Technorati, Slow to Update
| Manoj Jasra - Saturday, July 29, 2006 0 Comments |
Has anyone else noticed their blog and back links not being up to date on Technorati? Over the last 1 week I have had 3 or 4 different posts as well as a few new blogs linking to mine, yet Technorati still says updated as of "7 Days ago."
I did email tech support on Thursday, but nothing has come from that accept for the automated response. Maybe it has something to do with their latest release (Version 3).
Because of this I have really been taking advantage of Digg lately.
Google Analytics feels the pressure of High Demand
| Manoj Jasra - Friday, July 28, 2006 2 Comments |
"Google Inc.'s hosted Web analytics service Google Analytics suffered serious performance problems on Monday and Tuesday, after the Mountain View, California, company announced its decision to offer it for free, but it seems to have stabilized on Wednesday. " [This is from an Old Post, thanks to Eric for pointing it out]
Source: http://www.pcwelt.de/index.cfm?pid=829&pk=124342
[However, this happpened to me earlier this week]
I have the maximum number of sites (5) set up on my Google account and earlier this week they all showed 0 page views and visits on my executive summary. The stats did show up again the next day. It must be a little tough for Google, assigning millions of dollars worth of resources to a web analytics product that's completely free, however, last time I checked they had a little bit of money available to them.
Omniture Buys 9 Patents from IBM
| Manoj Jasra - Thursday, July 27, 2006 0 Comments |
"Omniture, Inc. a provider of online business optimization software, revealed the recent purchase of nine patents from IBM related to inventions and technology in the Web analytics, business optimization and behavioral targeting area."
Source: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/tm.site/news/BREAKING%20NEWS/321863/
This brings Omniture's total to 136 (patents they own or have access to). It will be interesting to see how Omniture incorporates some of these patents into current technologies such as Sitecatalyst, SearchCenter and Discover. Or maybe they have plans of developing something brand new.
WebTrends Achieves Record Quarter
| Manoj Jasra - 0 Comments |
"WebTrends Inc., the market leader for web analytics and Marketing Performance Management (MPM) solutions, today announced that in Q2 2006 the company achieved its highest quarterly results ever for WebTrends(R) web analytics solutions with bookings growth of 30 percent year over year. Customers selecting WebTrends Analytics(TM) 8 On Demand, the hosted version of the company's flagship solution, fueled most of the growth with year-over-year bookings increasing 78 percent. In addition, tremendous growth in international markets continues to extend WebTrends worldwide market share leadership position with WebTrends EMEA growing 108 percent year over year."
Full Story:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060727005217&newsLang=en
Maxsi Launches New version of eVisit Analyst
| Manoj Jasra - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 0 Comments |
Maxsi recently launched a new version of its analytics software: eVisit Analyst.
Besides being the first to market with the Welsh language system, eVisit Analyst also adds many enhancements which includes:
- Full API support for search engine marketing, including popular search engines such as Google
- Reporting across multiple domains
- Analysis reporting
- Outcome Performance Analysis reports to complement enhanced Source Performance
- Multiple language and multiple currency support
source: http://www.itwales.com/997828.htm
eVisit Analyst has quite the extensive list of solutions:
- Select (fully managed and hosted)
- Enterprise (for larger organizations)
- Government (UK local authorities)
- Portal (Application Service Providers)
- Survey
- Performance Monitor (Monitoring Site down time)
- Link Monitor (broken links)
- Ad Server
I hope I get the opportunity to test drive the various products.
"1 word" Searches decreasing
| Manoj Jasra - Monday, July 24, 2006 0 Comments |
A report released by OneStat today shows that the number of 1 word queries on search engines has decreased compared to last year at this time.
This is indicating that users are refining their searches in order to get more specific results. The report also breaks down search share by country.
Read the rest of the report here:
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox45-search-phrases.html
WebSideStory's European Browser Usage Survey
| Manoj Jasra - Thursday, July 20, 2006 0 Comments |
A recent survey by WebSideStory shows that FireFox appears to be growing stronger in Europe than it has in the US over the last few of months.
The UK has one of the lowest FireFox user shares in Europe with 8.82%. Microsoft has a 88.78% UK share which is greater than its share in the US.
FireFox is most popular in Germany where its market share is an outstanding: 26.8%
Here are some other Countries' FireFox Usage Percentages:
France: 14.89%
Italy: 12.46%
Spain: 9.86%
In terms of market share in the US, FireFox is slowing down with only a 0.54% rise in the last 6 months.
Here is a chart showing usage share from the WebSideStory Press Release
FeedBurner Acquires Blogbeat
| Manoj Jasra - Tuesday, July 18, 2006 0 Comments |
"Blogbeat, a provider of blog analytics, has been acquired by FeedBurner, which offers Internet “feed” management services.
FeedBurner is based in Chicago...."
Read the rest here:
http://www.localtechwire.com/article.cfm?u=14553
Web Analytics Comparison
| Manoj Jasra - Monday, July 17, 2006 0 Comments |
When users are trying to decide between different analytics solutions they often end up looking for some type of comparison document to help in the decision making process. SEMphonic has recently released a white paper which compares WebSideStory's HBX vs. Omniture's SiteCatalyst.
Areas discussed in the report include:
- HBX and SiteCatalyst Comparative Analysis
- Implementation Process
- Overview Reporting
- Conversion Analysis
- Path Analysis
- Visitor Segmentation
- Report Creation and Distribution
- General Usability
SEMphonic is currently offering complimentary copies of the report. To get yours simply email David Libby at dlibby@semphonic.com
I have just emailed David to get mine and am excited to see what they have come up with.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=144487
Vacation: Las Vegas and Anaheim
| Manoj Jasra - Saturday, July 15, 2006 0 Comments |
Have been away all week on vacation with my wife in Las Vegas and Anaheim. It was nice not having to think about Analytics or Search Marketing for 7 straight days. We hit all the hotels on the Las Vegas strip and also got the opportunity to catch a couple of Cirque de Soleil shows. In California we spent a day each at Universal Studios and Disney Land.
But I guess I am a little bit of a geek because right when I got home I was excited to see my blog's stats and latest article pick ups.
Here are some of the pics from the vacation.
Hotel we stayed at in Las Vegas
Pool Area at Caesar's Palace
Paris
Castle: Disney Land
Water World: Universal Studios
Are you Measuring Visitor Engagement and Behavior?
| Manoj Jasra - Saturday, July 08, 2006 0 Comments |
When visitors arrive on your website, what are they doing? Is it what you want or expect them to do; or are they aimlessly wandering around and not finding what they came in looking? Are your potential customers abandoning your site just seconds after their arrival? If you are puzzled because you don’t know what visitors are doing, or why, then how can you ever create a decent strategy to offer your visitors a better experience on your website?
The means of engaging users is unique to each website. The Sports Illustrated website does it by displaying only the latest sports headlines and providing the actual content a click thru away; content like writer’s opinions, the NBA Draft and, of course, their own swimsuit issue – giving the user navigation control and also increasing valuable inventory through page views.
A site like Yarn Market , on the other hand, offers crisp, high resolution images of every single product which makes it simple for their visitors to view the colors, quality and intricate patterns of the various types of yarn. Again, giving the user control and increasing conversions.
It’s important that as a site owner you find your competitive advantage and unique selling proposition so that you can offer your visitors a tailored experience that will keep them coming back; however, your constructed experience has to be built to your specific audience’s needs and wants. You cannot push and audience that needs to be pulled, or pull an audience that needs and expects to be pushed.
If you really want to gain success, your website should be built from the audience back; and although I do not advocate giving your audience complete control over the navigation and reigns of your website – through tailored construction you can definitely create a perceived control that should always increase sales/conversions/page views.
In the rest of this article, I will talk about why it’s important to track user behavior and metrics that are helpful in deciphering how well your website is doing in keep your visitors engaged.
Why it’s Important
No one understands the metrics that matter better than the site owners themselves. The key is not getting lost in a mountain of numbers, but really zooming in on the few key metrics that really affect the bottom line, rather than all the other hundreds of metrics that contribute to measuring online success. The concept is simple; keeping users engaged will help to retain visitors, increase conversion rates, and consistently help deliver more revenue.
There are a multitude of reasons that owners should track visitor behavior, here are a few:
- Pinpoint areas on the website that need to be improved.
- Analysis of visitor paths vs. dead content (content that gets visited infrequently) shows sites owners that either the content should be presented in a different fashion, be moved from the current area or possibly even deleted from the website entirely.
- Further promote popular reviews/articles/products.
- By recognizing areas of a website that are frequently viewed and requested, site owners can simplify the paths to these popular sections by making them more accessible.
- Test new products/ads/conversion triggers.
- Using A/B testing and analyzing visitor’s reactions to new features can help a website offer the most optimal combinations in terms of ad/conversion trigger placements.
Metrics to help measure Engagement (or lack thereof)
- Percent of Visitors under 60 seconds
- Using this metric along with conversion rate will let you know if users are easily finding what they are looking for or not. A high percentage of visitors in this area with a low conversion rate indicate you should consider updating your material.
- Customer Retention Rate
- Retaining customers is always a good sign that they are finding your website useful
- Internal Search Terms
- This will give you a sense of visitors’ intentions on your website (are you offering the right content?). Avinash Kaushik had a great Blog post on this topic.
- Average Number of Visits per visitors
- Monitor this metric to help determine how attracted your visitors are to your content. Remember, a return customer always costs less than a new one.
- Top Pages and Content Requested
- Knowing what visitors are looking for can be helpful for site owners to tailor their content, making it more prominent and informative to the audiences’ needs.
source for the metrics:Web Analytics Demystified.
“Insight” is a word commonly use in the Web Analytics World because it’s a major reason people use web analytics: for a better “insight” into their audience (with an online relationship you cannot have your sales staff read non-vocal cues or easily engage a prospect in a conversation). Having an online strategy that is supported by the intelligence and insight you’ve received is more effective than a strategy developed by any other means (unless of course you have unlimited amounts of money to burn or the Coney Island fortune telling machine from the movie “Big”).
Providing a user experience that engages visitors will prove to be a big step in helping you and your organization reach your online goals.
Coremetrics thoughts on Online Marketing
| Manoj Jasra - Thursday, July 06, 2006 0 Comments |
"According to Coremetrics, 71% of marketers do not feel that traditional education methods prepare them for today's information-led organizations. They feel they lack information, and over half want to improve their analysis and measurement skills, while 42% want a better understanding of user behavior and habits."
Read further here:
http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybin&story_id=95161572&ID=blackenterprise
