Web Analytics World’s 2011 and looking ahead to 2012

December 30, 2011 By Angela Wilkinson 1 Comment

Last year’s top ten included stories based on the total visits so this year we thought we’d do something different and look at the top stories from visits, comments, and then Facebook, Twitter and Google +1 before looking at what we’ve got in store for the beginning of 2012.

Most viewed in 2011
It appears that internet speeds remain one of the most popular topics and we’ve linked our most recent update based on Akamai’s reporting tool. Second position goes to one of our posts including a video guide on Digital Marketing Strategy also from the summer. Other popular posts include those relating to analytics, privacy & the law and salary information on Marketing Roles.

Most commented on in 2011
This is split joint between the fastest internet speeds post and David Fothergill’s post regarding tools to assist in conversion optimisation. Second position is also shared between Andy Havard’s three video email shortcuts and David’s how to “excel” at search marketing.

Facebook Reach
Facebook only changed their insights a few months ago so I had thought this would be a harder category, the clear leader when you looked at the new Reach stats was our post looking at online marketing salaries and how the averages are trending. Second position was Irene Bodle’s post looking at the Public Sector Websites failure to comply with the new Cookie Rules.

Tweeted
Top positions in terms of volume of Tweets were with our guest bloggers; first was Melanie Durango with her post on flexible internet marketing and second went to Daniel Elroy who posted about targeted internet marketing.

Google +1′d
A new category along with Facebook Reach but some of our posts have received a clear positive reaction in the number of +1′s received, the first one of these is our post on how to make money from your website and the second is from Chris Elvery, providing you with 10 considerations when building a website.

What else was Trending?
Looking away from Web Analytics World topics, this infograph from AddThis let’s you see 2011′s sharing trends.

What’s in store for 2012?
Just now, our posts in the New Year will include:

Updates from Irene Bodle – ECPA applying to data stored in the US, a proposed change in the UK regarding defamatory comments online
Lukas Oldenburg will be helping us understand how to get our tracking code working in Google
David Fothergill has a second instalment in his excel how-to
Chris Elvery will take us through his 101 on e-commerce
David Geddes will be providing updates on salary trends for marketing roles
Hot topics in technology look to continue with social networking, social advertising, mobile technology and the increasing functionality available through tablets and smart phones and of course analytics will continue to develop to help users work through the data to ensure campaigns are optimised for the best results.

In the new year we’ll start doing more with our WAW Google + page; adding the +1 badge to Web Analytics World’s website so you can add us to your circles.

At present we’re thinking that we’ll use this to share non-Web Analytics World stories, so if you have anything you think is worthwhile sharing just get in touch with us!

Thank you to all our followers, commenters and new subscribers – if you’ve only recently found us, why not use the links above to take a stroll through some of our posts this year.

I guess all that remains is for me to wish you all, on behalf of all of us at Web Analytics World, a very Happy New Year or as occasionally said in Scotland…

A guid New Year and mony may ye see!

Filed Under: Blogging

How does Education use the Internet? (Infographic)

December 22, 2011 By Angela Wilkinson 2 Comments

When I was at school it was in the day of chalk, and spirit duplicators with the occasional photocopied page. At college, sure the photocopies increased, but visual aids were more often than not a textbook page or diagram printed onto a transparency slide for the overhead projector. When working on assignments the key information for your work was most likely to be found in that book…you may know the one…there’s 4 copies, no one’s looked at them for months but every year when that assignment question comes round they’re suddenly all borrowed out from the library.

The library was the font of all knowledge during college and when I graduated my learning was work related and via colleagues or at night class; which was still textbooks, photocopies and overhead projectors – you wanted to learn something you bought a book. Then I got internet access at home…

These days, the majority of my learning is via colleagues and the internet, if I want to learn about or check something, an on-line search is the first port of call. I’m seeing younger family members use the internet for school, last week we were searching on-line for information about meteors to present back to the class. In fact, a recent infographic from SEO.com flagged that over 90% of students will go online to search rather than use the library, 83% go online because the library is closed (the internet can cater for those unsociable all nighters typing/writing up assignments).

Of course students will need to learn how to verify the information gained and most folks would have guessed that Wikipedia would be the most used resource. That may be why 1 out of 3 academic leaders consider the internet inferior to face to face instruction! While I don’t believe it can beat a good educator in a face to face lesson, it can be an excellent tool for many tasks – the logistics of administration, engagement in class with a challenge or interaction during an assignment. Take a look… I’ve embedded SEO.com’s infographic at the end of the post so you can see some of the numbers and how the internet is used by different colleges and universities.

Final Thoughts

The internet has changed education and I think it has changed for the better and will continue to grow in use. Some 8 out of 10 faculty report using video for class, you can see an excellent example in this TedTalk about using multimedia in math class. In a Nov blog post, TED advised that 2012 will see the launch of a new initiative called TED-Ed for students and educators; a library of videos organised in categories and playlists to provide an “immersive insight into a learning concept”.

More than six million students are taking an on-line course - I don’t see myself going back to night class in 2012, but I will be taking an online course or two. How about you, do you use the internet for your studies? Or are you a full time educator either teaching about or using the internet as part of your lessons?

Thanks to Killer Infographics for the idea for the article – Killer Infographics creates
infographic design and promotions for clients around the globe

Filed Under: Infographics, information technology

Tracking On-Site Campaigns with Google Analytics, Part III: 4 pros and cons of Internal URL Referral Parameters

December 20, 2011 By Lukas Oldenburg Leave a Comment

Facebook used to have them, Amazon still has them – parameters in the URL that show through which on-site campaign link the visitor has reached the current page. But unless you really have a thoroughly thought-through system in place, you should think twice about using them.

Internal Referral Parameters are not Campaign Parameters

First of all, let me clarify what I mean by “Internal Referral Parameters” (IRPs): Those are not to be confused with (external) Campaign Parameters (for Google Analytics, read “utm_campaign” and the like). As stated in the first article of this series, you should never use Campaign Parameters in the links of your on-site campaign because they will override the external source of the visitor.

To give you an example for an IRP: If you visit Amazon.com’s homepage and click on “Books” in the left-hand navigation, you get to a page with the URL:

http://www.amazon.com/books-used-books-textbooks/b/ref=sa_menu_bo8?ie=UTF8&node=283155

See the “ref=sa_menu_bo8”? That is the IRP. It helps Amazon.com determine which links (=on-site campaigns) on its homepage, category pages, and so on are the most effective.

Another website that uses IRPs is YouTube. There, you often encounter URLs like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxx&feature=related

Here, the “feature” parameter is telling YouTube which link you used to get to the current video (in that case, I clicked on a “related video” on the right-hand side.

We stopped using them, and so did Facebook
My company used internal referral parameters for some months, but we stopped using them for the reasons I will explain in the full article. So has Facebook, which had used them extensively until a couple of months ago. They now seem to have dropped almost all URL parameters. Apart from the challenges those can cause for web analysts, they had other negative side effects: It was not easy, for example, to get a clean or “canonical” URL of your profile or fanpage because there always was “parameter clutter” attached to it, and every page existed in the form of countless URLs. You’d even see websites linking to the “wrong” (non-canonical) version of their fanpage.

In the full article, I will look at four pros and cons of Internal Referral Parameters. Although they are easily combinable with conversion metrics and make some basic reporting easier, there are hefty issues like SEO problems, cluttered advanced reports and more work up-front if you want to avoid these problems.

Filed Under: Google Analytics, SEO, Web Analytics, web analytics tools, Website Optimization

How To ‘Excel’ At Search Marketing

December 16, 2011 By David Fothergill 6 Comments

I love Excel. There you go, I’ve said it. It’s not even a love/hate type thing – I genuinely find that my life is a better place because of this wonderful, agile, willing gem of a piece of software.

Excel Mug

Gushing, maybe, but in the 7 years I’ve worked in search engine marketing (SEM), I have almost certainly used Excel every day for one purpose or another. So what I really wanted to do in over the course of a couple of posts was share some of the key formulas that are most useful in this line of work and then expand these into examples of how I would use them on a daily basis to analyse and optimise campaigns.

Formulas With Specific Benefits For SEM

LEN(text)

What does it do?

Counts the number of characters used in a given piece of text

Why is this useful for SEM?

Whether writing advert copy for PPC or meta descriptions/titles etc for SEO getting a visual aid within Excel can really help you make the most of these characters available in these situations (especially combined with conditional formatting): AdWords Using Len Formula

VLOOKUP()

What does it do?

Uses a given text or numeric input to reference related information, grabbing it out of a table or list.

Why is this useful for SEM?

There are endless instances when you will be given data from two sources which need matched up. As an example, it could be your web analytics tool data and customer details from your offline sales team. This is probably the formula that’s given me the most satisfaction, and is probably one of the most useful single formulas in the toolbox:

2 Semi-Useful Data Sets:

Using VLOOKUP

One Even More Useful Data Set:

Tables without vlookup

SUMIF(), SUMIFS()

What does it do?

Allows you to specify conditions on which to add data from a specific range or array of data. For example, turning it spoken word logic you could have:

“Sum values from the specified column IF they match criteria 1 AND they match criteria 2”

Why is this useful for SEM?

With so many sources, mediums and keywords we will often find ourselves with raw data sets which are no use to man nor beast and are left thinking “If only there was a quick way to tidy this up into some meaningful order”. There are often many ways to tidy up data, such as creatimg subtotals, but I find SUMIFS to be the quickest and most flexible way:

Example of using the SUMIFS function

The Real Magic

Now, all these formulas are well and good, but the real power comes in learning to combine them in the right way, at the right time, to get actionable insights. I’ll go into this further with some walkthroughs of sheets which I regularly use for SEM analysis, but here’s a quick example which illustrates what I mean:

My ‘Keyword Category Potential’ Analysis Sheet:

For this report, we take data from our Google Analytics account, regarding current traffic levels and a success metrics, such as the ecommerce conversion rate, and match it against traffic estimate data pulled from the Google Keyword Tool.

The key requirement of actionable data is that there is significant context created by the chosen metrics. This is achieved by combining the click and traffic estimate data to get a rough ‘share’ of potential traffic. Pulling this into the table below is done on the fly by typing a keyword into the ‘Category’ column, and relying on the SUMIFS in to pull the relevant pieces of information from other sheets which use VLOOKUPs (amongst other formulas) to tidy up raw output from the tools used: Example Table

The final piece of the puzzle is to make it even easier to get the actions to take away from the analysis. I like to do this by populating a 2-axis scatter chart. A quick glance at the below tells me that there are a few keyword areas that fit the bill of having both a high potential to get more traffic, and a higher than average conversion rate:

Chart showing category metrics across 2-axis

Quickly and easily we can take from this that there are 3 categories of good converting keywords which have potential to drive more traffic

—————–

Note: all data sets have been arbitrarily created for the purpose of the post, so no client information is included whatsoever

Filed Under: landing page optimization, SEM, SEM Training, Tips, Web Analytics, Web metrics, Website Optimization

Passwords, authorised accounts and back ups – keeping safe

December 13, 2011 By Angela Wilkinson Leave a Comment

Given the time of year we’re wrapping up warm in the UK, enjoying(?) Christmas shopping and looking forward to a few days off work. You may also have been wondering about some of the less positive things associated with this time of year; burst pipes at home or in unattended offices and security when shopping online.

Passwords – the basics

The past couple of years have seen high profile stories relating to databases being hacked and personal details including passwords being compromised. In the autumn the Good to Know campaign started appearing in print and online adverts. This collaboration between Google and the UK Citizen’s Advice Bureau provides a set of resources for those wanting to learn more about internet security and how to stay safe on-line. Best practice for passwords include:

Avoid the obvious passwords, like Password or 123456, the majority of us are guilty at some point of using what can be termed risky passwords, that is proper words with little or no numbers or special characters
Make sure your password is at the very least 8 characters long – ideally it should be 10
Use a mixture of upper/lower case letters, numbers and special characters, this makes it much harder to work out your password and it opens up millions and millions of possible variations.
Don’t use the same password across your important accounts like your blog, google, social media sites or affiliate accounts. I fell foul of this one years ago when my password was gained from a less secure account and then used in my paypal account. It’s that simple, once your oh-so-hard-to-guess password has been identified then all your accounts where you use it are at risk.

For more information regarding passwords a good place to start is the Google’s “Good to Know” set of resources.

Even more fun is looking at http://howsecureismypassword.net/ and while you may not wish to enter an actual password you use, it gives you an idea of how even simply adding a number and special character can increase the time it may take to crack…try it with sauages, then add a number somewhere in the word, and finally add a special character. Sometimes a good password is a nonesense phrase or statement and then just mix it up with different cases, numbers and characters – just don’t go choosing sprinklecoateddoughnuts if you’re known for having a fondness for them!

Passwords – authorised accounts

The ongoing conflict between convenience and security! Many of us authorise widgets, applications, external services to connect with our key on-line entities e.g. a Facebook widget that Tweets your status updates, a widget that notifies you when you have a new story. What happens when you change your password on your main account, should you have to reauthorise all those add ons? What if your account had been compromised and a couple of new applications had been authorised that would allow the unauthorised person to still access your account and post or tweet as you?

Thanks to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for flagging this one in relation to twitter but it’s worth taking note and periodically checking out the applications that you’ve authorised to interact with any of your blogs, or social media accounts.

Burst pipes – Lost Passwords – Back up plans!

So what if the worst happens and your password is compromised, or you’re on holiday over Christmas and spill eggnog over your laptop, wrecking your hard drive? The best way to think about backups is – what would happen/how would I feel if everything got lost?

Make sure you’ve populated answers and emails in your password recovery settings. If you have populated this information, do you still have access to the recovery email address? Yes I’ve fallen into this trap, not updating my recovery email address when I changed jobs.
Back ups for PCs, emails and online applications. We hate doing back ups, they take time that we could really be using somewhere else Of course if you have a hosted blog then excellent, your provider will look after the back ups…but is that covered in your contract, are they daily or weekly backups? Perhaps you have an IT team who run back ups on the network, but what about those files you’ve not copied across to the network folder? Sometimes it may be best going for a “belt and braces” option and running your own back up on your important content or files.

There are automatic back up programmes, password managers and many articles which can help you to work this out, but it’s worthwhile at the least looking at what your password security and back up current status is and then deciding if you want or need to take action. As you spotted I’m far from perfect when it comes to passwords, but I’ve learned from my mistakes and the regular back up activities at Web Analytics World gives me a calming feeling of “it’s okay” for a little while every week!

Filed Under: Blogging, internet security, Tips Tagged With: internet security, password strength, tips

Escrow Agreement needed when providing Software via a Website?

December 9, 2011 By Irene Bodle Leave a Comment

As a website operator you may want to consider offering escrow agreements to your customers, particularly if you run SaaS (software as a service) applications via your website, which are critical to your customer’s business.

What is Escrow

Escrow refers to a third party holding a copy of the software source code on behalf of the customer and the supplier.

What is an Escrow Agent

An escrow agent is a third party who stores a copy of the software source code. The escrow agent will release a copy of the source code to the customer if any of the events set out in the escrow agreement occur.

Why use Escrow

This is usually a customer driven requirement resulting from the fact that the source code for the SaaS software, the expertise to implement it and rights to the software are only licensed to, and not owned by, the customer for the term of the SaaS agreement.

Customers are concerned that the supplier may:

fail to maintain the software;
transfer ownership of intellectual property rights in the software;
become insolvent;
or become unable to carry on supporting and maintaining the software for some other reason.

By having an escrow agreement in place the customer has the right to continue to use the software, if the supplier is in default of its obligations under the SaaS agreement i.e. it no longer operates the website.

Advantages of an Escrow Agreement

Having an escrow agreement in place protects all parties involved in the development, supply and use of business critical SaaS applications. It provides customers with peace of mind for securing long-term availability of a critical software application by enabling customers to update software and fix any bugs even if the supplier is no longer able to support them.

Disadvantages of an Escrow Agreement

Having the right to use the software under an escrow agreement is in reality of little use if the customer does not have the know-how and resources to actually use, maintain and support the source code itself.

Also, the costs of setting up an escrow agreement and maintaining it are relatively expensive. Escrow costs are usually paid for by the customer.

Filed Under: Internet Business, Internet Law, SaaS

How do I buy an online business?

December 6, 2011 By DG 1 Comment

How do I buy an online business?

If you are thinking of buying an internet or online based business for the first time, here are a few pointers which I hope you find useful. They are just a few of the things I have picked up over the years from my own experience however whilst I think there are certain factors that need to be considered in almost all purchase transactions ….no two deals will ever be exactly the same – so always be aware of the “special wrinkles” that might affect your own particular circumstances.

I have in mind especially small and medium sized situations and although many of the same principles would apply to much larger deal sizes… these larger deals will usually attract a small army of professional advisers to keep you on track!

The smaller, less formal, deals are also the ones where I believe buyers can be at the mercy of unscrupulous sellers if they don’t at least follow some basic good practice and “common sense” steps.

Tips for buying a website or web business

“Look before you leap” is not a bad maxim here. Start your research early and you will be able to act quickly – and with more certainty – when a good opportunity presents itself.

My Top Tips for buying a web business:

Identify relevant research tools and spend some time understanding your market…not just a quick snapshot … but over a period of time e.g.

similar sites and businesses on markets like Flippa
identify closest competitors and spend time studying their websites, social media and even mobile sites. Look for reviews about them, customer feedback…what are they good at? Where are they weak?
Is there really a market for your idea …what size could it be? (Despite what a lot of people would have you believe there are not many genuinely unique concepts out there… there is usually an equivalent or something close to it out there already) Don’t make the mistake of thinking your idea has to be unique or “the first”… after all, every successful business needs to satisfy a customer demand… and if there is a demand is it not likely that other people are already trying to meet it? … Markets that are already established (and you can service smarter) or are young and growing are often the best place to be
Sites that claim to be able to value a website business based just on you entering a URL – if you find an accurate one – let me know!

If you are buying a web based business that is already trading – demand their analytics*! I have seen many instances of sellers being less than forthcoming about supplying full access to analytics. If the seller is honest then why wouldn’t they “pull back the curtain” and let you have a look. Google analytics (and similar) enable you to check on traffic levels , source of traffic (paid for, organic search, referral etc) and very importantly key words and phrases that have brought the traffic to relevant landing pages. (*assuming of course the buyer is serious and if necessary signs non disclosures etc)
Legality and originality

Most genuine and successful web businesses nowadays will have at their core original, useful and legal content – relate the content back to the information gathered on top keywords and landing page content – is this all consistent?
Ensure that content is original by sampling key text (tools like copyscape.com) can help
Remember to include seller guarantees in your deal paperwork to protect you on issues such as original content, copyright (images and text), ownership of database lists and any restrictions on use for marketing purposes (e.g. has data been collected legally in all operating geographies and were privacy statements and terms and conditions displayed etc?)

Backlinks, relevance and site authority – These are fundamental building blocks to a strong search engine ranking performance

Imagine buying a trading website…e.g. selling sports clothing – you buy the business, take control of the high traffic sales focussed website, purchase the sellers stock, relocate it all to your own premises….And wait for the orders to pour in at the same rate as the seller enjoyed!….But there seems to be a problem…Within weeks the site traffic is down 40%!… If only you had identified in advance that a huge slice of the traffic to the site was referred by another site…(that the seller also owns!) and is now being redirected somewhere else! (a bit of an extreme case but you get the message?)

Social sites – check them out…what is being said and what is the activity and sentiment?
In my pre-internet days I had experience of buying and selling businesses with stock in trade part of the deal. Slow moving, damaged, obsolete, missing and overly expensive stock is the same…whether internet or not. Always ensure your contract allows for a full and fair valuation of stock, plant and equipment.
Reasons for the sale – This is an interesting one – Personally I wish sellers would be a bit more honest and say things like “This is too much like hard work, I have found it difficult to make much money from it and the thought of a cash lump sum is appealing…” The reasons given are at times quite funny, other times would bring a tear to your eye… but the bottom line is you are looking for potential, try to understand why they are struggling and you can do better.
Technical – This is the area which perhaps makes buying and selling web businesses a little but special. Technical considerations are of course “played down” by the seller. Technical could mean everything from hosting to stock control systems and digital marketing. Almost every web business of any size requires a mix of technical and marketing skills to support it – and to make it worse, these are skills which need to be constantly updated.

Don’t just accept seller statements like “minimal maintenance required” – ask a few pertinent questions
What are the softwares and platforms? Are they owned or under licence?. How easy will this be to maintain and develop? Be aware of bespoke software or even heavily adapted versions of common or opensource platforms
Usually sellers will say things like “free support and help for the first x months”…Maybe that is true… Maybe they will disappear after receiving your money! (keeping a retainer % of the price for a period of time might help here)
If you are not technical yourself then take advice. Site maintenance often takes up more time and money than even the seller realises.
There will be a load of passwords for servers, email, social sites, commercial accounts etc etc…grab them all

The list above is certainly not comprehensive and as I started writing it I realised just how long it could be!

I realise that some of the list above might seem a bit off-putting however the opposite is my intention. You need to balance the personal attitude to risk with the potential reward. I guess many people start small to learn and then (with the benefit of a few scars!) progress to greater things however most of the above points can be taken on board by you quickly and for minimal cost. The better prepared you are the more likely you are to feel confident about what you are buying and the price you should pay.

Legal contracts and Escrow

Remember that taking good advice and professional help should always be considered – it could be false economy not to.

I am a big fan of having some kind of contract in place and the use of a financial escrow arrangement (e.g. escrow.com) can help hugely to build mutual trust (especially since many of these smaller transactions will be completed at distance and without comprehensive legal representation)

I have seen some very fair contracts (fair to both buyers and sellers) available as part of an escrow service on auction sites. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand them. Sometimes there is a temptation to save a few dollars on fees for this sort of thing at the end of the process – but I would say “buyer beware!”

Final Word…

Buying and selling websites can be as much about fun as commercial interest. Even the research can become a bit addictive! I hope you found the list useful but we would very much welcome your own thoughts and experiences.

Filed Under: Buying an online business, Internet Business