Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
Google is, hands down, the world's most popular search engine. And we're here today for no reason other than to give it a shout out.
There are a lot of factors that make it the favorite. For starters, it's fun to say. (Go ahead, yell it. Goooooogle!) And it's easy to use. And it allows you to limit your search results to images or videos or maps or shopping results. And it's tied to a really great e-mail system, Gmail. And it's got other fun features like Google Analytics, Google Earth, and Google Docs.
But beyond all those perks, the number one thing that makes it stand out is its effectiveness as a search engine. When Google delivers results to a web surfer, he's usually satisfied with their relevance. Through continuous testing and improvement of its ability to sift through results, Googlers are finding what they seek on the Internet. And thanks to frequent changes to the algorithms that allow Google to deliver results, Google remains awesome even as new content is added to the web.
Showing posts with label analytics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label analytics. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Do You Know What Is Really Going On With Your Site?
Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
Is anybody actually visiting my website?
That's a question that a lot of people ask themselves. After slaving away to keep their sites polished and updated, business owners want to be able to see whether their site is actually working for them.
So what's the best way to do this? Look at your analytics.
Through Google analytics, you can find out not only whether your site is getting visited, but a boatload of details about who is visiting it and what they're doing there. It's kind of like 24:7 video surveillance on a store - except it's on a website.
In some ways, Google analytics are even better than constant video footage would be. For example, you get to find out how visitors ended up at your site. In other words, what did people type into Google that made your site pop up? That's really important information from a search engine optimization standpoint, so that's an awesome feature of Google analytics.
You can also use Google analytics to determine your site's bounce rate. A bounce rate basically shows whether people who visited the site peaced out right away or spent some time clicking around to different pages. Your goal is to have a site with a low bounce rate, which would indicate that your home page is enticing people to delve deeper into your site.
And that info is just the beginning. Do you want to know the average time your visitors spend on your site? Do you want a map of what areas of the world your visitors live in? Are you interested in how many new visitors vs. how many returning visitors? Do you want to compare your traffic from one day to the next? Google can hook you up with all of this information, and more.
Of course, the benefit of a store's video surveillance system is that it can be used to see people's faces (well, at least a grainy version of them). So while you can actually see who visits a brick and mortar store through its video security system, you cannot see a picture of exactly who visited your website through Google analytics...
...yet.
Is anybody actually visiting my website?
That's a question that a lot of people ask themselves. After slaving away to keep their sites polished and updated, business owners want to be able to see whether their site is actually working for them.
So what's the best way to do this? Look at your analytics.
Through Google analytics, you can find out not only whether your site is getting visited, but a boatload of details about who is visiting it and what they're doing there. It's kind of like 24:7 video surveillance on a store - except it's on a website.
In some ways, Google analytics are even better than constant video footage would be. For example, you get to find out how visitors ended up at your site. In other words, what did people type into Google that made your site pop up? That's really important information from a search engine optimization standpoint, so that's an awesome feature of Google analytics.
You can also use Google analytics to determine your site's bounce rate. A bounce rate basically shows whether people who visited the site peaced out right away or spent some time clicking around to different pages. Your goal is to have a site with a low bounce rate, which would indicate that your home page is enticing people to delve deeper into your site.
And that info is just the beginning. Do you want to know the average time your visitors spend on your site? Do you want a map of what areas of the world your visitors live in? Are you interested in how many new visitors vs. how many returning visitors? Do you want to compare your traffic from one day to the next? Google can hook you up with all of this information, and more.
Of course, the benefit of a store's video surveillance system is that it can be used to see people's faces (well, at least a grainy version of them). So while you can actually see who visits a brick and mortar store through its video security system, you cannot see a picture of exactly who visited your website through Google analytics...
...yet.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Are You Maximizing Your Search Engine Marketing?
Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
How's your search engine optimization going? Good? That's super! If you've been cleaning up the pages of your website to make them more attractive to the search engines of the world, you have taken a really important first step to getting noticed on the web. Give yourself a cookie!
But while you're chomping away on your Chips Ahoy, take a minute to read about a couple of other things you might want to be doing as well. (And if you're doing them already, feel free to reward yourself with more nummies!)
If only you could bribe Google the way you sometimes can bribe the maitre d' of a restaurant! It would be great to slip Google a $20 spot and get a place at the top of the page in return. Since that's not possible, Pay Per Click (PPC) ads are the next best thing. You write ads, identify the relevant keywords, and wait patiently for people to type the keywords into Google. When someone does, your ad will pop up on the side of his screen - and you pay nothing unless he clicks on it.
Setting up a PPC campaign is a great supplement to SEO because it can address issues that SEO can't. You can set up temporary PPC ads for special sales or promotions. You can also identify many more keywords through PPC than you ever could with SEO. PPC + SEO = Lots of visitors to your site.
Google Analytics are, in a word, amazing. When you have analytics installed on your site, Google will track a ridiculous amount of information for you. Want to know how many people visited your site? How they got there? How long they stayed? What town they're from? It's a little scary, but you can find out all that information, and more.
And once you have that information, you can use it to improve your site and make it more enticing for the 289 people from New York, 28 people from Connecticut, 12 people from Maine, and 2 people from Japan who you now know have visited your site!
In addition to using SEO strategies for your whole site, you might want to set up landing pages for special purposes and make sure those are search engine friendly. For instance, if you were a cookie baker who wanted to advertise his holiday cookie line, you could set up a special page for that and make sure everyone Googling "holiday cookies new york" finds your site. This will help pull visitors through a "back door" of your site, and directly to the page that's most relevant for them.
If you're on target with all of those, you deserve a real treat.
How's your search engine optimization going? Good? That's super! If you've been cleaning up the pages of your website to make them more attractive to the search engines of the world, you have taken a really important first step to getting noticed on the web. Give yourself a cookie!
But while you're chomping away on your Chips Ahoy, take a minute to read about a couple of other things you might want to be doing as well. (And if you're doing them already, feel free to reward yourself with more nummies!)
Pay Your Way to the Top...Or at Least, to the Side
If only you could bribe Google the way you sometimes can bribe the maitre d' of a restaurant! It would be great to slip Google a $20 spot and get a place at the top of the page in return. Since that's not possible, Pay Per Click (PPC) ads are the next best thing. You write ads, identify the relevant keywords, and wait patiently for people to type the keywords into Google. When someone does, your ad will pop up on the side of his screen - and you pay nothing unless he clicks on it.
Setting up a PPC campaign is a great supplement to SEO because it can address issues that SEO can't. You can set up temporary PPC ads for special sales or promotions. You can also identify many more keywords through PPC than you ever could with SEO. PPC + SEO = Lots of visitors to your site.
Analyze Those Analytics
Google Analytics are, in a word, amazing. When you have analytics installed on your site, Google will track a ridiculous amount of information for you. Want to know how many people visited your site? How they got there? How long they stayed? What town they're from? It's a little scary, but you can find out all that information, and more.
And once you have that information, you can use it to improve your site and make it more enticing for the 289 people from New York, 28 people from Connecticut, 12 people from Maine, and 2 people from Japan who you now know have visited your site!
Help Them Land
In addition to using SEO strategies for your whole site, you might want to set up landing pages for special purposes and make sure those are search engine friendly. For instance, if you were a cookie baker who wanted to advertise his holiday cookie line, you could set up a special page for that and make sure everyone Googling "holiday cookies new york" finds your site. This will help pull visitors through a "back door" of your site, and directly to the page that's most relevant for them.
If you're on target with all of those, you deserve a real treat.
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