SEO Review

With dozens of free web analytics tools available in the market, Google Analytics stands out because it provides data like no other tool does. Just add a few lines of JavaScript code to your website’s footer and you have access to a vast amount of metrics you can slice and dice.

This data is useful to develop and implement fresh website marketing strategies and understanding the behavior online of your web visitors.

But before diving into Google Analytics, prepare a list of the most important questions you want answered from this tool.

3 Important Questions to Ask Google Analytics:

1. What do you want visitors to do on your website?

Every website has a purpose. It may be to provide information, build a brand or sell products online. Set your goals for the website and build it accordingly.

The Goals category of Google Analytics helps you to understand the number of goals achieved in a day, week or month. All you need to do is set your goal URL in the analytics settings and watch the data pour in. The funnel visualization sub category provides this type data:

• How many visitors completed my goals?
• How many visitors abandoned the goals to move onto other URL?
• Which internal pages did visitors came from to the goal webpage?

2. What is the Visitor doing on the Website?

Analysis of this data enables you to track the visitor’s action on the website. You can find out whether the visitor completed the goal you set. Accordingly you can make the changes which will reinforce goal completion. The content category in the left sidebar of Google Analytics provides important data:

• Top Content. It contains a list of the content viewed by the visitor, arranged in descending order. This lets you know the most popular pages of the website and how to leverage them.
• Top Landing Pages. These are the pages visitors land on, before going ahead and browsing the website. You can view the browsing path for each webpage and find a pattern.
• Top Exit Pages. It contains a list of web pages which failed to generate interest among the visitors and lead them to exit the website. Revamp the exit pages with these details and aim to convert them into your top content pages.
• Site Overlay. The Site Overlay opens a new web page which contains a small progress bar over every link. This bar shows the percentage of the number of clicks on that link. As the number of clicks on a link increase, the percentage of the progress bar increases.

3. Where is the Visitor coming from?

This is one of the most important data elements you can work on to get insights into the visitor. The ‘Traffic Sources’ category displays the websites and keywords which send traffic to your website. This category can be segregated into:

• Direct Traffic. This contains the number of visitors who came to the website by entering its URL into their web browser. Direct traffic is also used to determine the popularity of the website.
• Referring Sites. Referring websites are the ones which link back to a website using some content and a link. The visitors get referenced from the source website and land on the target website using the link provided. Referring websites can be used to judge the success of social media marketing techniques.
• Search Engines. It contains a list of the search engines which send traffic to the website. Google Analytics also lists keywords which were clicked upon by the visitors. A high percentage of visits from search engines indicate a successful search engine optimization strategy.

The answers to the above questions coupled with custom reports and segmentation provide rewarding insights. These metrics can be used to model the website around the desired goal and achieve higher conversions.

Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Learn about search engine marketing, paid search advertising, social media, and email marketing. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips. Follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to one of our SEO Consultants and receive your free consultation.

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Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

By Trey Pennewell (c) 2009

In August, Google announced the upcoming roll out of the Google Caffeine infrastructure. Google was quick to point out that they would not launch the new infrastructure until after the Christmas holiday shopping season — giving many online retail stores confidence for the upcoming Christmas shopping season.

In the August announcement, Google described Caffeine this way:

“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences…”

After Thanksgiving, Google said that they had taken Caffeine out of its “sandbox” phase, and that it launched Caffeine on only one of its Data Centers. Search Engine Land was able to confirm that Google had launched Caffeine on the IP address 209.85.225.103, and it was running on this IP address for at least half of its searches. However, the full roll out of Caffeine continues to remain in holding pattern, until after the Christmas season.

Analyzing Google’s Search Engine Result Pages…

Several online publishers and SEO companies jumped into testing the Google Caffeine search results in August, when the original announcement was made public.

The results of testing were somewhat mixed…

Everyone pretty much agreed that the Caffeine infrastructure was faster than the original Google infrastructure, except for results that included Advanced Search queries, such as when you are using subtraction signs, quotes in query, etc. Mashable suggested that Google Caffeine actually doubled the speed of a Google search.

• Google Caffeine tends to show a larger data set for the number of search results for a particular search.
• The weighting of Video and Universal Search is scaled back in Caffeine.
• A slight value increase to exact match domain names.
• Google seems to be putting a little bit more emphasis on the age of a website.
• An increased weight for domain authority and tag pages on authority websites.
• A substantial increase in weight for social media websites. Currently FriendFeed seems to carry more weight than Twitter or FaceBook.
• Google Caffeine has shown a tendency to put more weight on keyword phrases or keyword strings, as opposed to singular keywords.
• Another major change, which is a reflection of how Google deals with breaking news stories, is that Google is willing to show the title and a description of a page, before it even caches the page in its index.

An interesting change in the Google Search Engine Results that I noted while doing the research for this article is that about half-way down the page, Google has added a real-time element to news items…

What they have done is to load a self-updating Iframe to the search results that shows updated news items on a topic as they become available. The image results are located just under this real-time news block. You can see it now, by doing a quick Google search for Barack Obama.

Also of interest about this real-time news window is that it is actually capturing some of its results from Twitter and other social media websites.

What This Means To Webmasters and SEO Providers…

If you have been relying upon video to push you to the top of Google’s search results, this is no longer a sure-fire method of achieving top search placement quickly.

If you thought that Twitter and other social media websites were worthless to you in Google, then you might start taking a second look.

If you are not getting listings or mentions on authority websites, then you may be missing out on some SEO opportunities.

If you have a keyword-heavy domain name, then your investment may start to help you more going forward.

If you have focused on single keywords and bypassed keyword strings for optimization, you may begin paying heavily for that decision going forward.

Domain age will become more important after Caffeine is fully rolled out, so it is in our best interests to seek links from older websites and to put more emphasis on older sites in our domain portfolios.

Old Google vs New Google Comparisons

Some SEO Providers have noted major changes between the two search engines, although in my own experience, the placement for my target keywords has not suffered, but I have not made major gains either.

In the Old Google, I could put a search result on page one of Google in as little as 15 minutes. I hope that remains unchanged moving forward into the future. Of course my stuff isn’t news, so I will be holding my breath that I can put a web page on page one of Google in only a few minutes.

The main difference we are going to see going forward is the emphasis on keyword strings as opposed to keywords in the new Google Caffeine roll-out.

If you have been targeting single keywords for your website or the websites of your clients, be prepared to scramble to overcome your losses in Google’s search rankings… But if you have been targeting those long-tail keywords for any length of time, then you will probably be dancing on the ceiling once Google Caffeine is live across all of its data centers.

In Conclusion…

We have seen a lot of testimony that Google will not change its appearance that much after the Google Caffeine roll-out…

But we have seen enough testimony to expect that some people will be crying rivers of tears, while others will be dancing the jig, after the Google Caffeine launch…

The only thing we can know for sure at this point, is that we really won’t know the impact of Caffeine until after the roll-out as 2010 gets underway.

About The Author

Trey Pennewell is a writer who has written about SEO and online business for a number of years. He encourages you to learn about and purchase the new SEO ebook titled, “Karma SEO and the Great Search Engine Ranking Dance” at www.LinksAndTraffic.com.

Do you really want your website on page one of Google for your chosen keyword phrase(s)? What do you want your marketing online campaign to accomplish for you?

I asked a potential new SEO Coaching client last week this first question. From my end of the phone call, it sounded as if he almost fell out of his chair!

I followed up by asking him if he could ever think of ANY reason for his website pages NOT to be found on page 1 in the Google SERPs (search engine results pages).

How ’bout you? Can you think of any reasons you’d NOT want your pages to be found for your targeted keyword phrases on page 1?

Keep in mind, I’m talking about your chosen keyword search phrases.

I can think of at least 3 reasons. Maybe you can come up with some as well.

Is there Commercial Intent?

Let’s say you have not just a page 1 Google result, but you’re actually the first result. Here is an important question for you to ask yourself.

What is the commercial intent of this keyword phrase? Do the words contained in the keyword phrase give any indication of someone getting ready to spend money on a product or service like you provide?

For instance, compare these keyword phrases: Keyword Research, Keyword Research Specialist and Keyword Research Consultant. The latter 2 phrases give an indication of someone who is getting ready to spend money.

You can also Google the Microsoft Commercial Intent Tool and consider its results when evaluating your keyword search phrase choices.

If you are targeting a keyword phrase that has questionable commercial intention at best, is there any reason to really be found on page 1? Wouldn’t it be better to target more appropriate phrases instead?

If there’s no commercial intent, how does that help your online marketing?

Can you see where I’m going?

How Much Traffic Really Matters

Now, I’m giving you a choice: you can have a first page result (with commercial intent) and your position number is 4.

Your other choice is a different keyword search phrase with a second page result, position number 12, also with commercial intent.

So, the choice is obvious?

Well, I forgot to give you the rest of the details.

The first page choice has monthly search queries for its phrase of 3,240.

The second page result choice has monthly search queries for its phrase of 22,167.

Do you still believe that the best choice in this example is the first page result?

According to numbers from Aaron Wall’s site, approximately 6% of search users will click on that number 4 result in Google. That’s 194 visitors in a month.

This is figuring average title and description tags of typical online marketíng ability to convert to a click. “Your mileage may vary.”

And for that second choice, the second page result? Over 1% should click on the search result, but let’s use just 1%. That’s 222 visitors per month.

Last time I checked, 222 is more than 194, so the second page result trumps the first page result, because the second page result has greater traffic that can convert to a transaction.

How Many Google AdWords Ads Show for your Chosen Keyword?

If you don’t see many AdWords ads, this should be a warning!

One of 2 problems exist (or both):

1. There isn’t enough traffic for AdWords advertisers to target the phrase.      2. There isn’t commercial viability for the phrase. Either way, is a first page result going to help you? Probably not.

The Value of a Committed Searcher

Want a recipe to waste your time (or your employees’)? Get a first page result in Google for your keyword search phrase and place your toll-free phone number in big numbers on the top right of each of your Web pages.

People clicking the first result in the SERPs are often less serious than those who go through the first few results or who continue searching onto the second page.

There may be something to be said for avoiding people who almost randomly click the first result and who may have impulse control “issues”.

Now, if you have a large staff to answer your incoming phone calls AND if your conversion rate from those calls is strong, then the potential problem I described probably isn’t a problem for your business.

On the other hand, if you are a solo professional, this strategy can be hazardous!

How are you going to perform your paid work when you get “Internet lookiloos” asking you questions they could get answered, if they would simply read a few words on your website?

Are these the best potential clients for your services or products and the best use of your time?

A second page result could bring you more serious potential customers, people who might be more likely to actually READ your website content, understand your products or services better and who might be more likely to convert to a transaction.

It’s sure something to think about.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against first page rankings for your marketing. I’m just for thinking a little further down the road than JUST first page rankings.

About The Author

Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a budget. He’s an Online Marketíng Consultants expert, offering marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). You can learn more about Paul on his Affordable SEO LinkedIn profile and at Strategic Web Marketing.net.

A Google Webmaster Help video from Matt Cutts released on Nov. 10, 2009 got me thinking how the listing text in Google’s search results can easily be overlooked by some webmasters in their SEO efforts.

SEO is all about extending the reach of your web site content to your target market using online search platforms. You can tell when this has been achieved, and to what degree, by using web analytics software to monitor referral and visitor data. But what that data won’t tell you is how your site appears to users in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Sure, you’re getting traffic but perhaps you’re missing out on a lot more because your listing text is weak. You wouldn’t take out a newspaper advertisement without looking at the final proof first. So don’t be in the dark over how your site appears to people who use Google.

Poor page titles, visible copy, and description meta data can result in a weak listing. Webmasters have a lot of control over what text is displayed in a SERP, but in the end, Google reserves the right to modify result snippets if it feels the original isn’t up to par.

It’s important to remember that this decision by Google is based on a highly refined algorithm and is ultimately for the benefit of people searching for your content. That said, I’m willing to bet most webmasters still prefer to retain control over how their web site is shown in Google.

By ensuring your on-page content is the best it can be, you’re greatly increasing the chances Google doesn’t step in and tweak your listing.

Let’s look at the different elements of an organic Google search result and how we can control what is shown.

Page Title

The large blue link at the top of the snippet. As Matt points out in his video, most people know Google can modify the description snippet in the listings but not everybody is aware that Google may also change the title. In this case, it is usually due to a shortcoming with your web page’s title attribute. If the title is missing, too long or irrelevant, Google may show something more on-topic to the search query made.

Here are some tips to ensure Google displays the best possible title text to a user:

• Always ensure that page titles are unique and not just copied page to page across the site.
• The page title isn’t something you stuff with keywords. Yes, always include your most important key phrases but don’t provide a long list of everything your web site is about. It should be a concise headline that describes the content on the specific page – personally, I try to use no more than three different keywords or phrases.
• Page titles over 60 characters in length are likely to get cut down and manipulated by Google. If the search term(s) appears in a lengthy title tag, it’s likely that a snippet of it will be used where the term appears.

Listing Description

Using the same logic as for the title, the description displayed in a SERP comes from the most relevant area of your web page. IE. – The area of your text containing the word(s) used in the Google search query.

The listing snippet is typically generated from your visible copy on the page or the description meta tag. This is a good reason to optimize the description meta tag as part of your SEO campaign. While Google’s algorithm ignores it for purposes of determining rankings, it can still pull the tag’s content and display it to its users. A good description meta tag uses proper grammar and explains the page content in under two or three sentences. Remember, don’t stuff the description tag with a list of keywords. That isn’t helpful for users or the search engines.

If you write focused, quality on-page content for your target audience and create a helpful description tag, you should have your Google listing snippet covered.

Cache Version of the Page

Next to the green URL in your Google listing is usually a “Cached” link. Clicking this will display the version of your web page that was indexed by the Googlebot when it last crawled your site. Also included is the crawl date.

Why is this important? Well, if you’ve recently updated your page title or visible copy and the changes are not reflected in Google results, it probably means Google hasn’t returned to check your site’s content for updates.

Common reasons for this include few inbound links or existing inbound links of poor quality. If Google doesn’t crawl the pages that link to your site, it stands to reason they won’t visit your site frequently.

If you find your site isn’t getting crawled enough by Googlebot or other search engine robots, consider submittíng your site to local business directories or swapping links with other good quality, relevant web sites. The benefits of inbound links also go much farther than just increasing crawl frequency – they will also play a significant part in how well your site ranks.

Now that we know the elements of a typical Google listing and the factors that determine what is shown, all that’s left is for you to monitor your site listing for various keyword searches and make changes when necessary.

Remember: a top Google ranking doesn’t mean anything unless people actually click on it. Have a look at your competitors’ listings in Google and see how yours compares – which one would you click on if you did a search for that topic? In my experience, there is often room for improvement when it comes to copy writing and content relevancy. In the end, your users and the search engines will like you more for it.

About The Author

With eight years in the search engine marketing industry, John Metzler of FreshPromo knows what works and what doesn’t regarding website success. His strong grasp on visitor usability and analysis, along with a highly-skilled SEO perspective, can be seen through his professional SEO services. Read the FreshPromo blog for more free tips and commentary.