Those of you with good memories will recall the re-launch of our website a few months ago. This is still ongoing, and soon we’ll be adding some tasty case studies to our site, so you can see exactly what we’ve done for a selection of our clients. While those are being put together, we thought we’d give you a brief heads-up about one of the businesses we work with: Complete Driveway Designs.
We’ve been working with Complete Driveway Designs – a Bury based pattern imprinted concrete driveway company – for a couple of years now. And in that time our services have had a definite, measurable impact on the effectiveness of their web presence; thanks to our Web Analytics supported SEO and PPC work, they’re now getting conversions and qualified leads for approximately 10% of what they were paying before we got involved.
In the time we’ve been working for Complete Driveway Designs, we’ve built up an excellent understanding of their work, their business, and their goals. This is something we do with every one of our clients; it’s the only way to achieve sustainable results.
The longer we’ve worked with Complete Driveway Designs, the more we’ve come to identify with the skills they use when they’re installing pattern imprinted concrete driveways. Like, for example:
- A professional attention to detail.
- An excellent understanding of the capabilities of different specialised tools.
- An appreciation of client’s needs.
- A willingness to put the effort in.
- Pride in the end result.
Despite the differences in the services we offer, at a core level we’re very similar.
We’d be interested to hear what values other agencies and freelancers feel they share with their clients: leave a comment and let us know.
July 5th, 2010 - No Comments »
Posted in Search Engine Marketing | Tags: case studies, moo marketing news, northwest, PPC Management, seo, web analytics
There’s no 100% accurate way of comparing your website’s performance metrics against those of your competitors. When managing your website analytics, arguably the best way of getting some contextual information is Google Analytics Benchmarking.
Benchmarking allows users to compare key metrics such as visits, page-views, pages per visits, and bounce rate with an average value that’s been generated from data provided by other Google Analytics users. The Benchmarking feature will display your data on a line-graph; the graph will also feature a line indicating the average result for that metric for other websites within your industry.
Because you can select which category your website falls into from a hefty list of options, the Benchmarking average you see should be reasonably contextually valid. Google further focuses the Benchmark by splitting websites into three categories (small, medium, and large) depending on the amount of visitors they receives; you should be presented with an average that reflects the size of your web presence.
Why Use It?
Remember that because the Benchmarking line represents an average, it’ll be affected by erroneous results within the analytics data that it’s drawn from. So a few sites with unusually high or low bounce rates, for example, could skew the average seen by other Benchmarking users.
While Benchmarking isn’t an authoritative source for competitor analysis, it is a useful tool for rating your site’s metrics against something other than previous performance. Use it to identify opportunities for improvement, spark strategy, and inspire site development.
Accessing Google Analytics Benchmarking:
All analytics data used in Benchmarking is anonymous, and you have to agree to share your data in order to access the Benchmarking service.
To activate Benchmarking, you need to agree to share your analytics data “.Anonymously with Google and others” in your Data Sharing Settings. You can access this either via your over-arching account settings, or, if you’re setting up a new account, at the Accept User Agreement page; the option you need to agree to is below the Google Analytics Terms Of Service. Then you can overlay the Benchmarking line on your data visualisations by clicking on the ‘Benchmarking’ tab in the visitors section of Google Analytics. Benchmarking can be used no matter which version of the tracking code is installed to your Google Analytics account.
June 23rd, 2010 - No Comments »
Posted in Website Analytics | Tags: benchmarking, google, google analytics, measure, web analytics
Google Analytics provides a massive amount of information. A big part of getting the most from your analytics platform is setting it up in a way which highlights the information that’s relevant to your business aims.
The dashboard is the first screen you see once you’ve logged in to Google Analytics. It’s an overview page, and it displays a number of reports. You can choose which reports you want to be displayed; this means that it’s possible to set up an Analytics Dashboard that presents you with key analytical business information as soon as you log on.
A well set out, well thought-through dashboard will give you a general idea of your website’s performance through bounce rates etc, important business metrics like conversion rates, and any anomalies. Then, if something catches your eye, you can drill down to get more detailed information.
You can incorporate any of your analytics reports into your dashboard by clicking on the ‘Add to Dashboard’ tab within your Google Analytics. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve been concentrating on SEO (always a good idea!) and want to track bounce rates for visitors generated by a certain keyphrase. Find the relevant report in analytics, add it to your dashboard, and it’ll be one of the first things you see next time you log on.
Some Tips:
- Don’t swamp yourself with too much information. You can have a maximum of twelve dashboard elements; use them wisely.
- Clear Identification of your business’s key metrics should dictate which reports you prioritise. Picking reports that represent your website’s goal completion rates is a good place to start.
- Remember that each of your websites or businesses may require different dashboards to show key data.
- Different analytics users need personalised dashboards so each person sees the information that’s relevant to their role.
You can add and remove new reports with ease. And, when it’s necessary, you should. Over time your business will develop, and your use of analytics will become more sophisticated. Remember that the dashboard is customisable for a reason: don’t miss an opportunity to keep tabs on relevant information, and don’t be afraid of streamlining your dashboard.
June 22nd, 2010 - No Comments »
Posted in Website Analytics | Tags: analytics dashboard, google, google analytics, seo, web analytics
Fresh from the wire comes the news that IBM have announced the takeover of Web Analytics powerhouse Coremetrics. Coremetrics, a leading organisation in the marketing optimisation field, produced the Coremetrics Continuous Optimization Platform, their own analytics and optimisation software.
That IBM could see the worth of buying Coremetrics is no surprise. Web analytics – especially when it’s combined with the kind of aggressive optimisation espoused by Coremetrics – offers genuine and tangible ROI. More than just technical feedback, it also provides insight into visitor behaviour that can bolster knowledge of target demographics and open up new routes to selling. The IBM press release announcing the acquisition of Coremetrics contains this telling little stat:
“IBM’s 2010 CEO Study showed that 88 percent of CEOs will focus on getting closer to their customers in next five years, 82 percent of CEOs want to better understand customer needs and 85 percent of CEOs require more visibility into their businesses.”
That’s just some of the kind of data that Web Analytics can provide. Joe Davis, CEO of Coremetrics, further backs this up: “Marketers increasingly need the ability to see across their organizations and the agility to make split-second decisions based on real-time data.” This is as true for IBM/Coremetric’s giant clients as it is for North West based SEMS and Start-ups. The future of online marketing is intertwined with the future of Analytical measurement and analysis.
June 15th, 2010 - No Comments »
Posted in Website Analytics | Tags: coremetrics, IBM, news, optimisation, roi, web analytics
New research from UKOM – UK Online Measurement – shows that there’s been a significant increase in the amount of time that British residents are spending online. According to UKOM, web use has grown by 65% in the last three years; web users are spending an average of just under a day a month on the internet.
There’s significant change in the way people are using the internet. Social networks and blogs are taking up the majority of time spent online. The growing focus on information sharing and interaction between users and the sites they visit is clearly reflected in UKOM’s report.
What does this information mean for the online marketing industry? An increase in web use means there’s more potential for engaging with visitors. Well, although UKOM’s figures might seem distressing at first, showing a relative 3% fall in the use of search engine websites, there’s a concurrent 10% increase in the use of portals, which increasingly incorporate their own search functions. Think Yahoo!, MSN’s integration of Bing on its homepages, the increasing ubiquity of iGoogle… People are using the web more, so they’re using search more, they’re just getting used to having search come as part of their portal.
It’s the increasingly social nature of web use that presents the biggest opportunities in our industry. Brands and businesses – i.e. our existing clients and our future clients – need to react to this change, and we need to be there to offer them the skill-sets and the tools that meet their needs.
It’s in the interests of the search platforms to facilitate effective advertising and marketing, hence Google’s quick response to changes in web use (Content network remarketing, for example). It’s in our interest, and the interests of our competitors, to do a number of things:
- Continue to develop our analytics methodology so we can deliver actionable insights within a changing online environment.
- Adapt our use of advertising platforms so we’re always exploiting the opportunities that will benefit our clients.
- Ensure that we continue to deliver best-practice SEO which is always centred on the visitor.
We’re well up for it.
Does anyone have any other opinions on what UKOM’s report indicates for our industry? Leave a comment and share your insight.
May 21st, 2010 - No Comments »
Posted in General | Tags: content network, google, search stat, seo, Social Media, web analytics
