SITE METRICS DON'T TELL THE STORY

THE NUMBERS DON'T MEAN A THING. YOUR ANALYSIS OF THE NUMBERS MEANS EVERYTHING TO WEBSITE SUCCESS.

Crunching Numbers for

Fun and Profit

So you opened your web store, went out and bought one of those site metrics software packs and now you’re staring at a bunch of raw data that might as well be written in Swahili. What does all of this stuff mean?

Site metrics – information gathering – is important to long-term site success. However, gathering data doesn’t do a bit of good if you can’t analyze it and, more importantly, develop an actionable strategy based on your analysis of the raw data.

So let’s look at the value of some of the information you can collect from most quality metrics software.

Analyze Inbound Links

Go ahead, spy on the competition. Enter a competitor’s URL and generate a report of all inbound links to that site And what can you learn from these links? Well, if these site owners were willing to link to a site similar to your own, they might be open to a link exchange. That’s always good.

Analyzing the competition’s inbound links might also get you thinking about links to sites you hadn’t considered before. For example, if you post an on-line newsletter covering the stock market, it makes sense to have links to various brokerages, i.e. E*Trade, etc. That’s a no brainer. But how about adding a link to a tax preparation service or a bank. These links might not be so obvious, but if they’re working for the competition, they just might work for you.

Next, enter your own site’s URL to see who’s linked into your site. Some are parasitic links farms that have nothing to do with the topicality of your site. And these unrelated links are hurting your PR so jettison them. See, your site’s looking sounder already.

Automated E-Mail

After finding a few good prospects worth contacting for a links exchange, tracking down the owners of these sites and finding contact information can eat up a lot of time. Some metrics analyzers, for example SEO Elite, provide the means to automate e-mails to site owners who show good potential and synergies for a links exchange.

Be careful, however. A lot of these e-mails will never make it through the spam filter and if they do, they won’t be read. They’ll end up in the trash. To truly reach out and touch someone, the personalized e-mail or better yet, a telephone call, will improve your success ratio but it’s going to take time – lots of it. Oh, the process is called “links begging,” which tells you a lot about how much fun it is.

allinanchor, allintitle, allintext

SEO Elite and other analytic software will show you how the competitions set up its sites. Search engine spiders crawl sites looking for keywords and the positioning of those keywords to determine if the text is spamlish (keyword gibberish) or actual content of use to a visitor.

Search higher ranked competitor sites using the allintext feature to determine keyword density. allintitle and allinanchor(text) provide a very useful blueprint of how these successful sites have placed keywords throughout anchor text, headers, sub-heads, banners and so on. Why reinvent the wheel when you can learn from the success of others?

Check for Dead Links

If you have a good site, you’ll discover that you have a number of links from different sites. After you’ve weeded out garbage links to unrelated sites or links farms, go back and check your site for dead links – links that are no longer active. Eliminate all dead links ASAP. Search engines consider them time wasters for users – and they are, so lose them.

Keyword Check

If you’re still using your original keywords to define your site for search engine indexing, time to drop the old and add the new. Metrics software shows you which keywords are driving site traffic and which are just taking up space in your HTML keyword tag.

With metrics software, you can see which keywords are pulling in visitors to competitor sites. Hey, it’s not top secret information so use it to your advantage. You gain two major advantages by regularly reviewing and updating your list of keywords. First, the closer your keywords match the topic of your site the better search engines like and trust you. Second, a refined, accurate keyword list will deliver more qualified buyers to your site and fewer browsers.

Are You Completely Indexed?

A site with five or 10 pages won’t have any trouble getting indexed by SE spiders. But what about sites that contain hundreds and hundreds of pages? How can you be sure all of your site has been indexed and properly indexed, at that?

Site analytics will indicate how many of your pages are actually part of the search engine’s inventory. If a lot of your pages have been mis-indexed, or just plain missed, there are a couple of things you can do.

Spiders follow links when crawling a site so add links to those pages that are missing from the search engine index. You can also submit a site map to Google, Yahoo, Ask and other search engines. This acts as a “personal” invitation” to a spider to stop by for another look. A site map can also provide links to all pages, ensuring a more complete indexing and a more accurate indexing.

Who’s Beating The Pants Off You?

Who are the heavy hitters in your market? Conduct a search based on page rank or on the quality of the site’s optimization, i.e. “see well-optimized sites.” Why?

What are they doing that you aren’t? If you’re an HTML coder, you can access the underlying code of any site using Internet Explorer so sneak a peek at keyword selection, title tags and content architecture. Also check out site navigation. The easier the better.

Keyword Searches

Two functions, here. First, enter your keywords to produce a list of other sites using the same keywords. If one of them is a behemoth site, add lesser-used keywords to by-pass the stiffest competition.

The second function is to refine your keyword list based on keywords that have been entered into the big search engines in the past day or two. Keyword rankings change as quickly as today’s headlines. If your site sells time sensitive content, services or products, it’s essential to stay up to date with the latest in keyword use.

Online success is all about the numbers, how you analyze them and alter your site accordingly. It’s a never-ending process of refinement based on what works and what doesn’t. And the only way to find out that…

…is to run the numbers.

Having trouble inserting Tab A into Slot B when it comes to metrics analysis. An incorrect assessment of site metrics can have disastrous (read expensive) consequences. Call me and lots crunch the numbers to develop a real marketing plan based on the empirical data. Interpreting is everything and remember, "post hoc ergo propter hoc." Man, that'll send you down the wrong pathway to success.

Later,

Webwordslinger.com

THERE'S GOLD IN THAT DATABASE!

Data Mining:

Solid Gold Information

Data mining is the practice of collecting and storing information in humongous data bases. The information is gathered from opt ins, on-line surveys, forms and other “voluntary” means of collecting information, usually from customers and buyers and about customers and buyers.

Who uses data mining? Retail outlets, insurance companies, banks, airlines and other industries that not only collect data, but derive benefit from analyzing that data in a scientific, systematic manner to improve service and profit margins. And if it works for the big guys, it’ll work for you (only on a slightly smaller scale).

What are we looking for?

Using data mining technology, industries are looking for trends before they become trends. Relationships between customer A and widget B. Patterns of activity, unusual events – the list is endless and growing all the time.

The fact is, billions and billions of pages are stored on computers and billions of those billions of pages are available through any search engine. And while this information can help your on-line activities in a general way, data mining your own historical repository of data will reveal useful information about activities closer to home – yours!

If you’ve been in business on-line for any length of time, even a couple of years, you’re sitting on solid gold marketing data. Your database of customers and what they bought, where they live and how they pay. And you can use an analysis of this information to improve the performance of your web site.

How can it help me?

Probably the most useful way data mining will help small- to mid-sized site owners is by defining the target demographic – the characteristics of most buyers. Men or women? Age? Zip code? Income bracket? Using data harvesting and analytic software, you’ll quickly be able to develop a picture of that perfect buyer – the one who buys the most, most often.

This information equips you to develop marketing campaigns targeted specifically at your key demographic. If you’re selling knitting supplies, using a Harley-Davidson as the centerpiece of your e-mail campaign probably won’t pull as much as a nice picture of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Data harvesting enables site owners (and huge media and retail conglomerates) to target their marketing with pinpoint precision. (You don’t think those Gap ads were created by accident, do you?)

Interactive Marketing

Of most importance to on-line business owners, interactive marketing appeals to visitors to your web site. What can visitors do? Where can they go? What can they learn? And see?

By analyzing harvested data, you can track the movements of site visitors to determine which features draw attention and which are just taking up space. “Google Analytics” will even perform the analysis for you, indicating in GUI form which site pages attract attention and which are quickly passed over.

For on-line retailers, this kind of analysis defines your most valuable digital real estate and, obviously, this is where you’d place your most popular or profitable products, announcements of upcoming sales and other “targeted” information.

Is it working?

It would be nice to know if your Adsense program was pulling better than your banners placed on a dozen different sites. Data harvesting will give you the answer quickly once you establish a baseline.

The baseline is what’s happening now – the status quo. With an established baseline, you have a yardstick by which to measure whether your PPC program should get more dollars while your click-through rate on banners isn’t worth the money you’re spending.

Is it bogus?

Large, on-line (and real world) retailers use data harvesting to better detect fraudulent activity. For example, MasterCard will quickly contact cardholders in whose accounts unusual activity has occurred. For example, using data harvesting, the credit card company knows you’ve never made a purchase of anything in Taiwan. Then, in a matter of two hours, 23 transactions from Taiwan all show up on your card. Now that’s called an anomaly – something out of the ordinary.

The MasterCard program continues with follow through. The cardholder of the account in question is likely to get a call from a MasterCard representative to see if, indeed, you did purchase 23 racing bikes in Taiwan within the past 24 hours. If not, they can often void the transaction before it actually takes place.

Will it make my customers happier?

Much. You’ll be ahead of the curve on spotting trends so you’ll have the latest when visitors come to shop. You’ll be able to better predict seasonal buying patterns for your particular goods or services. You’ll be able to improve warehousing, order handling, inventory management and more – even if the inventory is stored in a spare bedroom.

Where do I get this wonderful tool?

You’ve got the data – or at least you should have it, if you’ve been in business for a while. That customer data just needs to be analyzed to better equip you to refine your site, better target your ideal buyer, identify trends ahead of the competition, better identify fraud and deliver the precise product at the precise time to the exact right buyer. Metrics and analytical software, like Google Analytics, will help crunch the raw data into meaningful results.

If you haven’t started using the information you have on your hard drive, you’re wasting some of the best information you’ll ever have concerning the success of your business.

Use it or lose it.

Need more info on how to use the data you've collected? How to read site metrics? Drop me a line and let's have a look at that dbase. It's solid gold!

Webwordslinger.com

DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?

Data mining is the practice of collecting and storing information in humongous data bases. The information is gathered from opt ins, on-line surveys, forms and other “voluntary” means of collecting information, usually from customers and buyers and about customers and buyers.

Who uses data mining? Retail outlets, insurance companies, banks, airlines and other industries that not only collect data, but derive benefit from analyzing that data in a scientific, systematic manner to improve service and profit margins. And if it works for the big guys, it’ll work for you (only on a slightly smaller scale).

What are we looking for?

Using data mining technology, industries are looking for trends before they become trends. Relationships between customer A and widget B. Patterns of activity, unusual events – the list is endless and growing all the time.

The fact is, billions and billions of pages are stored on computers and billions of those billions of pages are available through any search engine. And while this information can help your on-line activities in a general way, data mining your own historical repository of data will reveal useful information about activities closer to home – yours!

If you’ve been in business on-line for any length of time, even a couple of years, you’re sitting on solid gold marketing data. Your database of customers and what they bought, where they live and how they pay. And you can use an analysis of this information to improve the performance of your web site.

How can it help me?

Probably the most useful way data mining will help small- to mid-sized site owners is by defining the target demographic – the characteristics of most buyers. Men or women? Age? Zip code? Income bracket? Using data harvesting and analytic software, you’ll quickly be able to develop a picture of that perfect buyer – the one who buys the most, most often.

This information equips you to develop marketing campaigns targeted specifically at your key demographic. If you’re selling knitting supplies, using a Harley-Davidson as the centerpiece of your e-mail campaign probably won’t pull as much as a nice picture of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Data harvesting enables site owners (and huge media and retail conglomerates) to target their marketing with pinpoint precision. (You don’t think those Gap ads were created by accident, do you?)

Interactive Marketing

Of most importance to on-line business owners, interactive marketing appeals to visitors to your web site. What can visitors do? Where can they go? What can they learn? And see?

By analyzing harvested data, you can track the movements of site visitors to determine which features draw attention and which are just taking up space. “Google Analytics” will even perform the analysis for you, indicating in GUI form which site pages attract attention and which are quickly passed over.

For on-line retailers, this kind of analysis defines your most valuable digital real estate and, obviously, this is where you’d place your most popular or profitable products, announcements of upcoming sales and other “targeted” information.

Is it working?

It would be nice to know if your Adsense program was pulling better than your banners placed on a dozen different sites. Data harvesting will give you the answer quickly once you establish a baseline.

The baseline is what’s happening now – the status quo. With an established baseline, you have a yardstick by which to measure whether your PPC program should get more dollars while your click-through rate on banners isn’t worth the money you’re spending.

Is it bogus?

Large, on-line (and real world) retailers use data harvesting to better detect fraudulent activity. For example, MasterCard will quickly contact cardholders in whose accounts unusual activity has occurred. For example, using data harvesting, the credit card company knows you’ve never made a purchase of anything in Taiwan. Then, in a matter of two hours, 23 transactions from Taiwan all show up on your card. Now that’s called an anomaly – something out of the ordinary.

The MasterCard program continues with follow through. The cardholder of the account in question is likely to get a call from a MasterCard representative to see if, indeed, you did purchase 23 racing bikes in Taiwan within the past 24 hours. If not, they can often void the transaction before it actually takes place.

Will it make my customers happier?

Much. You’ll be ahead of the curve on spotting trends so you’ll have the latest when visitors come to shop. You’ll be able to better predict seasonal buying patterns for your particular goods or services. You’ll be able to improve warehousing, order handling, inventory management and more – even if the inventory is stored in a spare bedroom.

Where do I get this wonderful tool?

You’ve got the data – or at least you should have it, if you’ve been in business for a while. That customer data just needs to be analyzed to better equip you to refine your site, better target your ideal buyer, identify trends ahead of the competition, better identify fraud and deliver the precise product at the precise time to the exact right buyer. Metrics and analytical software, like Google Analytics, will help crunch the raw data into meaningful results.

If you haven’t started using the information you have on your hard drive, you’re wasting some of the best information you’ll ever have concerning the success of your business.

Use it or lose it.

Need to put your data to work? Okay, NP. Drop me a line or give me a call.Let's get your site operating to your expectations.

Webwordslinger.com