Simply looking at your Google Analytics data is akin to sailing a a boat without an effective rudder. You’ll end up somewhere. But probably not where you want to be. KPIs are the rudder of your website and a solid Google Analytics strategy .

Is this you?

The tough part is translating business objectives (which we are all familiar with) to KPIs (which are somewhat foreign to most people).

How do I establish my website’s KPIs? One needs to start with the goal of the website. Why is it there?
What do you want web surfers to do when they have arrived on your website?

• Contact you?
• Buy something?
• Request a quote?
• Read all of the content and subsequently tell you that you are amazing (tongue in cheek)!

How do we measure the above utilizing Key Performance Indicators?
IE: How does your website articulate your company’s mission and objectives? And then how do we narrow these broad objectives into something more finite and measurable?
KPI need to be:

• specific (you have to be granular)
• measurable (linked to a number)
• actionable (you have to be able to do something with the results you attain)
• useful (no use measuring something you can do nothing about)
• within a finite period of time (a slice in time)

Without the above criteria being met, you are wasting your time with KPIs. Why bother?

Digging down….. KPIs need to be directly related to the bottom line of your business. If you sell Widgets, then your KPIs need to be related to the sale of those Widgets. Case in point. You have spent a chunk of change ensuring that your organic and/or paid search strategy has driven good and qualified traffic to your website. A Visitor arrives on a pre-defined landing page (a targeted page in the case of a paid (AdWords) strategy). Now what? You want them to go somewhere once they have arrived.

1. Targeted Landing Page
2. Product (Widget) Overview Page (Click “Buy Now Link”)
3. Checkout
4. Thank You (for spending your hard-earned cash with us) message

Presto! $$$$

So measure this interaction via a KPI. Perhaps you have traffic landing on the Targeted Landing Page. They then go on to the Product Overview Page. Then a subset leaves the site! Aren’t you glad that you have implemented a KPI that helps you determine that you have an “abandonment” issue on your Product Overview Page? This is an example of a KPI not being met. That’s okay. At least you have placed yourself in a position to know that you have a problem versus being “fat dumb & happy”.

What about a non-revenue generating website? In other words, the website’s existence is part of a broader marketing initiative whose goal is to help generate revenue for the corporate entity.

A KPI may be measuring something as simple as how many people (linked to a number) downloaded the corporate brochure during the first quarter (a finite period of time). You have spent a great deal of money creating some wonderfully branded marketing material that extols the virtues of your Widget-eliminating software. Isn’t it nice to be able to go to the head of Marketing and let her know that her money was well-spent (hopefully!).

These were simple of KPIs based on fictitious websites. The question for you to answer is what are you doing to measure your web property’s success? Have you implemented a Google Analytics strategy that includes a clear set of KPIs that help you get the most of your website investment? If not, we can help you establish clear, meaningful & measurable KPIs!

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KPIs – Key Performance Indicators is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Our Social Media Strategist Jason focuses in on Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. The new player on the block is Google+ (Google Plus). Jason wrote an interesting post on Google’s newest child just last week. Google+ offers the possibility of being a game changer. Why you ask? Simply because it will have the ability to be deeply integrated into Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools. Probably more than any of its competitors will ever be.

I implemented Google+ buttons on our website last week (and StumbleUpon). At first I was undecided on whether to do it or not.

Probably because Google has only recently rolled out Google+ to Google.ca. So far interaction has been minimal as compared to the likes of Twitter & Facebook. I am hoping that this will change as more people sign up for and use Google+.

Note: Every indexed page of your website should now have a Google+ button beside it. Have a look.

A really cool thing about Google+ is that a web property owner can receive instant feedback on any page of their website that has been crawled by Google.

This is truly amazing as Twitter et al will never be able to do this as they do not have their very own Search Engine. Rather they depend heavily on the likes of Google (okay Bing, Yahoo, etc…) for visibility.

Back to Analytics. As it stands now, one can track user interaction with one’s Social Media profiles via Google Analytics’ Campaign Tracking tools. Very nifty. But a bit time consuming to implement.

Note: At WebFuel, we track every one of our Social Media profiles and associated interactions via Google Analytics.

Google+ promise more – much more. As of this writing, data on Google+ interaction with one’s web property can be viewed in Google Webmaster Tools.

And… Google Analytics! This is just the tip of the iceberg. Google is also adding some cool tools to measure Social Engagement across all of your Social Media properties. The “Social Engagement” reports allow you to see how people shared content on your site via social actions. Examples of social actions on your site that can be tracked include Google +1 button clicks, Facebook “Like” and “Send” interactions, and Del.icio.us bookmarks. You can compare the number of Facebook Like’s versus Facebook Send’s on your site, or compare the total number of Facebook interactions with the total number of Twitter interactions. And on and on.

All this to say that Social Media is hot. Very hot. Google is sinking big bucks into the Google Plus play. I like it. I hope others do as well as a great tool is only as good as the volume of people who use it.

Have you implemented Google+ on your website? Are you measuring your successes?

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Google Plus Measuring Social Media Success is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Not sure if you are? Here are two very simple tests:

1. Country-Specific Search Engines

Using Google Canada, try a brand name search for your “business name” (use quotes if your company name is more than one word). Google.ca also offers searches in the French (français) language. Test this option as well, if applicable. You can also conduct this test by using Yahoo! Canada and Bing Canada (be sure to select the “only from Canada” option).

Does your website appear in the search results? And… are you getting high rankings? We recommend first page results.

2. Country-Specific Search Traffic

Using Google Analytics (or another web analytics program), check which countries your search traffic is coming from. If you want to get found by Canadians, you should see these results in your Map Overlay and country-specific data. You can even drill down to find out the language used in the Search (Canadian English or French).

Are your site visitors coming from Canada? And… what language are they using to search (if applicable)?

Geo-targeting is at the core of local search engine optimization. It is also known as country-specific search engine optimization. This is an important, not to be overlooked, aspect in both the build of your site – as well as when you optimize for Organic Search.

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Can Your Business Get Found in a Canadian Search? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Here are five good SEO reasons to use Google Analytics:

1. Search Engine Traffic
Google Analytics tracks search engine traffic to your site. This captured data tells you how many of your site visitors arrived via engines as well as the how your search traffic ranks compared to your other traffic sources (direct traffic / referring sites). It also identifies the engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo! Bing) and who sent the most traffic. By default, GA tracks more than 20 different search engines. There is also a breakdown available between paid and non-paid keyword driven traffic.

2. Keywords
In addition to automatically tracking search engine sources, Google Analytics tracks keywords that send search traffic to your site. This data tells you which keywords / keyword phrases were used by your site’s visitors and ranks them according to popularity. You can drill down further to determine more details for each keyword including statistics on organic and paid search.

3. Content Performance
Since optimizing content for search is the basics of search engine optimization, tracking page performance is essential. Google Analytics tracks data on which web pages attract site visitors and displays them in order of which are performing the best (listed by URL). You can also view this data by Page Title. The Content Drilldown report provides a list of top pages based on content sections within your website. Top Landing Pages, sent by search engines traffic can also be identified, as well as data on how well they perform.

4. Campaign Tracking
This is a more advanced feature than the above three, as it needs to be set up. Google Analytics can do campaign tracking. This includes Google AdWords by default. However you can also track any search marketing (as well as offline) campaigns. Campaign tracking is implemented by using link tagging (a unique URL to identify each marketing source).

5. Site Search
Likely the most overlooked – yet a real valuable source of SEO data. This is only for those sites that have a search box and allow web visitors to do an internal search to find information. Google Analytics can track these search terms as well a search term refinements at the site level. This requires set up as well.

Accessing the data, of course, is only the first step in the web analytics process. You need to measure, analyze, test and modify – always working towards your desired outcomes.

If you do not have Google Analytics installed on your website or if you are not monitoring your site outcomes, it is time to get started.

Recent Post: Google Analytics Qualified Professional Helen Faber

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Why use Google Analytics for SEO? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

This time I am joined by WebFuel’s Search Strategist, Helen Faber. We’re both quite excited for the amazing lineup of speakers which included analytics expert Avinash Kaushik, online marketing pioneer Gary Vaynerchuk, venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, brand strategist Jeffrey Hayzlett and Columbia University Business professor Dr. Sheena Iyengar. Over 1200 eager marketers file into the magnificent Metro Toronto Convention Centre, creating a great atmosphere. You can feel the anticipation for the day’s first speaker – Avinash Kaushik.

Avinash Kaushik

To begin with, I love Avinash. He is the only man alive that can make such a boring topic (Analytics) something entertaining, interesting and even funny. His energy and enthusiasm on stage was very well received by the morning crowd. Just as he did in Montreal, Kaushik shouts and rants on stage about “Garbage” and “Puke”! He points out the mistakes that many make, while giving you realistic solutions and advice. Avinash explains that the reason that most websites “suck” is do to the HPPO’s (pronounced “Hippos”). That stands for Highest Paid Person’s Opinon. He elaborates by stating that at most large companies, the highest paid person makes decisions about things that they know nothing about – websites – and 95% of the time it is ugly, and awful. One of the most well-received acronyms in Avinash’s arsenal was HITS: How Idiots Track Success. But, the quote that hit home hardest for me was that “you can’t improve something by 1000%. But you can improve 1000 things by 1%.” Brilliant.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Next up was Gary Veynerchuk. A true entrepreneur, Vaynerchuk is enthusiatic, outgoing and…well…quite vulgar! But amidst the swearing and rants was a great, inspirational message. Gary became well known for Wine Library TV, a video blog that he created to help sell wine for his family’s business. Vaynerchuk truly understands the consumer and the social web. He expressed his hatred for companies that don’t talk to, or even about, their customers. They are the lifeblood of your business. in order to get your customers to love you, you must love them first. Building loyalty should be first and foremost, because a loyal customer is there for life. He left the crowd with an outstanding stat followed by a piece of advice. First off, the stat: There is more original content being created every 48 hours today than there was from the beginning of man kind until 2003. Wow. And finally, his advice was simple. If someone starts to gloat about how many followers they have on Twitter, punch them in the face. Thanks Gary. Needless to say, I will absolutely be reading Gary’s newest book, The Thank You Economy.

Jeffrey Hayzlett

Last up before lunch was Jeffrey Hayzlett, former Kodak CMO. Hayzlett is well known for being a crucial player in Kodak’s legendary branding turnaround in the early 2000′s. As he takes the stage, it is quite evident that Hayzlett is a natural leader and marketer. “A brand is not a logo or a picture. A brand is simply a promise to deliver” he explains. “Kodak doesn’t make a camera or film equipment. They make emotional technology.” He goes on to discuss Social Media and the common desire to create something viral. “Viral is flukey” he claims. “Yes, it may happen, but please don’t waste your time and effort trying to create it. If it happens, it happens. Spend your time building relationships. They are much more valuable.” He is enthusiastic and spontaneous. He likes to take and idea and run with it. Hayzlett’s motto throughout his speech was “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. No one is going to die.” He explained by telling a story about a marketing campaign that Kodak had launched that encouraged consumers to text a number via their mobile phones to receive coupons. All of the ads were run in movie theatres before the show. Well, the downfall of the campaign is quite evident. What do you do with your phone when you walk into a movie theatre? Turn it off, right? “Well,” Hayzlett says “It was a mistake. My mistake. But don’t worry, no one is going to die. Let’s move on.” It’s this outlook and attitude that makes Hayzlett an amazing marketer. No one is perfect. People make mistakes. It’s how they react and learn from those mistakes that makes a difference.

Dr. Sheena Iyengar

After a much needed lunch, we returned to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to Dr. Sheena Iyengar, expert on consumer behaviour and the psychology of choice. Iyengar was definitely a change of pace. While the other presenters were jumping around from one side of the stage to the next, yelling and screaming passionately, she spoke softly while standing behind her podium for the full hour. But then again, while the others are radical, outgoing marketers, she is a University Professor. Her topic was also quite different. While the others put quite a heavy focus on the online space, Dr. Iyengar discussed the psychological side behind marketing. She examined the art of choice, and how humans make decisions when faced with a variety of different options. The conclusions drawn from her study were quite interesting. She stated that when people are given more choice, often times they take longer to make a decision, they make a worse decision and are ultimately less satisfied with their choice. They second guess themselves and think “Did I make the wrong decision?” She went on the explain that humans are born with the desire to choose, but without the innate skills to actually make a decision. In closing she provided the crowd with an interesting example. She told us that if you give someone the choice between going to an ice cream shop that only offered vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, or a shop that offered over 60 flavours, most people would choose the latter. But, interestingly enough even though they chose the shop with 60 flavours, most people would continue to buy either chocolate, vanilla or strawberry.

Guy Kawasaki
Last, but certainly not least, Guy Kawasaki took the stage to round out the day. He begins by winning over the crowd by praising hockey, Steam Whistle beer and…Justin Bieber. How Canadian, eh? Kawasaki’s message was all about how to be enchanting. A former Apple employee and author of over 10 best selling books, Kawasaki brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the stage. He stressed that trust is key – and that it is a two way street. Earn it, and maintain it. In order to enchant your employees you must give them MAP – Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose. With that they can, and will, succeed. He expressed the need to build relationships, engage, help others and, most of all, to enchant them. Kawasaki advises the crowd to not delay bad news. If something bad happens, tell people right away – don’t let it be a surprise. And always tell them with a solution in mind. Avoiding the inevitable will only make things worse. After a few more comments about how much Guy loves Canada, we move into the final Q&A session of the day. One audience member asks Kawasaki “Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are all undeniably amazing and successful entrepreneurs. Do you think that they are enchanting?” Guy laughs, takes a sip of water and responds “I hate that question. I’ll say this. You don’t need to be enchanting to be successful.”

The crowd erupts in laughter and applause. Kawasaki gives us one last wave, and the event’s host Ron Tite wraps up The Art of Marketing Toronto – a day filled with excitement, enthusiasm, passion, lessons, ideas and strategies. If you ever get the chance to hear any of these presenters speak, I highly suggest it.

The next big conference that I will be attending will be Search Marketing Expo in Toronto April 28-29th. Will I see you there?

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The Art of Marketing Toronto is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

• SEO can’t save a sinking ship
• SEO recommendations don’t implement themselves

Jill

Jill Whalen, CEO  of High Rankings and co-founder of SEMNE, has been performing SEO services since 1995. Jill is the host of the HRA SEO newsletter and the High Rankings SEO forum. Original article published on Talent Zoo.

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SEO: You’re Bound to Lose Website Traffic If… is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

The Art of Marketing is a conference that features 6 World renowned best-selling authors – Mitch Joel, Seth Godin, Avinash Kaushik, Max Lenderman, Andy Nulman and Jeffrey Gitomer – who shared a blend of inspirational, forward thinking, real-world marketing stories, tips, ideas and issues. The day on a whole was exhausting – in a good way. Hundreds of eager marketers filled a large conference room at the Palais des Congrès in downtown Montreal. Ron Tite, the host of the day’s event hops up on stage, full of energy and humor. After he welcomes the crowd, he introduces the first of six speakers – Mitch Joel.

Mitch Joel

Author of the best-selling book Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel is a marketing genius and a member of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40. Joel addressed several new marketing issues faced by organizations and how digital marketing and Social Media are changing the game. Joel shared numerous mind-blowing stats with the crowd, who “ooh-ed” and “aah-ed”. The one that stood out the most to me was that 20% of searches made daily on Google have never been made before. He went on to discuss the demographics of major Social Networks. Joel says that there are more grandparents than High School students on Facebook, and half of YouTube‘s audience is over 34 years old. He stressed that understanding your audience is key. Know who they are, and target them in the right places. “Stop marketing, start publishing” he preaches. People get hung up on the little things and over-complicate their marketing efforts. He explains how a negative review online more often than not leads to sales. Why? People appreciate transparency and authenticity.  “So, what’s the secret?” Joel asks. “Just word hard and be nice to people.” It’s as simple as that.

Seth Godin

After a short networking break, the day continues with super-marketer Seth Godin. Author of numerous best-sellers including The Dip and Purple Cow, Godin is a truly inspirational marketing genius. Like Joel, Godin has an uncanny ability to make things simple. “Don’t worry about what’s next, worry about what’s now” says Godin. “Go ahead, make mistakes – and learn from them!” Godin goes on to explain that we need to stop shouting our messages at people. Old marketing was all about shout – interrupting people with our message. “Don’t interrupt people who don’t like you, organize people who you’re connected with” he says. And as for these people – your customers – they all just want to fit in. Fitting in is being the most average. Godin uses the iPod as an example. Yes Apple make amazing products – he doesn’t deny that. But the reason that they sell so many iPods is not the technology behind it – it’s the marketing. “Apple doesn’t make an MP3 player. They make jewelery with a function!” People just want to be seen with those white ear buds – to fit in, to be the most average. After a short Q&A with the audience, Godin leaves the crowd satisfied and inspired as we head off to lunch.

Avinash Kaushik

Next up – brand monitoring and web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik. As Avinash takes the stage, the guy beside me sarcastically mutters to himself  “Great, an hour of listening to some guy talk about Web Analytics. This should be fun.” Well, was he ever wrong. Avinash took the stage by storm. His surprising enthusiasm and energy was enjoyed by all. His message was comprised of entertaining quotes, educational information and the occasional yelling of “Suck!” and “Puke!” As crazy as he was, in my opinion Avinash was the best presenter of the day. Referring to his books and his blog Avinash says that “People like to pay for things that are free.” His ability to make analytics the most entertaining topic of the day is beyond me. He explained how most people monitoring their brand are doing it wrong. He presents the crowd with a clever acronym – HITS: How Idiots Track Success. Like Godin, Avinash explains that people make things too hard for themselves by over complicating things. “You can’t improve 1 thing by 1000%” he explains, “But you can improve 1000 things by 1%” Great advice. He finishes by declaring that “revenue is good…but economic value is GOD!” Engaging, educational, and a little bit crazy. I guess that’s the recipe for a great marketer.

Max Lenderman

I think most of us in the crowd felt bad for Max. I mean, how do you follow Avinash? That’s a tough gig. But, all in all, he pulled it off. Casually drinking a Molson Export on stage, Lenderman discussed branding and experiential marketing using a variety of real-life examples from around the globe. He explains that people of the world are very brand atheistic and price conscious. That’s how people continue to sell counterfeit products. But piracy and counterfeiting isn’t all that bad. It keeps the big brands on their toes – makes them compete on “the experience”. This is exactly what Apple has done with the Apple Store. They have created an experience for customers that goes up and above the product itself. In closing, Lenderman reminded the crowd to just “Be Authentic”. Simple and effective. After a short networking break we were back for Andy Nulman.

Andy Nulman

Another best selling author and marketing pioneer, Andy Nulman, was next. He shared his theories, ideas and stories about strategy and innovation. With over 35 years of experience in the field, that included a 15 year stint as the CEO of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, Andy sure had a lot to say. He opened with a favourite quote of his, by Tom Peters: “Value added in today’s economy is created by the weirdo’s and the freaks.” He encouraged everybody in the room to stop trying to be normal. Normal is blah. You want to be Abnormal! As Nulman continued, he preached to the crowd that the Impossible is possible. It might have been a long day, but the crowd became restless during Nulman’s talk. There was an overall feeling in the area in which I was sitting that he was being more self-promotional, and less educational. I over heard a woman in front of me say to a friend “Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!” referring to Nulman’s constant stories about his own successes. Give him credit he stuck it out to the end, full of energy and enthusiasm.

Jeffrey Gitomer

Last, but surely not least, Jeffrey Gitomer. The 60-something, hard nosed, no nonsense – yet hilarious, Gitomer took the stage. He immediately won the Montreal crowd over by showing a photo of the Stanley Cup on his first slide, and saying “If you’re from Toronto, this is what the Stanley Cup looks like.” Then he hopped off the stage, got down to business. A true salesman, Gitomer exclaims “I put people in front of me that will say yes to me, and then I deliver!” Walking through the crowd as he spoke, Gitomer made a real connection with the audience. “Are you still wasting money on print ads?” he asks with a tone of frustration and anger in his voice. “Good for you. Your full page ad in the Gazette is getting pissed on by some puppy the next day!” He went to explain that “the future is Social. It’s free you idiots!”

He continued by discussing marketing and selling yourself. He told the crowd to reach into their pockets and hand their business card to someone near them who they didn’t know. “If it looks like crap, rip it up and throw it back at them” he yells. The crowd didn’t quite know what to do. Surely some people thought the business cards they were handed were worthy of such destruction, but didn’t want to insult others. “Why does your business card suck? It’s your first impression – make it a good one!” He went on the explain the importance of blogging, and getting youname.com or .ca – and a quick poll of the crowd showed that only about 5% of us had done so. He was disgusted. But Gitomer’s on the edge attitude didn’t come across as cocky, or annoying. It acted as an eye opener to the crowd of seemingly clueless sales people and marketers. “Oh my god,” said one guy beside me “I gotta get my .ca tomorrow!” Gitomer’s message was heard loud and clear. He finished by encourage the crowd to use Twitter – but use it right. Don’t worry about how many followers you have. Worry about being Retweeted. That’s what gets you noticed on Twitter. “Twitter isn’t 140 characters,” he says “It’s 120 characters with space left over for a Retweet.” Excellent.

Joel, Godin, Avinash, Lenderman, Nulman and Gitomer. What a star-studded lineup. I felt very fortunate to have gone to Montreal to watch, and listen to this diverse group of marketing geniuses. I would highly encourage you to take the opportunity to listen to any of of these guys speak, or even pick up one of their books. You won’t be disappointed. Until next year Art of Marketing, au revoir!

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The Art of Marketing: From a WebFuel Perspective is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Google Analytics, Eh?
This is the first in a series of posts covering what data to analyze in Google Analytics if you are targeting the Canadian marketplace, starting with Map Overlay.

Featured Report: Map Overlay
The Map Overlay report displays location data. It tells you where your website visitors are coming from – or where they are not coming from.

How to find Map Overlay in GA
You can access Map Overlay via your Google Analytics Dashboard (just click on “view report” link) or select “Map Overlay” found under the “Visitors” section in the navigation bar (left hand side).

Country Level: Canada
By default, Google Analytics gives you an overview of the World map. It displays website traffic from a Country/Territory perspective indicated in green. The greater the percentage of visitors that come from that particular country, the darker the shade of green.

Note: Primary source of web traffic is from Canada

City Level: Canadian Cities
When you drill down from the  country level, you can access the city data. Popular Canada cites and territories include: Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Fredericton, Regina, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Québec City, St. John’s, Halifax, Charlottetown, Yellowknife, Iqaluit and Whitehorse. Traffic from various cities is indicated in orange. Again, the darker the shade of orange, the higher the number of website visitors.

Note: Web Traffic from Canadian Cities

Note: The major cities may not include the entire geographic area. For example, if you are trying to get found in an Ottawa Search (as in Ottawa, Ontario), you will need to take into account Kanata, Nepean, Orleans, Gloucester, Vanier, Manotick, Carleton Place and maybe even Gatineau, Québec.

Province Level: Canadian Provinces
While Map Overlay shows you traffic by country all the way down to the city level, it is missing Canadian province data. If you are targeting getting found in a Canadian Search, province and territory data would be helpful. Especially if you are comparing traffic from Ontario to Québec for example. One option is to create a filter to only include traffic from a selected province. However, this is not ideal when you will need to navigate between profiles to compare each province.

Note: Web traffic from Canadian Provinces

Solution: Custom Report(s)
You can take all the cities in Ontario, and create a custom report. Simply select “country/territory” as dimension, and then “region”. Add the metric “Visits”, save and you’re done! To access this new report, just click on “Canada” and you will have access to Provinces and Territories of Canada. And… yes – if you wish to know all the traffic in the Ottawa area, a report can be created for this as well.

Web analytics is a powerful tool to use in terms of website Search Engine Optimization, especially if your business is targeting specific geographic regions. If you need data based on Canada, Ontario or Ottawa for example, the Map Overlay Report, and customized reports, can be very helpful. It is important to note however that the specific geographic location is based on where the servers are located. So… factor this into the equation when performing your analysis.

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Targeting Canada, Eh? Google Analytics & Map Overlay is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

You may be wondering how does the WebFuel team actually stay up-to-date with search and what is happening on the Internet. Well, first off, we devote at minimum 20 per cent of our time to making sure that we are on top of search. But how do we do this?

We do this in a number of ways:

• Attending industry leading webinars
• Attending Search Engine Marketing and Social Media events
• Attending Google Webcasts
• Attending Google Seminars for Success
• Attending conferences (Search Engine Strategies and PubCon Social Media and Search Marketing Conferences) on an annual basis

As an example of how we “really” do this, this week we are attending the Search Engine Strategies 2010 Conference in Toronto, Canada. This three-day conference is focused entirely on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategies. This includes keynote speakers Peter Morville on the topic of the future of search and Maile Ohye from Google. We will also be attending seminars on topics such as SEO, Canadian search, local search, mobile search, pay per click management (also known as paid search), keyword research, social media, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, and usability.

In addition to the professional development component, we also devote time to keeping up with industry search leaders. We do this by:

• Following industry experts on Twitter
• Reading industry-focused blogs
• Online networking through LinkedIn and Facebook

But that’s not all – we also have the following recognized Google credentials: Google Advertising Professional (GAP) and Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ). And don’t take our word for it, it can all be verified by Google!

All this goes to show that we are passionate about Search. We know the value of a sound and serious search strategy. We do the work on the Internet to ensure that your search strategy is getting you to the top of the search engine results page.

We work with clients like you who are Serious about Search and can clearly understand the value it adds. You’ve learned the value of outsourcing search to the experts – letting us do the work for you. As you know an in-house search strategy doesn’t allow you to stay on top of the industry shifts and trends. Since we devote 20 per cent of our time to search, we know what is coming and how to get you where you need to be.

Working with WebFuel gives you the peace of mind that the latest strategies in SEO, Social Media, and Web Analytics are being used to get you to the top and keep you on the top.

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Are you Staying on Top of Search? We are. is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

One of the first pieces of data most website owners look at is their website’s Visitors (how many people come to a website) & then their Bounce Rate. Google describes Bounce rate as:

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.

This number can be sobering as you have probably spent loads of hard earned cash expecting that everyone will love your website and that the information you have provided will be relevant to what the web searcher is looking for. This is not always the case. And, to be honest, although monitoring a site’s visitors & bounce rate is important, it is not the be all and end all.

I digress. This post is actually about how to take advantage of a feature that is prevalent on most every website these days. The innocuous Search Box.

These days site search is becoming more and more important. Who is to say that once someone lands on your website, they will find what they want right away. You have invested heavily in organic SEO with the hope (prayer?) that once people search for that particular keyword or phrase, your site will be the first to appear in the SERP. This being the case, once the web surfer has clicked through to your site, you will (hopefully) be serving up the dish they ordered. If not, they may hang around a while and dig some more. If not, the will leave (Bounce!). Note: In theory the lower your site’s bounce rate the better.

Work in areas such as your Website’s design, speed and usability, content & it’s navigation system will help keep people on the site. Adding a useful Search Box is a great step forward. I say useful because the engine that powers your site’s search feature needs to serve up some goodies pretty quickly. If not…. Bye Bye….. “next”!

Fast forward! You have an awesome site with a great search appliance. You need to measure not only the fact that people are using that Search box, but also what they are searching for. The data you will mine here will invariably help you tune many aspects of your site. Really, it will!

Google Analytics serves up a great option that for some (insane?) reason many people ignore when they set up their GA account. And that my friends is the ability to track | measure internal site searches. By measuring and analyzing this information you will find out some nifty things.

Google Analytics - Site Search Statistics

As with any data, you will get more appreciable results by measuring over a prolonged period of time (i.e. 30 days versus 2 days).

It is interesting to draw comparisons of what people search for while on your site versus what they type in while getting there via a search engine. For example, why would someone key in “widgets” on your site when they already used the same keyword to get there from a search engine? In other words, web surfers are actually using their brains when they hit your site and use its search feature. They have taken the first step and found a site that should have something they are looking for to do with widgets. Time to refine that search.

Use of a site search box actually infers user engagement as they have arrived, and are intrigued by what they see. Despite not finding what they are looking for initially, they did not run! A second chance for you. Don’t mess up.

So be sure that the Search appliance you are using works well and that you take the time to enable your Analytics application’s ability to track internal site searches…. And mine that data. Analyze it, parse it, cut it, slice it! Draw conclusions. Assign goals. Then do it all over again.

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Taking Advantage of Your Website's Internal Search Statistics is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel