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Your analytics data is nearly as important as the financial accounts of your business when it comes to making a decision about your website. Your analytics data helps you understand how effective your site’s marketing, design and content is. And just as you wouldn’t hire more staff without being sure you have the budget for it, you shouldn’t redesign your website without understanding what your customers do when they are on it.

Below are seven ways Google Analytics can be used to help make the right decisions during a redesign.

1. What browsers and windows sizes should we support?

When designing your site you want to ensure that the majority of your customers can view your website and convert without browser versions or sizes preventing this.

I’d personally think that you should design your website in a size that at least 95% of your visitors can see without having to scroll horizontally. An easy way to check what browser sizes your current visitors are using is to go the Screen resolutions report under Visitors > Browser capabilities > Screen resolutions.

By comparing to site average you can also see if any particular screen resolution(s) has a significantly higher bounce rate

In the graph above you can see that the wider screen resolutions are actually performing much worse – this could be addressed by using a liquid layout or JavaScript to position content.

A quick way to check if your site has browser compatibility is to look at the browser report and compare each type to the site average, for the website below it is clear that there is poor support for safari.

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Recently, I have been working in both the PPC and SEO teams at iCrossing. Batting for both sides in this way has highlighted the traditionally very different ways in which these disciplines are generally analysed and reported on.

It feels like we are getting closer and closer to the point where we will be able to use the same metrics across search as a whole, and the points here are where I think that Paid Search methods can now be applied to Natural Search campaigns.

…..and I want to go beyond simply reporting the ROI or CPA of Natural Search campaign because, although it generally makes you look very good compared to Paid Search, I don’t need to explain how to do that (hopefully).

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If you haven’t created a Facebook Page you need to do so now. The urgency is due to Facebook launching Community Pages. If you don’t have a Page of your own then these Pages will appear top of searches on Facebook for your brand terms.

Community Pages are “dedicated to a topic or experience that is owned collectively by the community connected to it”. Right now there is no ‘community’ to directly contribute to these Pages so they’re being generated in part by running a search query on public posts related to the term in question. Say I’m looking for ODEON’s presence on Facebook and do a search by this brand term. The top result is not a property owned by ODEON but a Community Page that pulls in Wikipedia’s entry as a description followed by a list of the most recent posts featuring this term. This is the top post as I write this:

With no brand-developed Page to compete with, visitors to this Page are going to leave having had no opportunity to engage with ODEON itself. They may even ‘Like’ this page which represents a further missed opportunity to start building an all-important network of followers tied to an official presence. ODEON are losing the chance to be useful and relevant to people who’ve expressed an active preference in finding something out about them. These people are highly likely to be engaging in social activity around a film release, perhaps trying to find out what’s showing and arranging to go and see something with friends.
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the iPad is faced with a massive volume of polarized [sic] opinions and resulting uncertainty, due to a difficulty to see through what I call “the fog of blah” surrounding the launch. This device is an argument magnet, battles over a ton of digital media issues from DRM to the (yawn) PC vs. Mac debate have all converged on the iPad for a few weeks.

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There is a lot of research around the happiness topic and which is the country that holds the highest index of happiness. I have read different research studies which normally provide different results and obviously different rankings.

Facebook has published a Gross National Happiness Index where you can track levels of happiness across different countries. Users rate their happiness as positive or negative. I found this at least interesting but of doubtful methodology although 400 million of Facebook users is a fair sample.

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Content Strategy is lining up to be “the next big thing” to happen online, if you are to believe the hype.

The queen of content strategy Kristina Halvorson wrote this post in February which argued that: “Content strategy is more or less on the same trajectory as social media was three years ago”.

There does seem to be a growing interest. Google trends data show search volumes for content strategy and related terms in March 2010 running at about twice the rate as January 2007 (taking into account the growth in overall search volumes). Searches specifically for “online content strategy” have risen 70% during that time.

It’s a compelling story. And being honest, as Content Director at iCrossing, it has really helped when talking to people about what we want to do with content to help them to reach their business goals. No one wants to be missing out on “the next big thing”, do they?

But this post isn’t about the “sellability” of Content Strategy as a project or service.

It’s about the idea that this is a new discipline.

Charlie Peverett and I went to a stimulating and well-attended event last week in London’s fashionable Shoreditch. Content Strategy, Manhattan Style invited attendees to meet “three of New York’s finest content strategists… for an evening of informal discussions, socialising, and perhaps a little drinking”. Most interestingly for me, the event blurb suggested that this was “the place to be if you want to learn more about the business value, opportunities, and practical application of this emerging field of practice” [my emphasis].
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1) Video content & Personalised SERPs

When creating a video or TV ad, reference your web site – and not just with the URL but also with “Search for …”. Not only with this aid in the viewer of the video remembering more easily how to navigate to your site, or even a specific web page, but also it can help influence viewers personalised searches within Google.

Through understanding Social Media platforms and understanding the networks your target audience live in you can seed these videos effectively for maximum exposure.

With personalised search now by default within Google, brands need to think how they can maximise on their audiences search history. Instead of suggesting at the end of the video or TV ad to search for just the brand name, consider incorporating non-brand terms into the call to action as well, i.e. “Search for brand product/service“. This can then build you brands relation to these non-brand terms and influence your rankings for these terms as well.

Of course this has huge potential if the videos created are useful, engaging, easy to share and of course have that ‘je ne sais quoi’ element that makes videos go viral.

Photo credit: CC Flickr user dan_taylor

But be aware, if executed poorly like the Orange ‘I am’ campaign you open yourself up to a lot of criticism. Orange promoted “I am” through their commercials & billboards, initially it  was a fail (it still is.. they rank #3 currently) as their site wasn’t ranking for the keyword in Google natural search and industry experts criticised them for their poor implementation.
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If you are reading this, the chance is that you will have either an iPhone or an Android. We all do. In fact, I have both, and lately I had to use them a few times to check positions and look at my analytics. I have been through a lot of apps, some better and some worse. I thought it would be quite useful to share the best ones. I am going to start with the iPhone, but expect the Android version very soon.

Positions:

SEO Check (£1.19)

This one is simple but effective. Check your positions, nothing more. It gives you the possibility of tracking international SERPs and keeps a history record of your positions, which may be quite useful. It has a nice interface too.

SEO Search Ranking (£1.19)

This one is not as nice as Seo Check, but it does the job. Nothing new here, move on.

Analysis:

SEO Adviser (£1.19)

This app will check the basic optimisation elements and obstacles depending on the keywords you tell him to check. And I don’t really like the UI. But it does the job.

SEO Automatic (£5.99)

Another analysis app. Very simple and intuitive, in fact, a bit too simple for my taste. If you don’t want to spend £6 on this, there is a free Lite version.

SEO IT (£1.79)

Quite a clunky app that will analyse any page you introduce. It can give you a quick link report, which is nice. And it is quite useful to analyse content. However, I was really put off by the interface of this app.

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It’s been a while since my last taste of snowy alpine goodness and even longer since my last post on Connect and so thought I would get myself back in the swing of things with a post combining two of my favourite endeavours; snowboarding and paid search.

Now, I appreciate that to some people the connection might not be immediately apparent, and others may even think it tenuous, but bear with me and all will become clear.  And if, like me, you very much like paid search and snowboarding, then you’re in for a treat!

Now, without further ado…5 ways in which you can use snowboarding best practice to improve your PPC ROI:

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