SemPhonic's Web Analytics X Change is only a month away and is considered one of the top analytics events around. X Change consists of small group conversational "huddles" where participants get to talk and work with leading experts. Earlier this week I was able to catch up with Francis Lavelle to get his insight on X Change and the "huddle" he will be leading.

[Manoj]: What are your responsibilities at HowStuffWorks.com?

[Francis Lavelle]: As the Director of Analytics I am responsible for maintaining accurate and actionable data and working with our analytics team to support Sales, Product and Marketing to optimize the business through analysis.

[Manoj]: Can you discuss the importance of taking SEO measurement to the next level, so rather than measuring visits/rankings - looking at paths, comparisons against other mediums, level of engagement and other insightful data.

[Francis Lavelle]: It amazes me that SEO measurement has traditionally lacked the same amount of analysis and rigor that companies put into SEM and other for pay marketing campaigns. As search (SEO) continues to grow as a percentage of website traffic, companies should know more than the basic KPIs (i.e. site visits, top entry pages and top keywords) from natural Search. When a company invests money in a new piece of content they have created an asset and if they collect the right data they can understand the performance and ROI of that asset. At HSW we have set up our analytics to make the measurement of each and every piece of content possible. We also look to understand what types of content perform best not only in SEO but also in driving additional engagement with our website.

[Manoj]: What are the best ways to measure meaningful traffic from Facebook and Twitter.

[Francis Lavelle]: There is a lot of traffic coming from Twitter and Facebook all of which we are delighted to receive. For campaign driven traffic we have specific tracking codes depending on whether people are referred to the site from one of our facebook widgets, the HSW fan page or a tweet from our marketing team. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of our programs on the two sites.

We have also had success tracking the share & recommend activity on our site which is posted back to facebook and twitter. When measuring this traffic it’s important not only to measure incoming traffic but also how users are posting content back to their feeds. To do this we trigger specific success events every time a visitor retweets or throws back content. This allows us to create conversion ratios looking at visits per throwback for all of our content and content types.

[Manoj]: What is your favorite topic in analytics right now?

[Francis Lavelle]: I still really enjoy the basics of the business. For me it has always been about finding ways to optimize the site and grow revenue. I think as an industry people (myself included) tend to spend too much time on the latest buzz and forget to focus on the data that allows us to run really successful businesses.

[Manoj]: How do you like the setup of Xchange - huddles vs. sessions, it's a very unique process compared to other conferences.

[Francis Lavelle]: The huddle format is excellent. This is my third year at xchange and the ability to really discuss topics with colleagues who are pushing the envelope and are willing to share findings is invaluable. Every year I come away with new insights that are directly applicable to our business. I also really like that Gary and Eric have conscientiously made an effort to get huddle leaders who are the actual practitioners of analytics instead of vendors and agency consultants. It’s nice to hear directly from the front lines.

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