Video: Take on the World with these International Domain Strategies

Is this the year you take your website international? There are different options, each with pros and cons, for how to expand your global reach. RKG Technical Director Jody O’Donnell describes three of those options in the video below.

VIDEO TRANSCRIP…

Is this the year you take your website international? There are different options, each with pros and cons, for how to expand your global reach. RKG Technical Director Jody O'Donnell describes three of those options in the video below.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Jody O'Donnell: Hi, and welcome back to the RKG Blog. In a previous post, we talked about how to use hreflang signals for international SEO. Today, we're going to follow up with how to do international domain strategies.

Technically, there are really only three types of domain strategies that you can use: ccTLDs or Country Code Top-Level Domains, subfolders, or subdomains. We're going to walk through each one of these and hopefully show the advantages and disadvantages of each. You're going to want to make sure that you do your own evaluation on which one is going to be best for you.

ccTLD, or Country Code Top-Level Domain, is really the only true geo targeting signal from a domain standpoint that you can get. They also have a higher click-through rate and conversion rate when using them.

There are some disadvantages to ccTLDs. One, it can be difficult to get all of your domain name with all of the different country code extensions that you're going to need afterwards. It can be difficult logistically, and it can cost a lot if other people already have those domains in some of the other countries. The last disadvantage with ccTLDs is that the link equity that you acquire through one ccTLD doesn't carry over to another. So, if you have example.fr and example.es, the link equity between those don't share at all like they do with the subdomain or a subfolder.

With subfolders, you get a really easy and low-cost implementation that most development teams can do usually within a day. You also garner all of the link equity that's normally coming from that domain as it is. So, if you have 1,000 links coming intowww.example.com/fr, the 'fr' folder gets all of that link equity.

Lastly, with subdomains, you get the same low, easy-cost installation that you do with subfolders. One major difference is, though, you do not get the link equity that comes in from one subdomain to another. There's a certain amount of it that you're going to inherit from the root domain as it is, but it's not a 100% transfer from subdomain to subdomain like it is subfolders. Also, with folders and subdomains, you do not get any type of geo targeting signal from an international standpoint.

In the past, SEOs have been pretty limited in what type of international signaling that they can do. Thankfully, Google and Bing both offer webmaster tools that allow for very specific geo targeting past ccTLDs and country-specific IP addresses.

Within Google Webmaster Tools, once you've verified either your domain or subdomain, you can go into each one of those settings, go to the geo targeting section, and then target that to a very specific country. You can also see within Google Webmaster Tools whether or not your hreflang signals are being picked up correctly.

Within Bing Webmaster Tools, you can verify not only at the subdomain and the domain level, but you can geo target at the subfolder and subpage level, which is a little bit more granular than what Google allows you to do.

This geo targeting within the webmaster tools sections for the major search engines is what really allows us to expand beyond just a normal ccTLD recommendation. With subdomain and subfolders now being in the mix, it allows for smaller sites with less money and less resources to be able to go international.

ccTLDs are the only way to get true geo targeting from a domain standpoint. If you're unable to get these, then we suggest doing subfolders. Mixed in with Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools geo targeting, this is just as viable an option as the ccTLDs. On top of that, the subfolders garner all the link equity that they do from either the www or the root domain. Lastly, pick a domain strategy and be consistent.

Thanks for watching, and we look forward to the comments down below.

To Geo-Target or Not to Geo-Target

One of the greatest debates in digital marketing that can be as polarizing as Coke vs. Pepsi, iOS vs. Android, or Red Sox vs. Yankees, is to geo-target or not to geo-target in your paid search strategy.

Geo-targeting capabilities within paid search en…

One of the greatest debates in digital marketing that can be as polarizing as Coke vs. Pepsi, iOS vs. Android, or Red Sox vs. Yankees, is to geo-target or not to geo-target in your paid search strategy.

Geo-targeting capabilities within paid search engines have evolved and improved through the years. The right message to the right customer is increasingly crucial in digital marketing, which can be achieved with geo-segmented campaigns and messaging within PPC accounts.

There are pros and cons when it comes to a geo-targeted campaign structure, and many considerations to identify what is right for your brand. Some clients require geo-level campaigns for reporting purposes, but there are strategies to achieve the same level of data insights without the task of creating and managing numerous duplicate campaigns based on geography. Below are some things to consider when making the decision to create geo-coded campaigns vs. national targeting.

The "What’s in It for Me" — Pricing and Promotions

Customer experience comes first, so let’s starts with the basics. If your brand operates under a national, state, or regional footprint, you’ll want to make sure you are only targeting Paid Search within that footprint. Advertising to customers who are not within your footprint provides a poor experience and is inefficient, as you incur costs for clicks that cannot convert. This can be avoided by ensuring proper location targeting is applied to your campaigns.

Once you’ve laid the groundwork, consider if there are regional offers that would be appealing to searchers. Varied pricing or incentives across the states or regions would be a strong case for specific geo-coded campaigns. If your business also has brick-and-mortar locations, think about separate campaigns and budgets that are targeted by zip code or radius with the goal of driving in-store conversions. Retailers often see success from hyper-local paid search strategies that are custom to a specific area.

However, with the rollout of Google Enhanced Campaigns last year and the ever-growing importance of mobile, there are a lot of features that still give a customized experience within a single campaign. Consider the use of bid adjustments by geography and scripts that can dynamically insert variables, such as price points, into ad copy.

The Data — Bidding/Conversions

If the goal of a geo-coded strategy is to analyze performance at a granular, location-based level, there are several tools available to achieve the same result with the ease of national targeting of your search campaigns. Utilizing a geographic report within Google Adwords can help you understand where your paid search traffic is coming from and identify demand hotspots. Web analytics packages, such as Google Analytics, can also help identify power users of your website or brand loyalists with higher conversion rates by location. From there, bid modifiers can be applied to ensure top positioning or go after brand awareness in a sluggish market.

The Cost of Doing Business — CPCs and Efficiencies

For most search marketers, KPIs are king. While setting up a geo-targeted strategy may easily give you the data points you are looking for by location, one must consider at what cost.

Creating only geo-targeted campaigns leaves the potential for missing customers that can’t be mapped to a location due to browser settings. It can also lead to a poor user experience, as targeting is not a perfect science. This can be due to IP addresses, cell towers, or additional settings, and could lead to a message that is not valid in their area. Consider what the pros/cons are and how this could affect conversion rate and overall customer experience.

Additionally, if you implement a “catch-all” campaign for searchers who don’t fit into a location bucket, you may find that with its higher traffic volume and increased search Quality Score, the majority of your traffic still flows into this campaign.

From a CPC perspective, in my anecdotal experience, geo-targeted campaigns can see average CPCs up to 20%-30% higher than a national campaign. Think about what you could do with those additional funds from cost savings and better efficiency when evaluating your geographic strategy. If you are held to very strict efficiency KPIs, this can have a big impact on your program performance.

The End Result — Level of Effort vs. ROI

A major factor to evaluate when weighing the pros and cons of geo-targeting is to understand total budgets, KPIs and overall goals. Understand your goals and compare this to the required level of effort to effectively manage a geo-coded paid search program. Remember, you will be managing exponentially more campaign budgets, bid management of keywords, and a complex negative strategy. Ask yourself if available resources allow you to devote the effort necessary to maintain a successful geo-targeted campaign strategy. If resources are limited, there are still steps you can take in your nationally targeted campaigns to achieve the same level of data insights by location.

Like any great debate, there is no black and white answer whether geo-targeting is best. This post hopefully gives you some questions to weigh when planning out your paid search strategy. There is generally no one-size-fits-all strategy for every advertiser, but careful consideration can help you decide what is right for your business.

How Important are Pageviews for Bloggers?

If you’re a new blogger or have been around the block some, pageviews are really important. If you’re not paying attention to your website’s stats, then you’re missing out on a lot of things that could make you money. Money or any return on investment is important for a lot of bloggers, whether the blogger…

The post How Important are Pageviews for Bloggers? appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.

how-important-are-pageviews-for-bloggers-200x200If you’re a new blogger or have been around the block some, pageviews are really important. If you’re not paying attention to your website’s stats, then you’re missing out on a lot of things that could make you money. Money or any return on investment is important for a lot of bloggers, whether the blogger is a professional or writing on a website as a hobby. In this article, we’ll cover how important are pageviews for bloggers.

How Important are Pageviews for Bloggers?

What is a Pageview?

In many web analytics platforms, pageviews is a statistic that is commonly measured. Simply, a pageview is how many times a page has been seen. Yes, it’s really that simple of a definition. There are some technical ones, and Google has one specifically defined for those that use the Google Analytics tracking code.

Pageviews as defined by Google Anayltics:

A pageview is defined as a view of a page on your site that is being tracked by the Analytics tracking code. If a user clicks reload after reaching the page, this is counted as an additional pageview. If a user navigates to a different page and then returns to the original page, a second pageview is recorded as well.

A Pageview is Just Another Number, Right?

It’s a number, but not just any number. Pageviews are a very important number to bloggers because it’s one of the statistics that bloggers need to give to potential advertisers that are interested in placing ads on their site. Advertisers aren’t going to pay you to put up an text link, banner ad, or sponsored post without knowing your website’s stats.

A lot of times, the more pageviews you have, the more you can ask of an advertiser. Usually the stat they want is your monthly count, however, a lot of web analytics systems can be broken down into daily and weekly amounts.

As a note, aside from the pageviews, knowing what the majority of the audience is (gender, age range, and location), and keywords are also important numbers to pass to advertisers. For every pageview you get, web analytics platforms like Google Analytics tracks these details for you! 🙂

Pageviews versus Unique Pageviews – What is that?

Other than making money, it also allows you to see the progress of your own website. In fact, aside from pageviews, you also get a number for unique pageviews too! Unique pageviews are when the page has been visited once by a user. For example, if you visit a website and go through 6 pages after visiting the home page, and then return back to the home page when done, that is 7 pageviews, and only 6 of them are unique.

In fact, in Google Analytics, this is measured as a stat, and this is a good indicator of figuring out why your users left your site when you know where they exited the site.

So, really, how important are pageviews for bloggers? If you’re looking at your stats for pageviews for the first time, then you’re looking at a lot of potential for the future.

Do you know your pageview stats? If so, are you using your pageview stats to your advantage?

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The Quality Control Process Behind Your Big Data Solution

Big Data. It’s what every marketer needs to establish competitive advantage in today’s digital world. However, there is little insight into how Merkle ensures the quality and accuracy behind each client solution. Let’s take a look inside the “test it” …

Big Data. It’s what every marketer needs to establish competitive advantage in today’s digital world. However, there is little insight into how Merkle ensures the quality and accuracy behind each client solution. Let’s take a look inside the "test it" portion of the process to see what's involved in verifying the integrity of a world-class big data solution. Merkle follows a three-phase quality control process: Unit testing, system Integration testing, and user acceptance testing. 

1. Unit Testing 

Unit testing is generally the first set of quality checks on the solution, executed by the developer during his or her development process. The developer will validate that the completed code works properly as a small unit piece on its own. 

2. System Integration Testing

The majority of the testing effort falls under system integration testing, which is planned and executed by the quality assurance team. It can be further described by looking at the most common functional areas that make up a big data solution at Merkle:

  • Customer Data Integration (CDI) Testing: provides validation of a functional, client-specific rule set for the solution. This is critical as much of the down stream processing relies on the accuracy of this data.
  • Staging Testing: validation of the source data and loading into the staging area in the database.
  • Target Testing: validation of transformations, aggregations, derived attributes, besting, and other advanced proceedings as data is moved into the target tables.
  • Database Integration Testing: end-to-end testing that runs all processing and automation on the data, starting with staging of source data and ending with campaign file outputs, aggregations, and reports.
  • Application/Extract Testing: verification of data integrity and integration with the campaign systems, business intelligence reporting systems, extracts to email and direct mail providers, back feeds, portal extracts, and web services.
  • System Testing: tests between the solution under development and any third-party systems (outside vendors, in-house client solutions, etc.).
  • Campaign/Campaign Mart Testing: verification of the data loaded into the campaign management systems and/or custom campaign marts developed for the client.

This diagram describes the general "component view" of the testing process followed at Merkle:

The quality control process with a database install

In all of these component areas and in each step of the testing process, data quality and integrity is analyzed for the smallest of variances, which are then corrected. We’ve seen how small errors in data can become large anomalies as the data is processed and flows through the solution, making this attention to detail a critical hallmark of a world-class quality program.

3. User Acceptance Testing

Once the quality assurance team completes testing, it is time for solution acceptance. The testing component of the solution acceptance process is user acceptance testing (UAT).  The goal of UAT is for the client to validate the solution's functionality as outlined in the business requirements. In most situations, Merkle assists the client in preparing and executing these UATs, ending with the client’s acceptance of the solution.

Finally, a series of automation quality checks are put in place when the solution transitions into the production environment. These quality checks are automated tests that ensure the accuracy of the data during normal solution processing. They alert to any anomalies in the data environment so that it can be corrected before it becomes an issue for the client’s solution.

Google Analytics: How to Set Up a Simple Goal

Google Analytics provides a great feature for website owners to be able to track specific campaigns, also called a goal. It can be places on pages, forms, or anything you are wanting to track for to see if a campaign has an effective website conversion. It also tracks how the visitor arrived to the area…

The post Google Analytics: How to Set Up a Simple Goal appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.

google-analytics-thumbnailGoogle Analytics provides a great feature for website owners to be able to track specific campaigns, also called a goal. It can be places on pages, forms, or anything you are wanting to track for to see if a campaign has an effective website conversion. It also tracks how the visitor arrived to the area you want to convert.

This works great after you’ve tried A/B Testing so you can verify the results from live traffic. In this article, you’ll learn how to set up a simple goal in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics: How to Set Up a Simple Goal

Please note, if you haven’t added your site to Google Analytics, then you can’t take advantage of the goal tool until you do. Aside from adding your site to Google Analytics, you will also need to apply the generated tracking code to your website.

The first step is in creating a simple goal is by clicking on your site in the Google Analytics dashboard. On the right hand side, scroll down to the area called Conversions. If you click on it, the area will expand and show you other links. Look for the area called overview as shown below.

googleanalytics-goals-screenshot-1

Now, you can either do this and be led to set up a simple goal or you can also click the Admin tab at the top. Image is below. In order to view the image larger and much better, you will have to right click on the image to open it in a new tab or window.

googleanalytics-goals-screenshot-2

On the last column under View, is an area called Goals. You’ll click that and be led to the page that has an area much like the image below.

googleanalytics-goals-screenshot-3

Click on the red button to create a goal. Once you have, you will need to name your goal and tell it hat type of tracking you want. In the case of this tutorial, and it being how to set up a simple goal, we’ll choose the first option called Destination. This is great for contact forms or lead generation forms. Once you have selected the option on how you want to track your goal, then click the blue button that says Next Step. See the example image below to see how you should proceed.

googleanalytics-goals-screenshot-4

In the next step, you tell it what page you are wanting to land on. You do not put the full URL. See the image below for how this step should go.

googleanalytics-goals-screenshot-5

Before hitting the blue button that says Create Goal, make sure to click the link that says Verify this Goal. This helps to make sure that your goal will work and checks it against your previous 7 days of stats on Google Analytics. In the case that you just joined and don’t have 7 days of stats, then proceed by clicking the button to create the goal. You can always check after a few days if the goal is actually working.

Once this has been set up, you won’t have to mess with it any more. You can just sit back and analyze how your goal is doing. Simple, right? There are other ways you can set up a goal in Google Analytics, like how long visitors are staying on your site (called Destination), by how many pages visits (Pages/Screens per Visit), or Event (like from watching a video.)

Have you taken advantage of setting up a goal in Google Analytics? Did you find it easy?

The post Google Analytics: How to Set Up a Simple Goal appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.

Average Session Duration – What is it and Why Bloggers Should Care

In Google Analytics, one of the statistics measures is average session duration. In simple terms, this is the amount of the time that a person spends on your website. This article will help you understand average session duration and if you’re a blogger, perhaps persuade you to take a better look into this piece of…

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averagesessionduration-thumbnailIn Google Analytics, one of the statistics measures is average session duration. In simple terms, this is the amount of the time that a person spends on your website. This article will help you understand average session duration and if you’re a blogger, perhaps persuade you to take a better look into this piece of information.

As an extra goodie, there will be a few brief tips to hopefully get those visitors to stay longer.

Average Session Duration – What is it and Why Bloggers Should Care

As mentioned before, the average session duration is the average time of all the time spent on your site by your visitors. This time is usually a great indicator of how interested people are with the content on your website, regardless if it is something you are selling or not.

The smaller the number that the average session duration is, means that you’ve got a lot of work to do in either jazzing up your content, or creating new articles that your visitors are truly interested in seeing. You also would need to try to entice those visitors to stay on your website longer.

For example, if your visitors are only on your website for less than a minute and a half, you probably need to be concerned. Of course, Google Analytics has other tools you can look at after looking at your average session duration statistic. Usually you will want to check out where the visitors are coming to your site and where they are leaving. If the entrance and exit of your website, especially a blog, is the front page, then you’ve got a problem with the front of your website.

Possible Problems that Could be the reason for a poor Average Session Duration stat

  • Poor Navigation – If you don’t give people a clear path in order to navigate your website, they probably won’t go any further than the front page, or if you’re lucky, one article.
  • The design is undesirable. – A lot of people are visual. If your people can’t identify with you and remember you, they might not be back. Some bloggers who choose minimalistic designs often sacrifice their branding.
  • There are no effective calls to action. – If you are giving people a reason to come back, they won’t. Ask them to subscribe to your newsletter. Encourage the to follow you on the social networks. Encourage them to use your contact form or click on your about page to learn more about you and what your website is about.
  • The articles have boring titles. – People aren’t enticed to click on and read articles that are unappealing. Be concise and try to think of what spurs you on to clicking and reading a blog post based on the title. You can learn a lot from visiting leaders in your niche to see what’s most effective.
  • The website is just confusing. – If people don’t know what your website is about, and why they should be there rather than some other site, then they won’t be back. Give them a reason. If you’re not sure, go back to your original site focus plan and tweak it.
  • No plan to keep visitors once they’ve clicked deeper into the website. – Once people are within your website, whether it’s a blog post, or your shopping cart, or landing page, you need to keep them there. Entice them with linking to other articles within your site, in your post’s content. You could also benefit from either showing some most recent posts or related posts, or both.

Average duration session is definitely an important factor in website conversion. The goal is to keep them there as long as possible because that WILL get the subscriber, the social share, the commentator, and above all, THE SALE!

Do you pay attention to your average session duration stat for your website?

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Getting a Handle on Site Speed

One of my greatest challenges has been to convince clients that they have a slow loading site AND that a slow loading website reduces the number of sales or leads they can expect to get. I’ve shown them the pretty waterfall charts that show that their site loads in 6.7 seconds – only to have…

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One of my greatest challenges has been to convince clients that they have a slow loading site AND that a slow loading website reduces the number of sales or leads they can expect to get.

I’ve shown them the pretty waterfall charts that show that their site loads in 6.7 seconds – only to have their eyes glaze over.

I touch on it when we’re reviewing their Google Analytics and pointed out that page load times are now part of Google’s search algorythm – and still no response.

Then I discovered a secret weapon….the video of a site loading from webpagetest.org. There is nothing like seeing a blank screen while those seconds tick off to convince clients that site speed is important.

Site speed test from Webpagetest.org.  Notice how at 1.4 seconds 0% loaded and at 1.7 seconds 67% is loaded

Site speed test from Webpagetest.org. Notice how at 1.4 seconds 0% loaded and at 1.7 seconds 67% is loaded

 

Why Page Load Times Matter

According to the research firm Aberdeen Group Inc., a 1-second delay in web page load time translates into a 7% loss in conversions. This means that for each 10,000 in monthly sales, you stand to lose $700 or $8,400 per year.

We all want websites with cool features that attract attention and hold interest. But if that technology causes delays or fails to work properly, visitors won’t wait around….they’re off to something else.

Tag Man in partnership with glasses e-retailer Glasses Direct ran a test to study page speed and conversion behavior.

As expected, the study found that page-load speeds impacted conversion rates. The conversion rate peaked at about two seconds, dropping by 6.7% for each additional second.

Conversions peak at 1-2 second load times.  Source Tagman case study of Glasses Direct

Conversions peak at 1-2 second load times. Source Tagman case study of Glasses Direct

Two studies by Akamai and Gomez are frequently cited in reports on site speed. Both reports are several years old now, but what are the odds that visitor expectations have gone down?

The Akamai Study published in September 2009 interviewed 1048 online shoppers and reported the following:

  • 47% of the people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less
  • 40% will abandon a web page if it takes longer than three seconds to load
  • 52% of online shoppers claim that quick page loads are important for their loyalty to a site
  • 64% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with their site visit will go somewhere else to shop next time.

Remember this was 2009….with all the advances we’ve seen in technology and the emphasis on reducing page load times – do you believe that a site that takes over 2 seconds to load won’t impact visitor behavior?

Two interesting additional points came out of the The Gomez Report published in 2010 which interviewed 1500 consumers about their opinions:

  • 58% of mobile device users expect sites to download as quickly as they would on their home computers
  • 61% of mobile users said that poor performance would make them less likely to visit the mobile website again.

If you’re like most website owners, mobile traffic to your site is rising. It’s common to see 25% or more of your website visitors coming from mobile devices. Are you meeting your customer’s expectations for quick page load times on mobile devices? Probably not.

Responsive Design and Site Speed

In a month-long study of 12 e-retail responsive design sites conducted by Keynote, ¹ reported that the average load times by device were:

  • Desktop PCs 3.14 seconds (high-speed connections)
  • Tablets 2.8 seconds (high-speed connections)
  • Smart Phones 18.24 seconds (combination 3G and 4G connections)

The companies interviewed spent a lot of time, money, and effort in designing, building and tweaking their sites for mobile visitors.

As Mike Clem, vice-president of e-commerce at Sweetwater commented, templates with a “one-size-fits-all” approach carry a lot of additional, unnecessary code and this slows performance, because all that code has to load before the visitor can see the page on their desktop, tablet, or smartphone.²

What to do next?

Start by getting a clear idea of your site’s page load times. Get a combination of data from Webmaster Tools, Google Analtyics and services like YSlow, WebPageTest, and Pingdom. Look for commonalities to figure out what’s slowing down your site and pick off the biggest offenders first. A good developer can be of tremendous help here.

Next tackle the core of the problem. You’ll never cure poor site speed by tinkering around the edges of your website. For a WordPress site, this would include the following:

  • A clean theme with clean code – get rid of that unnecessary code. If you can afford a custom theme written specifically for your site, great – if you can’t, make sure that the template you use doesn’t carry a lot of excess baggage.
  • Switch off all the plugins you don’t need or use. Watch the page load times on the plugins you use and switch out of load-time hogs if you can.
  • Optimize images and graphics – Size your images before you load them into wordpress – if you can get away with lower resolutions without loss of quality, you’ll save some seconds.
  • Fast web hosting configured specifically for WordPress along with a caching strategy

Site speed is an ongoing challenge. As you make changes to your site, update plugins and themes and add additional features – be sure to test the impact on your site speed.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

¹ Siwicki, Bill. “The Ugly Truth about Responsive Design (and how to fix it).”  Internet Retailer June 2014: 42-54. Print.

² Siwicki, Bill. “The Ugly Truth about Responsive Design (and how to fix it).”  Internet Retailer June 2014: 42-54. Print.

 

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Using Offline and Online data to drive Google Analytics Remarketing

The Google Analytics platform has been changing from a web analytics tool to a user-centric digital measurement tool (we’ve been calling it Universal Analytics). This evolution includes a number of changes to the system and completely new features. But what can you do when you put all of these pieces together? I wanted to write […]

The Google Analytics platform has been changing from a web analytics tool to a user-centric digital measurement tool (we’ve been calling it Universal Analytics). This evolution includes a number of changes to the system and completely new features. But what can you do when you put all of these pieces together?

I wanted to write a quick post about how a business could use the entire platform to better market to users on the web based on non-website activities. We’ll explore how to use offline and online data to create remarketing lists in Google Analytics.

Before I start a hat-tip to my buddy Dan Stone – a product manager at Google Analytics who often talks about this type of usage.

Influencing Display Advertising using Email Behavior

Businesses interact with users via many different channels – search, display, social, email, etc. And they’re always looking to better understand how one channel impacts another channel. That’s why we have attribution modeling.

But sometime we want to take direct action, or even automated action, in a channel based on user behavior in a separate channel.

For example, I may want to change my search or display strategy for users on my email list. Perhaps I want them to see different display ads because I have a better relationship with them.

Here’s an example.

With Analytics we can collect data from email marketing tools, send it to Google Analytics and then use that information to change display campaigns.

We can send data from email marketing tools, to Google Analytics, then use the data to drive Remarketing.

We can send data from email marketing tools, to Google Analytics, then use the data to drive Remarketing.

The Implementation

With some of the new features in Google Analytics it is very possible to change a user’s display advertising experience based on behavior in other digital environments.

The first thing we need to do is bind the data in Google Analytics to the data in our own systems. This might be the data in a CRM or some other customer system. We’re going to use an old-school method that I describe in the post integrating Google Analytics with a CRM.

Here’s a summary…

When a user visits your site (or your app) Google Analytics sets a unique, anonymous identifier. This identifier is called the Client ID or cid for short.

What we need to do is extract the client ID value from the Google Analytics cookies and pass it to your CRM system. Once it’s in your systems you should be able to join your internal customer IDs with the GA ID. I should note – this is not some task you finish in an afternoon. You need some nerd help and it could take a while.

You can extract the GA identifier from the tracking cookie and send it to your own system.

You can extract the GA identifier from the tracking cookie and send it to your own system.

Make sure you check out these two posts for more information:
Integrating Google Analytics with a CRM
Understanding Cross Device Measurement and the User-ID

Now that we have the two data sets joined we can do something really cool – we can send user-specific data to Google Analytics from other systems. This means that when we send out an email, or some other user-specific actions happens in our system, we can send that behavioral data to Google Analytics. How?

To send data to GA from other systems we use the measurement protocol. This technology let’s us send data to Google Analytics from any system that can connect to the internet. It defines how to send data to GA. We’ll use the measurement protocol to send data about email activities.

When we send an email to a user we will also send a measurement protocol hit to Google Analytics.

When an email is sent from your system, you can send a hit to Google Analytics using the measurement protocol.

When an email is sent from your system, you can send a hit to Google Analytics using the measurement protocol.

Specifically, we’ll send an event piece of data. The event will indicate that an email was sent to this user and the type of email:

www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-XX-Y&cid [UniqueID]&t=event&ec=Email&ea=Send&el=BackToSchool2014

If we want to be really fancy then we can also send a second hit to Google Analytics when the user receives the email and another hit when the user opens the email. For example, if the user opens the email then we can trigger a pixel within the email that sends a hit to Google Analytics.

www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-XX-Y&cid=[UniqueID]&t=event&ec=Email&ea=Open&el=BackToSchool2014

I need to stress, you need to write a bunch of code that generates these hits. The implementation will really depend on your systems.

The data in the above hits indicates that this email was part of the BackToSchool2014 campaign (look for the event data ec for Event Category, el for Event Label, ea for Event Actions. If we looked in Google Analytics the data would look something like this:

Offline email actions can be captured with the measurement protocol as events.

Offline email actions can be captured with the measurement protocol as events.

All of these hits include a specific parameter named cid. This is the Client ID for the particular recipient of the email that I discussed earlier. When Google Analytics processes these hits they will be merged with the dame user data from the website – because they have the same cid value.

OK, now we have user data coming from two separate systems and Goole Analytics is merging it together.

Here’s where the fun comes in.

Because all of this data is in one place, we can segment users in Analytics based on behavior, then use that list of users for remarketing.

You can join the Google Analytics ID, called CID, with your own ID. But then you can collect off-site actions in GA and tie them to other GA data.

after all of our work, we’re using the GA data measuring sent emails to create a remarketing list.

For those that have not use Remarketing, this is one of my favorite features in Google Analytics. Remarketing let’s you segment user on your website then send that list of users to Google AdWords (or DoubleClick if you use Analytics Premium) for use as a remarketing list.

The remarketing segment would look like this:

Segmenting users that received and opened an email.

Segmenting users that received and opened an email.

This segment is all users that opened the back-to-school email. I could also add a condition that the user received the email, but that’s not really necessary.

Now we can use this list of users in AdWords. How? I may want to use the same creative for their ads. Or perhaps I offer them the same deal that was in the email.

This technique is not just for email – you can use the measurement protocol to send data from any system. That means behavioral information from other digital experiences can be used to drive remarketing lists.

Hopefully this example gives you some idea of how multiple Google Analytics features can be used together to drive real business results.

Understanding Google Webmaster Tools

As much as you might think Google is making it hard to get traffic, they really aren’t. They have tools like Google Webmaster tools and Google Analytics. The difference between the two are the fact that Google Analytics measures your traffic, and Google Webmaster Tools tells you how Google actually sees your website. This article…

The post Understanding Google Webmaster Tools appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.

google-webmaster-tools-logo-thumbnailAs much as you might think Google is making it hard to get traffic, they really aren’t. They have tools like Google Webmaster tools and Google Analytics. The difference between the two are the fact that Google Analytics measures your traffic, and Google Webmaster Tools tells you how Google actually sees your website.

This article is written to help you understand Google Webmaster Tools better. In fact, this article is part of a series, so there will be other parts to check out so you can become more familiar with Google Webmaster Tools.

Understanding Google Webmaster Tools

As mentioned before, Google Webmaster Tools is designed for you to see how the search engine (Google) sees your website. Consider it kind of like the doctor promoting healthy search for websites. Some of the results are:

  • Sharing what type of markup data format the search engines are seeing in your site, like Schema.org
  • Suggesting how to improve user experience and performance
  • Allowing you to demote specific areas of your site from Sitelinks
  • Giving a details list of search queries done on your website
  • Giving a list of links to sites linking into your website
  • Listing internal links
  • Showing Index status
  • Giving a list of keywords that are organized by the most significant one first
  • Allowing you to remove URLs from your website
  • Displaying crawl errors, as well as what types of errors
  • Having the ability to block URLs from the search engines
  • Being alerted if there are any security issues

In order to be able to use Google Webmaster tools, you must sign up and submit your website. The process involves putting a verification code somewhere on your website or verifying it through your domain registrar. After you verify the site, you need to submit a sitemap, once that is a valid Sitemaps.org sitemap.

The Sitemap.org valid sitemap allows Google to easily crawl the site. The markup used that search engine crawl is XML. For website owners that use WordPress and have the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, finding the link to the sitemap is easy. For other content management systems, there is a somewhat equivalent method to find the sitemap. For static websites (ones not powered with a database and may be solely HTML), building a sitemap may be necessary.

Once the sitemap has been submitting, Google may take a little while to crawl the site. Some site are lucky to be crawled within the week, and others, two weeks. After your site has been crawled, you can view information on what Google is seeing.

search-queries-gwt-screenshotYou probably will want to make sure that there are no crawl errors like a page not found, or any server issues. You will also want to make sure to observe if you have any duplicate meta descriptions and duplicate title tags to improve your search results. You obviously don’t want the same article description for several posts, right? 😉

Another area you might want to check out is the search queries. It’s probably good to check out the first time in order to make sure that the keywords are relevant to what your website is about. If they aren’t, you might need to go back and improve your content.

One last area that you should check is to make sure your site isn’t flagged for spam, duplicate content, or has any security issues. If you’re accepting paid links, you probably should stop. Google has gone to great lengths to discourage website owners from accepting paid links. If you have any alerts, fix the issue. Once done with fixing anything that was flagged, you can reply to Google’s team and they will review to make sure your site is not violating any of their rules.

It’s important to understand that Google Webmaster Tools can be a powerful tool in making sure your website is listed as accurately as possible on the search engine results.

Do you use Google Webmaster Tools?

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What Do You Do After You First Apply Google Anayltics to Your Website?

When you get into creating and managing a website, at some point you’re going to hear about Google Analytics, especially being told you need to have it on your website. Regardless if you’re a blogger, a small business owner, or a big corporate business, you do need a tool to measure your site’s progress. Google…

The post What Do You Do After You First Apply Google Anayltics to Your Website? appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.

google-analytics-thumbnailWhen you get into creating and managing a website, at some point you’re going to hear about Google Analytics, especially being told you need to have it on your website. Regardless if you’re a blogger, a small business owner, or a big corporate business, you do need a tool to measure your site’s progress. Google Analytics just happens to be a good one that is also free to use.

So…

What Do You Do After You First Apply Google Anayltics to Your Website?

The majority of users may look in on their stats once a day or once a week. Google Analytics provides quite a bit of statistics. You can even set campaigns to analyze traffic from your website and some of your social network handles.

It’s quite alright to take a frequent look at your stats, but if you’re just looking at them and wishing your traffic to improve, then you’re missing out on what Google Analytics can do for you. It takes analyzing what’s going on and planning a campaign to drive attention to those areas of your website that you want people to see.

The great thing about most stats programs, including Google Analytics is that they provide exactly what information you need to know about your visitors. You can even find out if you’re targeting the correct audience, and at what times they hit your website.

Once you’ve installed Google Analytics on your website, you should let it do it’s job in collecting information. After about 3 weeks to a month, you should have a nice tentative spread of your website’s traffic.

When installing Google analytics to your website for the first time, some of the most important stats you should look at are:

  • Pageviews
  • Percentage of new visitors
  • Percentage of returning visitors
  • Bounce rate
  • How you are acquiring your visitors (where are they coming from)
  • Keywords

While there are a TON of other stats, your first time through should be to gather this information and start to put together a first campaign.

Your keywords, acquisition, and your bounce rate with each campaign you plan will change in time depending on how you adjust your website conversion plan.

Keywords

Before you even look at your stats, you really should already have a list of keywords that you’ve been wanting to work on for your website. If your analytics in Google are not coinciding with your intended list, then you’ve got homework to do in creating content around those keywords. Don’t worry, some people have websites for a few years before realizing that they’ve been missing out on capitalizing on being more laser focused on their keyword strategy.

Acquisition

If your website is brand new, you might not have too much information on how you’ve been acquiring your visitors. You will have a small idea, and can use those stats to either focus on those places that are sending you traffic, or working on trying to get traffic from new sources. It might take making sure your website is properly listed on search engines, creating social network handles, and sharing your content.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate gives you a percentage of how many of your website visitors are only viewing one of your pages, and then leaving. Your bounce rate should never be high. In fact, your strategy should be in converting those visitors to fill out your lead forms, buy your product, share and comment on your blog posts, or even subscribe to your newsletter.

If you can put a plan together that gives you a low bounce rate, great acquisition sources, and above all, making a return on investment, you’re on the right path to great website conversion. The great thing is that Google Analytics is free to use… so what are you waiting for? Go forth and find out how your website is performing!

Do you use Google Analytics in your website conversion strategy? Do you still struggle with deciphering those stats and putting a plan together? If not, what advice do you have for newbies just hooking their website’s up to Google Analytics?

The post What Do You Do After You First Apply Google Anayltics to Your Website? appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.