Analytics can show you a lot about your
site, but there are other indicators, particularly when it comes to
optimizing search keywords that you can find when using a different
Google product: Webmaster Tools (also free). (Kaushik, 2010) Here is
a great landing page for Webmaster Tools and other webmaster assistance on
Google.
Using this tool, you can compare the number of impressions (when your
listing is viewed) versus the number of clicks you receive on your
listing in search tools. This is where you cross over into search
engine optimization. You are analyzing the performance of your site,
but you're also making sure that your site is easily found by the
people looking for what you offer or those who will hopefully be pleasantly
surprised. Once you see which keywords are working and which are not
working, you can refine pertinent portions of the content on your
pages and keyword text around your videos.
You may find it helpful that some Webmaster Tools data is incorporated in the
most recent version of Google Analytics. (Gerson, 2011) Through this tool, you'll be able to
tell which kinds of Google searches are bringing you the most
traffic, whether that's Web, Image or Mobile search. It shows you
impressions, clicks, average position and click through rates for each of the above categories. This service is
limited to one portion of Webmaster Tools, so you'll get the deepest
information from looking at Webmaster Tools itself.
Google Analytics will also incorporate
social engagement with its new social reports. (Gerson, 2011). Using
this tool, you can see how many site visitors recommended or
otherwise engaged socially with your content on Facebook, Twitter and
Google+. This of course will not take care of all of your social
insights but it does add another element of your metrics into
Google Analytics.
Of course, there is still the paid
element of your online presence to consider. Kaushik, and it would seem all of
those in the know, recommend that you engage in paid search campaigns (paying for search
placement at the top or side of a search page) as well as organic
search campaigns (optimizing keywords for free). (2010) Google
Analytics and Google's AdWords service (purchasing ads will cost you)
do separate your organic and paid clicks in search engine results.
However this is not the case with other analytics software and it
will not affect paid search campaigns outside of Google. So if you
bought paid search ads in Microsoft and Yahoo!, you'll have to tag
them and can use Google's free URL builder to do that.
Yes, it is true that all of these services I mentioned come from Google. Though the company has its hands in what
seems like every cookie jar, that doesn't mean you have to use its
tools. But if you did, these are some ways they converge. And even
just using Google as the example, this analysis has shown that
often analytics services won't see everything. In this case, you still have to
account for social media, paid search campaigns and some aspects of
organic search campaigns.
The social media information provided through Google Analytics
is just at the surface of what you should be discovering about your
social campaigns, but this is a start. I'm sure we'll be digging into
more social analytics down the road.
As a taste of social media analytics,
check out these links: A new analytics tool just for Pinterest,
called Pinerly,
is being released to latch on to how and why this platform has become
popular and how it can benefit your business. Older platforms like
Facebook are also continuing to add to their social media analytics
arsenal of tools, such as in this new Facebook ads tool.
References
Gerson, R. (November 30, 2011) 10 new
Google Analytics features you need to start using. Retrieved from:
http://mashable.com/2011/11/30/google-analytics-new-features/
Kaushik, A. (2010) Web analytics 2.0:
the art of online accountability and the science of customer
centricity. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment