Website AnalyticsAs organizations invest more in their websites seeking new ways in which to generate new leads and engage customers with interactive and social media, the expectations of on-line marketers are growing too. Features including Blogs, social networking, wikis, RSS feeds, consumer generated content, podcasts, video, social tagging and Social Bookmarking, all of which represent new ways in which organizations can interact and share their messages on-line creating new opportunities.

Traditionally most organizations measure the success of their search engine optimization campaign’s success through Search Engine Ranking. With the increasing use of different ways to access your website you need to use Website Analytics to measure performance.

There is a lot more to accurately tracking Search Engine Optimization success than simply measuring rankings or counting page views. Neither offers the ability to track actions taking place on page in real-time. With website analytics the tool needs to track where the traffic is coming from as well as what the vistor is doing once they arrive.

Website analytics is an entire specialized discipline. Successful websites use analytics to drive their web design, search engine optimization and on-line marketing campaigns. To measure a website’s performance and Search Engine Optimization, marketing professional and SEO experts need analytic systems that can uncover a wide range of information. Website analytics that accurately reflect the real performance of the organization’s web presence.

Website analytics allow marketers and management to quickly and easily measure the complete range of their organization’s online presence including RSS Feeds, consumer-generated content and static website content. With reporting available for almost every type of  online activity Wi-Phye is expertly positioned to answer the Search Engine Optimization questions that are most important to your organization. We can set up reports that provide a wide range of tracking metrics and results that are customizable to determine the success of your Search Engine Optimization campaign.

A big issue with Website Analytics is dealing with the amount of data that can be collected as almost anything can be tracked and measured. As with any data collection process the amount of data collected can lead to overload and decision paralysis. Not only do we collect the correct data we know how to correctly interpret it.

At Wi-Phye we understand that there’s more to Search Engine Optimization and Website Analytics than just page rank and that a successful Search Engine Optimization campaign will derive traffic from a wide range of keywords. This includes terms and keywords that might not have been expected. The success of any SEO strategy needs to be analyzed from every angle. Non-branded search traffic (traffic that doesn’t include your organization name), amount of traffic from each search engines, time on site, entry / exit pages and rankings are all meaningful metrics.

The bottom line is that your organization needs to see if its SEO strategy is succeeding. If you can not measure it, you can not improve it. In addition you need to make sure that you’re helping your business develop and grow. You don’t necessarily have to be in first place in the Search Engine Rankings for every keyword for this to be true.

The following are some of the website analytics that we consider important when studying data gathered through analytical tools such as Google Analytics.

  • Identifying your top keyword referrals. The keywords referring to a website will reveal patterns and themes that otherwise would be next to impossible to identify. We can use this analysis to guide keyword selection and refine our SEO efforts. A good SEO campaign will bring traffic to your website from a range of keywords, including terms you didn’t expect.
  • Referring Domains. This metric reveals the largest drivers of traffic to your website. The top referring domains tend to be search engines and social networking / social bookmarking sites. By being able to determine which sites are most often referring traffic to your website you can measure the effectiveness of a link building campaign. You may also be able to see opportunities to gain traffic that might otherwise go unnoticed. Perhaps a particular site is reviewing your product favourably or an influential blogger is name checking you. With this sort of information you might decide to modify your content to add appropriate link bait.
  • Click path analytics can show you how vistors are navigating through your website. This data can be used to determine the effectiveness of your website design.
  • Paid vs. Organic search engine traffic. These metrics can be used to measure the effectiveness of your search engine optimization campaign vs your PPC campaigns. PPC campaigns allow you to target certain keywords and phrases quickly at a known ROI /conversion rate. By comparing these two metrics your organization can refine which terms to target for organic result and which to target with a PPC campaign.
  • Geolocation. As competition increases for certain keywords and phrase it maybe easier to target terms with a geographic component rather then a general term. For example: “Cleveland SEO Company” is easier to rank for then the general term “SEO”. The more targeted you make your campaigns the more geography matters. You  can use geolocation data to develop new content, launch targeted landing pages and modify service offerings to target certain locations. Geolocation is the biggest part of a Local SEO campaign.
  • Visitor trends. Monitor the number of visits month to month to find seasonal trends. Use trend analysis to identify and apply correlations between the time of year and referring keywords.
  • Top Landing Pages. By identifying your most popular pages you can optimize your site structure. This data can also be used to improve your internal link structure to direct traffic to less popular pages.
  • Conversion Rates. The holy grail of metrics. Are your calls to action working? Is the action performed and how often? Is the action happening more or less then before? The action could be contacting your organization through an email form, signing up for a newsletter,  purchasing a product or any other desirable behavior.

Conversion is what determines success. Bringing traffic to your website is half the battle, having a website that drives the visitor to take a desired action is just as important. Analyzing conversion rates along with other website analytics can inform your decision making. The effect of informed decision making might be changes to marketing budgets, optimizing landing pages, re-targeting keywords, creating new content, creating different link bait or a number of other Search Engine Optimization changes.

  • Bounce Rate. Basically the bounce rate tells your organization how many people visited only a single page on your website before leaving. This usually means that the visitor didn’t find the information they were looking for. This metic can be used to determine the effectiveness of your content.
  • Browser type. In the past this metric was used to prioritize which desktop browsers to develop for. As browsers got better and IE6 became less popular this metric became less popular. With the rise of mobile browsers this metric has become important again. If you notice that iPhone user seem to have trouble navigating your website then you need to make improvements.

This isn’t a complete list of the website analytics that you can use to inform your decision making process. There are many other website analytics used for SEO including analysis of non-branded traffic, the measurement of which will show how your audience looks for you, allowing you to further refine your campaigns.

Some Search Engine Optimization professional believe that non-branded traffic, traffic you receive from terms that don’t include your company name, is the best way to determine the success of a search engine optimization campaign. This is a belief that we incorporate into our SEO services and Web Design services.

For a thorough and complete review of your website’s performance, Contact Wi-Phye.