Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman are on the stage at SMX London to interview Amit Singhal. Amit is a Google Fellow, a honorary title reserved for Google’s most accomplished engineers, and he has spearheaded Google’s core ranking team since 2000. He’s also a key influencer of Search Plus Your World, Google’s search experience centered around […]
Today the Google Analytics team announced that we will start seeing backlink URLs in their newly released Social Reports. According to the announcement post, written by Ilya Grigorik, Software Engineering Manager, Google Analytics (and PostRank Founder): “These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to […]
As many of you know, organic traffic is auto-populated in Google Analytics reports using a default search engine list curated by Google. It is also possible to add smaller search engines manually into the tracking code snippet, using the _addOrganic method; but it’s nicer when Google does it for us. Every once in a while, the […]
At some point last week Google Analytics quietly released an apparently small change to its Landing Pages report (Content tab => Site Content => Landing Pages). This report was almost useless before this change and now it joins the list of the most useful reports on the tool. In a few words the change was […]
Back in June, Google Analytics unveiled a new set of Social Engagement Reports, which can be used to get content interaction metrics from social sharing icons such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other. Google+ is tracked by default (no codes needed), but other networks must implement the _trackSocial method in order to collect […]
Google’s new encrypted search for logged in users now appears to be blocking a much higher percentage of search terms than when it initially rolled out two weeks ago. In some cases, it might even be higher than the 10% or less figure that the company initially predicted might be impacted. Blocking Search Queries Two weeks […]
Google Analytics announced a new set of reports that should help marketers and website owners to understand how users behave on their websites. The feature was presented this morning during Web 2.0 Summit, on a keynote delivered by Susan Wojcicki (SVP of Google, Advertising) & Phil Mui (Group Product Manager, Google Analytics). This feature is […]
Today Google launched a paid version of Google Analytics that processes higher volumes of page views and provides additional support. The general feature set and user experience remain the fundamentally the same as the standard product. This comes as an important addition to the enterprise set of tools that Google offers. The new version audience […]
Google Analytics just announced a new set of reports called “Real Time.” They will be seen in the new interface of Google Analytics (available to all users), under the Dashboard tab; according to another recent announcement, this tab will soon be renamed the Home tab. This new feature does not require extra tagging. According to Google, full […]
Google Analytics announced a change on the way a sessions are calculated on the tool. While this change will not affect the majority of the accounts significantly (according to the official blog post “most users will see less than a 1% change”), it is an important change. Below, I will describe why it is important […]
Google Analytics has just announced a new set of reports (and functionality) that will enable websites to track social interaction with their content. This comes as a welcomed addition to the new Google+1 button, as it now enables one to measure the impact of social interactions in and outside websites (either through a Facebook like, […]
As companies spread their media mix, and expand their activities to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social channels, it is essential to try and integrate numbers as much as possible. And this integration should not only be on the marketing message and design, but also on its tracking. It is important to have a […]
Since the beginning of last year, Google Analytics has been pushing a faster load time by pushing the new asynchronous tracking code to being the default code. Matt Cutts also commented on how the new Google Analytics code is slightly better in terms of search (watch video on the bottom of this article). But now, […]
Following the recent launch of Google Analytics v5, Google is launching (in limited pilot) an important set of reports that will help marketers understand which marketing channels customers interact with prior to a website conversion. These reports are a natural evolution from Adwords Search Funnels, which helps understanding which Adwords campaigns drive conversions and which […]
What is the first report you look at when you get access to a new Google Analytics account? Do you start by looking at the Dashboard, Ecommerce report, Content report, Traffic Sources or any of the technical reports? Psychology has shown that many of our day-to-day behaviors are deeply related to our personalities, beliefs, and […]
Much has been said about A/B testing techniques and the value that Website Testing can bring to website owners. In this article, I will not discuss what to test or how to do it, but how to analyze what you have already done. I have written in the past about the differences between A/B and […]
Google has just announced a new version of Google Analytics, introducing a completely new user experience. The product got a significant face lift and it now looks more enterprise-like. The last time Google Analytics released such a major version was 1.5 years ago; we covered the release in-depth on this post, but basically the release […]
Lately, Webmaster Tools has been improving its analytical capabilities significantly. This trend comes as a great benefit to webmasters and search marketers, both of whom are gaining access to important data in order to understand how their Search Engine Optimization is performing, as well as additional tools to help optimize their efforts. Last year, Google […]
The roles of people involved in both web analytics and PPC management is changing. Both are becoming more important and mainstream within many organizations. And the skills needed to master them are becoming more complex. Here’s a look at the how things have changed, and what to expect going forward. The Evolution Of Web Analytics […]
Last year, we covered Google Analytics’ launch of Google Analytics Intelligence, an engine that helps the analyst by applying data mining and other techniques. Today, Google Analytics announced a major upgrade to the intelligence engine through a feature called “Major Contributors.” From the Google Analytics blog post: “When Google Analytics detects causes to a major […]
In mid-November, Google Analytics and Feedburner announced a very interesting integration. While this is excellent news for Google Analytics and Feedburner users, it must be dealt properly when it comes to SEO, especially on websites that are heavily based on RSS feeds. Google Analytics users rejoice! This integration is very interesting in that it allows […]
Brian Clifton (PhD) is an independent author, consultant and trainer who specializes in performance optimization using Google Analytics. Brian has been involved in web design and SEO since as far back as 1997, when he built his first website and started defining best practise to advise clients. From 2005-8 he was Head of Web Analytics […]
In a previous post, I discussed the importance of using behavioral targeting to increase your conversion rates. I also wrote about how to use Google Analytics to understand personas of the users who visit your site. This post will present a fast and easy way to get your behavioral targeting (BT) process up and running. […]
Following October’s release of Google Analytics new features, Google has just released another set of very cool new features. Among them is “Annotations,” a tremendously useful new feature both to analysts as well as executives, who are usually not up to date on granular details about website activity. The annotations feature basically allows users to […]
Following my last post on behavioral targeting, which was an overview of the field, I will provide a more hands-on approach in this post. To briefly recap, behavioral targeting involves creating multiple “personas” that represent multiple users of your site, and using analytics to create a unique experience for each persona group based on observed […]
Avinash Kaushik is Google's well-known and widely respected analytics guru. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks about his passion for metrics, why they're critical for success, and how search marketers can use analytics to take their campaigns to the next level.
Behavioral targeting (BT) has been the buzzword of the year for the last two years in the web analytics field. But is BT really all that important and valuable to the companies making use of it? The answer is usually yes. And does it take a team of PhDs to implement BT for a website? […]
Google has just announced a number of new features for Google Analytics, including more powerful reporting capabilities, greater customization options and a new “intelligence engine” that Google says can help search marketers drive smarter data insights. Here’s a rundown of the new features, and why they’re important.
There are quite a few testing techniques available in the market. In this post I will dwelve into the two commonest testing methods: A/B tests and Multivariate tests. What is the difference between them? How can you choose which one best fits your needs?
Search marketers can learn a lot from scientists. Scientists spend their life testing things, one after the other, incessantly trying to discover new interactions between atoms, molecules, viruses, bacteria, etc. One of the greatest scientists of all time, Albert Einstein, said, “A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment […]
Last year Google Analytics released a few new features, among them the Motion Charts. The feature is based on software developed by Gapminder, acquired by Google in 2007. According to the Google Analytics blog, “Motion Charts provide a multi-dimensional, over-time analysis of the data in your report.” This feature provides a powerful way to visualize […]
A few days days ago, I noticed some strange Google Analytics data: Googlebot appeared as a browser in the reports. Although this might sound like a not-so-important fact when it comes to SEO, it is a major change in the Web Analytics field. As Avinash Kaushik and I wrote in the SEMJ journal article Web […]
p>Following a series of presentations on eMetrics Summit about ‘Measuring the Voice of the Customer’, I will give some examples on how User Generated Content can be used to both improve the organic results and the conversion rates of a website. The idea behind using UGC in a website is a two-sided effort that can improve both conversions rates and SEO (see other examples in this previous conversion-driven SEO post).
In the past, SEO success was measured by rankings of target keywords; then the focus moved to traffic; today we have moved into the bottom-line era: organic traffic should be measured by its impact on revenue. This post is based on a presentation delivered at eMetrics San Jose 2009. It is about ways to integrate […]