you will not get 100% accurate data but that doesn't matter. You can still make informed decisions with the data that your analytics solution provides. It is a really great post and I highly recommend giving it a read.