Confessions of a Data Junkie

I am a Web Traffic Data junkie. The seminal event of my addiction was in October 1994 when I first gazed in wonderment upon a web log and so began my quest to connect traffic to sales. The trip has had several side trips with work in SEO, text to data mapping research, web design, programming, and direct sales. During this time I never lost sight of my objective of transforming the mountains of data into actionable business information. So is the life of a Data Junkie!

For years the web log was the standard for understanding web traffic and it was one of those situations where you were buried in data and starving for information. The next generation was a layer of software that summarized the log data to create meaningful information. The next major event was the creation of tag based analytics and in this class the largest installed base is by far Google Analytics. This differs from log based systems in that it only tracks what you code with the Google Analytics Tracking Code. The fact that it tracks only what you code is both an advantage and disadvantage. In log based systems you get everything at a painfully detailed level, but in a tagged system you only get activity that runs the JavaScript on the page. Tagged systems, like Google Analytics, brought the data up to a page level making it easier to understand for most people. In a log system there could be 50 entries just to indicate that one person loaded one page. Tagged systems have their own problems including a higher likelihood of errors of omission.

All of this brings me to June 2009 almost 15 years since the start of my data addiction. This experience gives me a perspective on this field of study and every month I work with data from over 50 clients to help them understand what their data are trying to tell them. Our job is understand the data and help our clients use that knowledge to guide their business. This month was one of those months where there was a disturbance in the data. When you work with marketing data you have to realize several things like; there are no facts only clues, marketing data is an estimate, and factual data is not causation.

As we started our monthly account review we started to notice that there was an unmistakable shift in the data. This conclusion did not come from one event or even one client but by clue after clue as we progressed through over 55 sets of data the change became clear. There was a major move in quality scores and organic position patterns. Google had reshuffled the deck; Clients with historically strong keywords were suddenly in different positions. Quality score went through data shift. Some moved up and some moved down but the reshuffling was clear and to be fair from an overall perspective it appears that the calculations got more accurate. The people that moved down will not like the results but the reality is that most of the moves we saw were fair. What we think is happening is that Google is pushing the formula of relevancy forward and we think it is evolving into a calculation of themes, trust, and authority. If we are right about this it will require rethinking web design, advertizing, and search engine optimization.

The fact that Google is headed in the direction of themes, trust, and authority is hardly a revelation. Google has been working on this for years and in their own development style they are rolling this out, receiving feedback, and then continuing the adjustments to the calculation. Google is in a continual improvement develop loop and this month was just one more installment. We have seen this before and we will see it again. This month I had the privilege to meet some of the developers at the Googleplex in Mountain View so I can tell you they have some very smart people working on their systems. If any company can improve the search quality it is Google.
If you believe like I do that Google is headed in the Themes, Trust, and Authority direction then we need to start thinking like that in our design, advertising, and optimization. Let's start with a discussion of what these words mean in the context of web traffic.

Themes are the natural evolution of keyword relevancy. Instead of a simple keyword match on a page a theme is looking for a group of words across a collection of pages. A collection of pages could be a section of a web site, the full web site, or even multiple web sites. Defining the collection includes an analysis of what pages point to other pages and where they fit in the hierarchy of the site. In the past optimizing meant selecting your keywords and making sure they are reasonably represented in the content. Themes are looking for the root keyword plus support from other associated words including things like inferred references in the text. Google has known for a long time that simple keyword relevancy was too simple to solve the search challenge and that it was way too easy to game the system. Themes makes it tougher and at some point it will force people to give up on gaming the system because creating great content will be easier than trying to beat the system.
Trust is exactly what it sounds like; how much does the system trust the content source. Themes told us what the content is about but how much do we trust the source? This is a critical question in search and it is also a complex question in our society in general. Why do you trust your friends? How did you get to a trusting relationship with them? Just like in personal relationships trust is built over time and it is built on your actions. Google is working on trying to figure out who they should trust. Certainly things like how long the site has been around and who refers to that site are critical but that is far from the only thing they can consider. I believe they are asking questions like: Has the site, or their inbound links, been caught gaming the system? Has the site been blacklisted for spam? Have the inbound links grown over time?

Authority addresses the question of the authority of this source relative to the theme? Authority is theme specific because a site might be trusted but not an authority on a specific theme. Just because Google is a trusted authority on search does not make them an authority on Microbiology. Authority is associated with trust but it is not exactly the same. Building authority takes time and it is just like building authority in the real world. You have to publish and let people comment on your work just like a peer review in the academic world.

So after this entire esoteric dialog what does this mean to your business? Great question. What it means is that we all have to start rethinking our web strategies to develop a plan on how to be the trusted authority on the themes that are important to our businesses. This is easy to say, but tough to do. However when you get down to it, this is exactly what businesses have been doing for all of history. They develop their messaging (theme) then work to become the trusted authority on that theme. Businesses do this because people do business with those they trust; and they trust those that help them understand. Your web site is a tool that can help you educate your suspects, prospects, customers, and clients on your value to them. Build solid themes and become the trusted authority on those themes and you will discover that Google is really your best friend and they are looking for you.

Till next month...

Self Induced Content Inspiration

One of the hardest things about running a web site is keeping it fresh. If you have new interesting content on your site at a daily or near daily frequency, visitors have a reason to come back often. More visitors usually mean more money, so this is a good thing. Plus on a side note, this is great for SEO. The only problem is where do you find the inspiration to do all this writing?

Content development can be difficult and time consuming, especially if you have no idea what to write about. As it turns out, if you are running any kind of analytics program or PPC account you have a tons of possible ideas just waiting for you. The stats in these accounts will tell you what words and themes are most popular on your site and on the web. This is great inspiration because it allows you to see real searches, not just what you think would be popular.

The first place to look for content inspiration is your analytics account. If you don't have one in place, Google Analytics is a free and easily implemented option. What you want to do in Analytics is find your traffic sources, and then search engines. You should be able to access a list of keywords used to visit your website. There will be a lot of words that make sense to you in there, some relevant surprises, and some that are completely out of left field. One of my clients that does general contracting and clean up had a number of searches on how to clean egg off of windows, cars, and driveways. It's on the very edge of what they do, but it might be worth writing about seeing as a good number of people are interested. However if a phrase or keyword doesn't make any sense just disregard it.

Now start really looking at this list. Are there predominant words, phrases, and ideas? And are these themes relevant to your business? If there are, you've just found some great possible content development ideas. Make sure you scour this list for any potential topics, you have a lot of content to create and every relevant little bit helps.

Now your other content goldmine is your PPC account. This is a collection of words and phrases you want people to use to get to your site. The best part about this is you can see the total number of searches done even if they didn't result in a visit to your site. So say you sell fruit and you get 40 visits a day for 'apples.' 'Oranges' only gets 4. If you're only looking at analytics 'apples' is clearly more popular and content development should be focused there. But before you start your research into the wild world of applesauce, check out your PPC account. There's a chance that 'oranges' is searched far more often than 'apples,' you're just not getting a proportional piece of the traffic. Always keep an eye on which words get the most impressions.

Now that you have a better idea of what you should write about, make a plan. As I get ideas I write them all down in the same place. Then I try to figure out what topics have priority and how to best space them out. You don't necessarily want to ride one topic at a time. If you run 2 weeks of articles on the same topic and you have some regular readers that like your site but not the current topic you're riding at the moment, you might break their daily reader habit.

So in short, keep it fresh, keep it interesting, keep it relevant, and don't forget all the inspiration you need is right under your nose!

Google Analytics Counter-Intel

One of the most overlooked advantages of using Analytics is the business intelligence that can be extracted from the program. You can track specific visitor traffic, and generally keep an eye on everybody watching you. Sometimes extracting this type of information is labor intensive, but it can be very worth it. Plus if you're like me, it's fun.

Before I got involved with Search Marketing I was enlisted in the Army as a Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) Analyst, oddly they go very well together. I was taught to gather, sort, and interpret data to figure out who was doing what where and why. The clever networker (the in-person type of networking) can use Google Analytics as a BIZINT tool to gauge their social effectiveness and who they should follow up with.

After going to a trade event, a Chamber of Commerce meeting, or any other type of networking meeting I come back to the office and check out the web site addresses on some of the business cards I picked up in the course of the evening. Chances are some of the people you gave your card to did the same thing. Give it a day or two and then check your analytics.

Select the day of the event up until today then on the side bar of analytics click "Visitors," "Network Properties," and then "Network Location." The results will have the network location of every visit to your site. See any familiar names? Now not every business will have an identifiable result, smaller businesses will usually show up as a visit from an ISP like Charter, Comcast, RoadRunner and the like, but the midsize to big companies, schools, and government agencies will almost always be identifiable.

As you sort through this list you can see how many times they visited, how many pages they viewed and how long they visited for. If you want to investigate further click on the name of a specific network location, the next screen will be dedicated to just that location. Underneath the visit graph is a dropdown menu called "Segment" that has 20+ ways to dissect the traffic from this location. With this tool you can figure out if they came directly and used your card, or if they Googled you and what keyword they used to find you. You can even figure out if their office is running Windows, Mac, or Linux, and even their browser of choice. Experiment a little and see what data you can extract that would benefit you to know.

If you want to know what pages specific businesses were visiting Google is going to make you work just a little bit harder. Click on "Content" in the side bar and then "Content by Title" or "Top Content." They both ultimately do the same thing. If you give your pages unique and easily identifiable titles choose "Content by Title" if your URLs are more easily identifiable use "Top Content." From the resulting screen, click on the link for one of your pages. This will send you to a new page that gives you information on just one URL. In the "Segment" drop down choose "Network Location" to see which businesses may have visited that page. And now that you have Analytics set to show "Network Locations," you can change the tracked URL via the "Content" dropdown menu.

If you see a person of interest lurking around your website, track their behavior. It may present a pattern that gives you a better idea of what may be important to them, and you can adjust your sales presentation accordingly. Also take the initiative and follow up with them. You've met them in person, they visited your web site, a follow up call or an e-mail wouldn't be inappropriate at this point. What it is all worth is up to you, but I recommend keeping an eye on who is keeping an eye on you.