Released on: March 24, 2008, 5:53 am

Press Release Author: DEV DAAS/Technoflickers

Industry: Small Business

Press Release Summary: Analytics are very important to your web marketing campaign.
If you do not use analytics properly you may not understand how effective your
search engine marketing is.

Press Release Body: Analytics are very important to your web marketing campaign. If
you do not use analytics properly you may not understand how effective your search
engine marketing is.

In this article I look at some practical examples of when to use analytics and some
things you need to identify in order to get the most out of your analytics.



I came across a situation today that I thought I'd share. It has to do with a
client's analytics.

Many times, as a search engine marketer, it is up to us to tell the client what they
should be looking for in their analytics. Right away this seems odd to me. It's like
me telling my client what their business model is, or how they should be selling
their product online.

But this does seem to be a common thread among some site owners. They had an idea
for a product or service and they wanted to promote it online. So they had a website
built, and may have initially had it optimized. But that is as far as their
experience goes.

They have no idea on how to track progress or improvements. All to often the numbers
they do look at are not the best results to view.

Two perspectives on analytics - SEO and client

With my client today, we were trying to nail down what should have been important
numbers. And it was a very similar case - they had invested in this super-duper
analytics package that was collecting and displaying data up teen different ways,
yet they had no idea how to interpret the numbers.

They thought their traffic was increasing, but they had no idea why, really, nor did
they have any idea what their customers were doing once they hit the website.

And, as sometimes happens, we fell into the trap of telling them what they should be
looking for.

"You want to see search engine referrals going up. That means its working" or "an
increased page view is a good thing."

But this really isn't solving their problem is it?

Sometimes as search marketers, we need to step back and say "I know what I need for
numbers, but what does my client need to see."

So this was the approach we took today - let's have a discussion with the client and
focus on what they want to see, not what we need to show them to prove our value as
search engine marketers.

When we were done, we had not only shortened their monthly analytics report to a few
key metrics (down from pages and pages of statistical analysis) but we had also
decreased the time required to complete this analysis.

Sure we still will do some of the analysis for our own purposes, but does the client
really care how many back links or pages indexed they have? Not likely.

Nope, more often than not, the client wants to know that they are making money. Pure
and simple.

So, if you can show them that they are making money, that's all they really care
about. You can add value as a search engine marketer by showing areas of improvement
("did you know that your Google referrals went up by 15% this month? That proves the
value of our services, yada yada yada...")

As long as you can illustrate the bottom line to the client in terms they
understand, at that it is improving, then you as a search marketer have done your
job.

Keep the pages indexed, back links, referrals by keyword and other non-client
related data to yourself and present a concise simple report that even the CEO (who
has 25 hours per day of work) can look at and understand that the SEO program is
paying for itself.

Now let's look at analytics from the client's perspective.

If you are a client of an SEO firm, or just want to get a better idea of just how
your site is doing online, first you must decide what it is you want to see. Do you
want to see sales figures? Or would you rather just look at the aggregate numbers
like total visitors and search engine referrals?

What has more value to you - reams and reams of data, or a simple, one page summary
of overall performance?

As a recommendation, I'd say you only need enough data to make your business
decisions.

In other words, if your website is e-commerce based, all you really need initially
are the sales numbers over time. You should also understand how the sales cycle
works, and perhaps look at your conversion funnel to see where people are dropping
off. Most good analytics packages offer some sort of funnel analysis.

Understanding your sales funnel can also help you improve your sales. Sometimes an
analysis of the sales funnel can help you determine where the drop offs occur. By
modifying the funnel you can improve your drop off rate, increasing your sales. And
really, this has less to do with SEO and more to do with traditional business
marketing.

For example, let's say your site gets 2000 visitors per month. Let's also assume
your site has a 3 step sales process, and your average sale is $11 per item.

If half of your site's visitors start down the sales path, that means 1000 start (a
50% drop off rate at the first step - this could be due by a requirement to sign up
to browse your site). If 40% of that total drop off at the second step, and 30% of
that group complete the sale that equates to $495 in sales, about a 2.25% conversion
rate as only 45 of the original 2000 people purchased.

Now let's experiment with the sales funnel:

If you can improve the final step of the sale by just 10% - that equates to an
additional $165 in sales, a 3% conversion rate. However if you can improve the first
step of the conversion, reducing that 50% bounce rate to 25%, you can increase your
sales by $247.50 - a 3.38% conversion rate.

Further, if you shorten the conversion funnel by 1 step - making a 2 step sale,
rather than a 3 step sale, you can increase your sales by over $330 - a 3.75%
conversion rate. That's still assuming the same number of monthly visitors start
down the conversion path.

However, if you don't or can't find this data in your analytics package you wouldn't
be able to perform such analysis.

And this is where, if you are dealing with an SEO firm, you must get the data you
need.

Simply knowing how many referrals you got from Google or Yahoo! won't help you make
the business decisions you need to make.

So whether you are an SEO firm or professional, or employ one, be sure that the
metrics you see are the ones you need to make your decisions.

As a client, don't be afraid to ask - what does this do for me? Because unless
you've discussed your needs with your SEO, they will likely provide you with the
numbers they deem as the best. That is, the ones that illustrate their value to you.


That's not to say that those numbers are invalid, it's just that they don't do you
as better as those you need to make your business decisions.

Similarly, as an SEO, if you don't know what your client needs to see, in terms of
numbers, how can you justify your income from them? If search engine referrals have
gone up, but conversion haven't then there is no immediate value to the client.

Sure you can say "but we got you all these top rankings" but unless they are turning
into sales, your contract with that client won't last that long.

So be sure as you work with your SEO firm or client that you nail those metrics
early, so there is no misunderstanding, and everyone knows what successes are
measured by.



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