The Maine SEO Blog

If you use Google AdWords, you should be using the conversions measurement. If you’re not, never fear, all you need is Analytics!

I’ve been using Google AdWords conversions for quite some time now, but haven’t noticed (until today) that you can import your Google Analytics goals (as long as your AdWords and Analytics accounts are connected) as AdWords conversions. That way, you only need to install one set of code: your Google Analytics code. Evidently, the ability to do so has been available for almost a year!

Confused yet? These screen shots should help explain.

Under the Reporting tab, click “Conversions.” Without any conversions set up, you should see a screen that looks like this:

Again, you’ll need to connect your AdWords and Analytics accounts to see this screen.

Click “Import from Google Analytics”. In the past you would have had to insert a code (and you still can), but now you have the option to sync your Analytics goals.

Click import, and you’re good to go!

Nicki Hicks
Google: Making life easier one day at a time

Many blog platforms are set up, by default, to catch any spammy looking email address or website, as well as a comment with more than two links within it. Of course, the blogger always has the ability to refine these parameters; even approving on a comment-by-comment basis. If your comments are getting disapproved, this might be why:

Your name isn’t India SEO. That may be what you do – and kudos for the attempt to incorporate as much anchor text as possible; but I’m sure your mother didn’t see you for the first time and think I shall call him India SEO.

You’re not adding value. While “Really great post, I’ve subscribed to your blog” might boost the ego of the blogger, it does little more than that. The comments section is meant to create a conversation – not accentuate an ego trip.

You included links in your comment. While readers might find a substantial resource over at your website for Viagra, I’ll thank you to not include links like that. Every blogger is different, so while many don’t, I approve comments with links if they provide a valuable resource – especially when I know the commenter isn’t linking to their own site.

All of these things add up to one reason your comments are being disapproved: you look like spam. Whether you’re trying to be or not, commenting using these tactics makes you look like a spammer and any blogger, if they’re paying attention, will delete and/or block your comments.

Nicki Hicks
Are you adding value?

Recently flyte launched four new blogs for Berman & Simmons, a Maine personal injury and trial law firm with locations in Portland, Lewiston, and Bangor. The blogs include:

• Maine Accident and Personal Injury News
• Maine Nursing Home Law Center
• Product Safety at Home and at Work
• Maine Court Decisions

You may be thinking: four blogs? Four? Well, with such niche fields and enough manpower to create plenty of great content, it seemed like a no brainer – especially with all the great search engine visibility blogs provide.

So for the latest information about Maine accidents and personal injury, nursing home law, product safety and liability, and Maine court decisions, look no further than Berman & Simmons.

And if you need a blog to increase your search engine visibility, then give flyte a call.

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

Rand’s going to talk about how to make standard metrics actionable. [woot]

To make Analytics actionable, always ask:

Why am I measuring this?

What would I do if results were different?

Search Referral Analytics

# of visits per search engine over time – You want to see this number increase over time, in relationship to the search engine’s market share/overall global growth [Action: find out if it's a ranking/indexing issue]

# pages getting search referrals over time – Measure for each search engine and often. [Action: discover if indexation is an issue worth effort, read more about that here]

# of keywords sending traffic from a search engine over time – Look for increase in number of keywords sending traffic to your site – especially if you create a lot of content [Action: might be a rankings/demand issue; determine if content additions are accretive and what drives growth/shrinkage in search traffic]

Keyword Referral Analytics

# visits per keyword – Compare week by week, or even month by month [Action: Analyze top traffic drivers from a value perspective, check rankings for potential easy wins & get answers if traffic dips]

First time vs. returning visits per keyword – Business decision: which is better for you? [Action: Determine value of reaching new visitors vs. converting branded users (focus efforts on the more valuable one)]

Keyword rankings – They can be valuable! [Action: know if traffic spikes/dropoffs are from rankings, indexation or search demand shifts by matching traffic with rankings, SEOmoz has their own ranking tracker and you can track rankings using Analytics!]

Engagement Analytics

Time on site – Take it to the next level [Action: compare ROI metrics; if they correlate, improve on keywords/landing pages with low time on site]

# of Pageviews – Again, take it further than “sweet, it went up this month” [Action: Depending on your metrics, a "sweet spot" of pages browsed often dictates a conversion event - optimize towards it!]

Repeat visit ratio – [Action: Find what content/activities/referrers send engaged (read: returning) traffic and copy those while improving subpar pages]

Sharing/linking activity – Start tracking these actions, just like a conversion! [Action: Find patterns/sources that predict sharing activities (both content and CTAs) and make them testable conversion events]

Latent Conversion Tracking

Removing last-click attribution – Do you know what happens before their last click when they become a conversion? Look at full path analysis within Navigation Summary in your Analytics. This post will show you how to do this.

ROI Analytics

Lifetime Customer Value = CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value): how much money they spend, how many referrals

Cost of Acquisition = CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): how much spent on sales, SEO, marketing, advertising

ROI = CLTV – CAC

Always be asking “What’s the ROI?”

Q&A

Q: In your opinion what’s the best Analytics software?
A: Depends on the person using it. Omniture experts will have difficulty with WebTrends. You can get a lot of the same information from all of the packages.

Q: Why the symmetric dip in SEOmoz’s traffic?
A: B2B websites will usually see dips on the weekends.

Q: How can I see the number of unique visitors for a particular section of my website?
A: At the bottom of Google Analytics, you can filter  landing pages based on page, like:

Q: Is there a big difference between different Analytics packages?
A:  Eric Enge did an extensive study with this at StoneTemple.

Q: Is there a way to automatically see rankings in Google Analytics?
A: Yes, here’s the Yoast link again.

Q: What’s the best tool for measuring ROI?
A: Salesforce.com, SEOmoz uses Infusionsoft.

Q: In your opinion, what’s your favorite part about Google Analytics?
A: Simplicity; the greatest thing is it’s easy to use, fairly fast.

Q: How do you compare bounce rates with other websites in your industry?
A: Google Analytics will let you view your site stats compared to similar sites in your industry using Benchmarking. You can find these stats under Visitors > Benchmarking. [You can set your industry at the very top of the page.] It’s up to you whether you actually believe these stats or not, obviously.

Q: Tell us something about bounce rates.
A: I only care about them when they happen in my conversion funnel. Always tie it to conversion and ROI.

Q: Why is rank tracker different than actual search?
A: Make sure personalized search is off (use &pws=0 after your query); local search could also change your results.

Q: When looking at social media sites, what are the metrics to track?
A: It depends on what you want them to do. Branding? Time on site. Go to your site and look at ads? Maybe page visits.

You’ll be able to find the archive of this webinar here shortly. And here is all of the Twitter chatter about the #mozinar.

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
@randfish

Meta-descriptions are one of the last meta-tags that search engines still care about; the extent to which, no one really knows. And while inserting all of your keywords may not help you, a call to action might.

For meta-descriptions (or search engine descriptions, as we lovingly refer to them), I always suggest clients incorporate their contact information – for those searching on smart phones, or simply searching for a way to reach them. More and more, even that may not be enough.

So how can  you really make your search result stand out?

I did a search for nike light running shoes, and found that there are a ton of techniques for trying to entice searchers to click. Disregarding titles, let’s take a look at ways to get searchers to click:

Strategy #1: A really great description

This tactic works incredibly well for individual products – but it could also work well for services too. This particular description incorporates keywords, all the while giving you a good idea of what you’ll find when you click on the result.

Strategy #2: Blog Teaser

In this case, sure, we know there’s going to be a bit of a product pitch; but what better way to research which shoe to buy than comparing them?

Strategy #3: Customer Reviews

Similar to Google’s new(ish) rich snippets, the page this result points to is specifically devoted to reviews for this shoe. Pretty powerful stuff.

Strategy #4: Discounts, discounts, discounts!

Who doesn’t love a discount? Or free shipping? Or both??

Strategy #5: Show me the money

Similarly, a popular strategy is displaying the price of the product or service directly within the meta-description. If that doesn’t entice the “right” people (those who will buy) and deter the wrong people (those who won’t), I don’t know what will. Furthermore, consumers can literally compare prices right from the Google search results.

Strategy #6: What’s the benefit?

Again, great for both products and services – why would someone want to (in this case) buy from you?

Now, obviously these results are for deeper level pages, hence more description and more detailed strategies. But the same goes for your upper level pages; what’s your call-to-action?

The fact is, regardless of whether meta-descriptions help you from an SEO standpoint, they’ll certainly entice searchers to click.

What strategies have you seen or used with meta-descriptions?

Nicki Hicks
Reliving the track & field glory days