My slow traffic and how analytics is giving me hope for better days ahead

As part of class assignments associated with this blog, I’ll be keeping up with some Google Analytics reporting on blog traffic to this site. I installed Google Analytics on this page only about two weeks ago, and this blog is certainly in its infancy, so my traffic to date has been a little lackluster. It has, however, been telling enough to provide some valuable insights that I plan on using to further increase traffic during the coming weeks. In this post I’ll be highlighting some basic reports and metrics within Google Analytics that I’ve found to be useful in measuring my site’s effectiveness. Also, I’ll take a look at a few reports that will become even more helpful as I collect more data in the weeks ahead. Hopefully, all of this information will provide some insights to my readers who might be looking at developing more robust web analytics for their own sites, whether they are small businesses or other blogs.

Immediate Feedback Google Analytics Reports

The “Visitors Overview” report provides instant feedback about the nature of visitors coming to my site, no matter how few. This report can be adjusted to provide insights over a designated period of time. For now, I’m sticking with the standard 30-day view. Within the Visitors Overview dashboard, pictured below, I can see several metrics that can help me start getting a basic feel for how effective my blog might be.

 

As you can see, as of Sunday, June 24, 2012, I only had a measly 9 visits to my blog site, however, there are a few metrics that show me this traffic is likely at least somewhat engaged.

Pageviews and Pages/Visit – The average number of pages per visit was 3.22. Considering my blog only has five possible pages (a home page and individual pages for each of four posts), I can assume that my visitors are engaged enough to browse my blog pretty thoroughly.

Average Visit Duration – The average visit duration reported was 4 minutes, 55 seconds. Depending on how fast my visitors read, I assume this visit duration is long enough for them to each be reading at least one blog post. Like the Pageviews and Pages/Visit metrics, this also helps tell me how engaged my visitors are.

New vs. Returning Visitors – Most of my visitors so far are classified as New Visitors, meaning they have not been to my page within the past 30 days, but about 30 percent of my visitors have been on my page at least once before. This information is valuable. As a blogger, two of my primary goals include (1) increasing viable traffic to my blog and (2) attracting regular followers to my blog. By using the New vs. Returning Visitor metric, I can easily see how I am achieving both of these goals. Ideally, I want to maintain a balance of new and returning visitors to my blog to assure me that I’m attracting a sufficient number of new visitors while also attracting visitors who are interested enough to keep coming back.

A word about bounce rate: As I review these analytics reports, I’m looking at how these metrics apply to my situation. In this case, I’m choosing not to pay too much attention to bounce rate. This is because blogs typically experience a high bounce rate, and this is a good thing. Google Analytics measures bounce rate as the percentage of visitors to a site who arrive on their first landing page then don’t click on another page before exiting the site. Visitors to blogs often find all the information they need on the very first page they see. It isn’t rare for a blog to experience a bounce rate of 70 percent or higher. (Kayden, 2012)

Digging Deeper for Visitor Insights

Next, as I look beyond the basics in analyzing my blog visitors, the “All Traffic” report, pictured below, yields some interesting insights.

This report, found under the Traffic Sources menu provides a picture of where my blog traffic is coming from. The Source/Medium column reports where the traffic came from (source) and what kind of traffic it is (medium). Each different Source/Medium combination is broken out with metrics covered in the previous section that can be compared to determine which traffic sources are the most effective.

So far, my All Traffic report tells me that much of my most engaged, returning visitors are coming from other blogger.com sites. This may even be attributed to my own clicks on my blog! The next most engaged visits are coming from the secureserver.net referral site, which is the e-mail address I used to send my blog link to a few contacts.  Finally, I can see that a link I posted on my personal Facebook page gained three visits – two from regular web visits and one through the mobile Facebook app. I can see these Facebook visits are all new visitors, so this source seems to be effective in gaining new traffic. Also, because of the nature of the bounce rate and the way that visit duration is calculated, I’ll be excluding these metrics.

Overall, my assessment of this All Traffic report tells me that my efforts are generating effective traffic from what I can tell so far. It also tells me that there is much room for improvement. Over time, I’ll be able to see whether my Facebook  and other referrals are coming back multiple times. I’ll also be able to monitor other referral efforts I make, like posting links to new blog topics on social media sharing sites like Digg and Reddit. Finally, this report shows me that my organic search engine traffic is non-existent.  Perhaps I should spend some time researching ways to optimize my posts for better search engine visibility.

More Detail on Navigation to Understand Visitor Behavior

The last report I’ll detail is the “Pages Navigation Summary” report, available within the Content menu by clicking on the All Pages report, then selecting the Navigation Summary tab. The report, pictured below, provides details about the traffic flow coming into and exiting out of a selected page within a site.

For the purpose of my site, this report initially helped me understand that almost all of my traffic revolves around the main blog landing page. Over time, I think this will evolve as I move to promote individual posts through social media sites and (hopefully) better search engine optimization. I can also see that three subsequent pageviews after the main homepage took visitors to the “Web analytics worth paying for” article, making me think that the content of this particular post is what is most appealing to my visitors. Since this blog’s posts are for prescribed class assignments, I don’t have much flexibility to tailor my content to users’ preferences, but if I did, I might consider posting more content assessing the overall value of analytics tools. In theory, I can attract more visitors and more returning visitors by focusing my posts on content that users are finding most attractive.

Obviously, there are hundreds of reports available through Google Analytics. I think the real task is sorting out which reports are the most important and easily understandable, as well as which reports are the most relatable to your objectives for your own site.

Reference:

Kayden. (2012, February 12). What is bounce rate? Avoid a common pitfall. Web Analytics Blog. Retrieved from http://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2012/02/what-is-bounce-rate/

Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords: A comparison

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying:

Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected ... Simply put: we don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services.

(Kim, 2012)

Of course, now that Facebook has become a publicly traded company, its fate lies in its ability to make money, regardless of the intent behind it.  Much of this monetization is powered by Facebook’s advertising platform, something that, in many ways, has a long way to go. Google, on the other hand, has not had a problem monetizing its advertising services. This Internet giant certainly has some advantages over Facebook when it comes to its ad options and services. Here’s a quick comparison of the some key features and how they stack up between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.

Ad format

Facebook ads follow the same structure: A thumbnail image, 3-5 word headline, URL, and two lines of text. While Google’s Text Ad format provides a similar layout (minus the photo), there are other options available that aren’t found on Facebook, including Text Ads in a variety of different sized groups, Display Ads that look much like traditional Internet banner ads, Video Ads that feature interactive components, and even mobile advertising (Mobile Ads – AdSense Help, 2012)

Pay structure

Both platforms center most of their ad payment around a cost-per-click basis, although you can buy ads on Facebook and Google based on cost-per-impression if you prefer. In general, Google’s cost-per-click ads cost more than Facebook’s cost-per-click ads. Some say that this is not necessarily an indicator that Google’s ads are more valuable, however, pointing to analyses of the true value of a Facebook fan. That is, if you use your Facebook ad to drive customers to like your page, they will actually be worth much more to your company in the long run than a Google ad conversion that simply results in a customer visiting your website. (Resnick, 2011)

Total potential reach

Facebook is indisputably the world’s largest social network, with an estimated 845 million monthly active viewers. That’s 51 percent of all Internet users! Impressive until you compare these numbers to Google’s display advertising network, which includes the search engine as well as its other properties like YouTube, Blogger, Gmail, and more than 2 million other websites. In all, Google ads have the potential to create 180 billion ad impressions per month, reaching 90 percent of all Internet users. (Kim, 2012)

Targeting ability

At first glance, it seems that Facebook’s targeting capabilities outweigh Google AdWords’. Facebook can pinpoint specific users based on things like gender, age, and even specific interests outlined in users’ profiles. While Google ads can’t be targeted to specific demographic profiles, marketers still have the ability to target their ads based on broader categories so an ad will appear if a user is browsing content that is related to its subject. Also, at a basic level, Google ads that appear in the main Google search engine window are being shown to the audience at an opportune time when they are actively seeking information on the subject. In contrast, Facebook ads are shown to users when they are most likely engaged in social activities unrelated to that ad’s subject matter.

Although I wouldn’t count out Facebook’s advertising functionality in a broad, integrated campaign, I certainly wouldn’t recommend centering an ad strategy around it. Facebook certainly seems to be a company built around a social mission – its business plan to capitalize on advertising revenue leaves something to be desired. It will be interesting to see what steps Zuckerberg and his team take to make their company’s advertising options stack up more attractively against Google in the future.

References:

Kim, L. (2012, May 15). Google Display Network vs. Facebook Advertising. WordStream. Retrieved from http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/05/15/ipo-facebook-vs-google-display-advertising

Mobile Ads – AdSense Help. (2012). Google. Retrieved from http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=185668&topic=29561&ctx=topic

Resnick, T. (2011, May 30). AdWords vs. Facebook Ads: A head-to-head comparison. AudienceWise. Retrieved from http://audiencewise.com/2011/05/adwords-vs-facebook-ads-a-head-to-head-comparison/

Building a social media following: Is it what you say or how you say it?

When it comes to building meaningful presence on social media platforms, most marketers would agree that you’ll never make any kind of impact unless you go ahead and get started – that is, you’ve got to show up to the party even if you have no idea what you’re doing yet. But beyond simply establishing a corporate Facebook page or Twitter account, what is the most impactful method of accumulating customers?  The debate over content vs. conversation is in full swing.

On one side of the debate is the idea that you will pull in more regular customers by putting together a content calendar, much like an editorial publication, then posting planned content on a consistent basis. The thought process behind this point of view is that without content, there isn’t a whole lot to talk about. By posting to social media channels consistently, you will establish a readership base much like any news site. (Greenberg, 2009)

The opposite side of the debate asserts that social media marketers who simply schedule and push content are not getting the big picture. Proponents of the social media conversation method acknowledge the need for consistent content, but take it to a different level, asserting that that content must be engaging – a conversation starter. Also, another idea behind the conversation theory is that social media exists because people like having a platform where their voices can be heard, so marketers who do not acknowledge their customers’ voices are missing the whole point of this vehicle. On this side of the debate, marketers feel that you must post engaging content consistently and constantly listen to your customers’ voices when speaking on social media platforms. (Novak, 2010)

I generally tend to side with conversation strategists on this debate topic because I think we miss out on a lot of goodwill feelings from our customers by failing to acknowledge them. This applies to in-person interactions just as much as it does social media interactions. Of course, when it comes to the method of this interaction, a lot of variables come into play. Any good marketer knows not to blindly subscribe to one strategy without first considering his/her business objectives. Ask yourself: What do you hope to achieve with social media? Do you want to be an idea base resource for customers who have never heard of you? Do you want to be a source of entertainment for an already established customer base? Do you want to simply be a news source on a particular subject area? Certainly these scenarios will dictate different levels of conversation-based vs. content-based strategy in the social media arena. Inevitably, your social media solution will be some combination of the two.

Marketing firm Sprout Content provided some tips to create a “Social Media Conversation Calendar,” a tool that unifies content and conversation. In this calendar, marketers plan a date/day of the week, content bucket (including the specific target and intention for the post) as well as writing out possible posts for each of several social platforms. An example is illustrated below. (Williams, n.d.)

This method acknowledges the importance of developing a set schedule (content theory) but also pushing conversation starters and allowing marketers to be organized in advance, freeing up their resources to allow time to respond to the conversations happening on their platforms. I personally love this method and am considering implementing it in my own organization. I’ll probably also add columns to measure the success of each content/conversation item, recording metrics such as “likes,” re-posts, re-tweets, and comments.

References:

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Williams, D. (n.d.). Creating a social media conversation calendar. Content Marketing Blog. Retrieved from http://www.sproutcontent.com/blog/bid/131492/Creating-a-Social-Media-Conversation-Calendar

An ever-changing array of web metrics

The whole idea of web analytics is one that has become increasingly complex (some might call it “detailed”) over the course of the past several years. Metrics have exploded from simply tracking hits on an individual web page, regardless of whether they were unique visitors or not. Now tools like Google Analytics offer free reporting that can provide details about actions and interactions of each individual visitor from time spent on the site to search keywords used to get there.

            With all these types of web metrics, it seems as though we can get our hands on nearly any kind of data regarding the visitors to our pages. I have a hard time imagining ways to improve on what we currently have at our fingertips. This can probably be attributed, in part, to the fact that I’m still learning to make sense of the data that is already available to me! Regardless, analytics developers are still creating new, valuable metrics. Here is a quick overview of two of the newest reports on deck.

LogMyCalls

This is the latest development in Google’s Phone CallTracking App Gallery. The new tool allows users to input data on customer phone call campaigns, integrating this data with web analytics tools at the same time (PRWeb, 2012). One way the app accomplishes this is by inserting unique phone numbers in a web page for different referring campaigns. Calls generated through these numbers can be attributed directly back from those campaigns, providing a specific referral source within Google’s web analytics platform. (Website Integration, 2012) This “Dynamic Number Insertion” leads to more precise analysis of the affect of specific ad campaign elements on web traffic and, ultimately, conversions.

Browser Size Analysis

This is a new metric tracked by the free Google Analytics tool. Browser size has become increasingly important to analysts as the number of different devices used to access the Internet continues to grow. Even certain classifications of devices such as mobile phones or tablets have very different ranges of screen resolutions. Of course, screen resolution can drastically affect the user experience on a website. The new Google Analytics metric not only provides data about how many visitors are coming to a particular page with different browser sizes, but it also offers a visualization tool so that marketers can actually preview what their page looks like in different browser sizes so they can gain a clear picture of whether certain page elements like e-commerce buttons may fall outside the viewable area for some users. (Perez, 2012)

With an ever-changing array of analytics tools at our fingertips, it’s tough to keep up with the latest resources available to maximize our marketing impact. I’m sure we’ll soon see the day where we can track what brand of shirt our website visitors are wearing when they visit our site so we can draw some new conclusions about our demographics. (OK, maybe this is a little far-fetched?)

            In the end, I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that these analytical reports don’t all have to be used at once to be effective at providing insight into marketing tracking and website optimization. In fact, I would venture to say that we don’t even need to look at some of these reports to make a positive impact on our sites’ designs. As we sort through our constantly-changing toolbox of metrics, let’s keep that in mind!

References:

Perez, J. G. (June 4, 2012). Google Analytics adds browser-size analysis. PCWorld. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/256818/google_analytics_adds_browsersize_analysis.html

PRWeb. (May 30, 2012). Google Analytics adds LogMyCalls to Phone Call Tracking App Gallery. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.chron.com/business/press-releases/article/Google-Analytics-Adds-LogMyCalls-to-Phone-Call-3595059.php

Website Integration. (2012). LogMyCalls. Retrieved from http://www.logmycalls.com/website-integration

Web analytics worth paying for?

When it comes to web analytics tools, Google Analytics is the top choice, more popular by far than other options that offer services for a charge instead of Google’s oh-so-attractive free price tag. It is estimated that just slightly less than half of the top 1 million websites have Google Analytics profiles set up to track their traffic (Metric Mail, 2010) It seems that more than a few other companies share my affinity for free marketing tools!

            Of course, Google Analytics is not the only free web metrics tool out there. Other popular free tools include the following:

·      Yahoo! Web Analytics – Offers essentially the same tools as Google Analytics. Yahoo! Analytics also incorporates some demographic data captures from users who have provided it via other Yahoo! products (like e-mail accounts).

·      4Q – Incorporates a qualitative surveying tool to help marketers get a look at the whole picture of what’s happening when visitors are on their site.

·      Piwik – An open source analytics tool that isn’t hosted by a third party. Piwik users download the software and host it on their own servers, so they can have more confidence about the security of their data.

(Gube, 2009)

From everything I’ve seen, it appears that Google Analytics has the easiest set up process. Maybe this is why it remains so popular. I can certainly see why some of these other options might be attractive.

            For marketers looking to delve deeper into their web metrics reporting, there is no shortage of paid tools. Marketers interested in added functionality can choose to use a product that has a very low cost, like Clicky, or they can buy in to a larger, more comprehensive solution that ties in to other customer databases. IBM’s Coremetrics is one of the most popular high-end web analytics tools. Google Analytics also offers a premium service that can be purchased as an add-on for up to $100,000.

            The Measuring Success blog recently highlighted two ways companies can evaluate whether a paid analytics tool is worth the cost. Author Brian Clifton (2011) pares it down to two factors – resource and value. The resource benchmark is based on the manpower a company has dedicated to website analysis. Clifton says if you don’t have at least one full-time staff person devoted to evaluating your web metrics, you will never be able to get through all the data available in the free tools, let alone start making use of metrics exclusive to paid analytics tools. The value benchmark looks at actual ROI of the tool. For example, if you are looking into Google Analytics Premium at an annual cost of $150,000, “if your conversion process is a $10 million per year revenue generator for you, $150k is of the order of 1-2% of the revenue. That means, if GA Premium can help you improve your conversion rate by a mere 1-2% it will have paid for itself.”

            There is a whole world of paid and free tools out there, but here’s the way I see it. I’m certain that there are benefits unique to each and every product, and that a company with an infinite amount of resources could make use of many of these products to paint a rich picture of its customer experience on its website. In my current position, I run a four-man marketing team at a public university, so my time and staff resources are at a minimum. My plan is to stick with mastering one or two free tools before I even fathom making a move to any kind of paid reporting platform. I’ll be taking things one step at a time!

References:

Clifton, B. (November 15, 2011). Should you pay $150,000 for your web analytics tool? Measuring Success. Retrieved from http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2011/11/15/should-you-pay-150000-for-your-web-analytics/

Gube, J. (January 2, 2009). 10 promising free web analytics tools. Six Revisions. Retrieved from http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/10-promising-free-web-analytics-tools/

Metric Mail. (August 4, 2010). Google Analytics market share. The Metric Mail Blog. Retrieved from http://metricmail.tumblr.com/post/904126172/google-analytics-market-share