Alex Cohen interviews Dennis R. Mortensen on SEO and Analytics (+3 SEO Tips)

This being the third low priority post in a row, turning it from hello magazine for nerds, into a Danielle Steele miniseries and now into an Interview Saga... I did an interview with Alex Cohen over at Search Marketing Gurus on the matters of SEO and Analytics the other day; Titled (funny enough): SEO, Analytics and Dennis Mortensen.

If you do not have the time to click through, find my three SEO measurement and optimization tips from the interview below:



SEO Tips:

1.
Optimize towards true company objectives, whether that be Revenue, Profit, Customer Lifetime Value etc. Don’t do the #visit optimization, as that will very likely do more harm than good.

2.
Coordinate your SEO and SEM efforts and look at a combined ROI – as they are highly intertwined.

3.
Optimize beyond your own controlled site content, optimize on uncontrolled off site content as well. Essentially help good customer advocates rank better. This is a dangerous activity, but for those brand and service confident enough, it is a powerful activity.

dennis :-)

Best Practice Comment: Title, Heading, File name and Document name. (Caption)

I think we all agree that creating a “Caption” for a text (blog-post or other web copy) is much more than winging a quick title including a couple of keywords. I would like to conclude (not suggest) – that when creating a “Caption” you have to take the following upper level related elements into consideration – as they all derive from the same thought – but most certainly have different usage:

• Title Tag (Writing caption focussing on: SEO and Conversion)
• Heading Tag (Writing caption focussing on: Usability, SEO and Conversion)
• File Name and Folder (Writing caption focussing on: SEO, Conversion and Systems)
• Document Name (Writing caption focussing on: Analytics)

N.B. Please note than when I talk about “Caption” – there is no relation to the deprecated HTML tag of the same name – it was simply the best word I could find describing all of the above four elements (me being Danish and all)

The reasoning for doing this post is that most of the comments read so far (by me at least) – tend to focus on the HTML Title for SEO purposes only – leaving out the fact that there is an instantly related Analysis task at the same time – creating a "Document Name" for your Web Analytics Tool.

I will not go into details on how to write your Title Tag, Heading Tag or File Name (plenty of good posts out there about this) – but I would like to comment on why you should use the Document Name feature in your analytics tool and incorporate that into your procedures when creating Captions. Find a quick bulleted list of some of the basics you have to take intoconsideration:


Title Tag (Writing caption focussing on: SEO and Conversion)
Example: VisualRevenue.com - Web Analytics and Affiliate Marketing Blog

• The searchers intent
• Branding your traffic
• Incorporating your keyword phrases (shorter vs. longer phrases)
• Your use of dividers
• Click-through rates and thus conversion in mind
• Character limitation (about 65)
• Being consistent with the rest of your site’s titles
• Have your Heading in mind
• Have your file-name in mind
• ...

Heading (Writing caption focussing on: Usability, SEO and Conversion)
Example: Web Analytics and Affiliate Marketing Blog

• Click-through rates and thus conversion in mind
• Incorporating your keyword phrases (shorter vs. longer phrases)
• Make the phrasing of headings self-explanatory
• Scanability if heading is long
• Highlighting of important words
• Avoid exaggerated promotional words and phrases
• Have your Title in mind
• ...

File Name and Folder (Writing caption focussing on: SEO, Conversion and Systems)
Example: /blog/default.htm

• Click-through rates and thus conversion in mind
• Incorporating your keyword phrases (shorter vs. longer phrases)
• Have your Title in mind
• Be aware of Systems limitations on file name length
• Cases do matter (I recommend using ONLY lower case)
• Avoid parameters if possible
• ...

Document Name (Writing caption focussing on: Analytics)
Example: var DOCUMENTNAME='Blog Homepage'; (IndexTools Java-script example)

• Have your Title in mind
• As Title, Heading can change for SEO purposes – choose a broader permanent name for the document
• Be aware of Web Analytics tool limitations on Document Name in length and characters (including how much is shown in reporting)
• Decide for grouping (matching names are typically grouped) – this can also be pitfall and it is very hard to diagnose and cure later on, should you by mistake have named two pages the same
• Be consistent with the rest of your site’s analytics naming convention
• ...

Conclusion..... and Why all the fuss?

Most sites today, and specially in the affiliated marketing space, are SUPER aggressive on SEO and have implemented heavily Search Engine optimized titles and headings. The results of this is in most cases that you end up with useless and changing naming in your Web Analytics tools – I would even go as far as to say worthless per page data, as it is not grouped correctly due to changing titles. Therefore one must look at caption as a four point task – and not just a title task!

Looking at my own blog... hmmm – I can see it’s time to take my own medicine! :-) however; tomorrow there is a new day. :-)

Off to Search Engines Strategies in Munich (sitting at the Hotel with my Red Bull breakfast)

Is Google Analytics really as good as other tools?

This is the question Michael Helbling ask over at his excellent Web Analytics Blog – and not a bad question at all. But before voicing my opinion, let’s try to have a look at the fairly straight forward reports Michael ask for:

• Keywords Report
• Search Engine Report

(the pictures are the ones from Michaels post)

At first sight, two standard reports! But when he try to do a bit of analysis:

“Let’s say that I am trying to optimize my site for the phrases, “wowza”, “yowza”, and “gyoza”. Wouldn’t it be useful to be able to track the number of referrals I got from Google and Yahoo over time without having to expand and collapse multiple boxes within the report?”

He’s stumbles into the following problems:

• “You can’t see a report that displays all the search engines and their underlying search phrases simultaneously and vice versa”
• “In addition the export function only grabs what is on the screen, so there is no correlation of those two data points in any exported report”

And this is where the power of more flexible tools appear, the ability to change report layout and metrics on the fly. So given the upper business requirement, my first step would be to open a “custom report wizard” – and drag & drop the groups and metrics needed to answer this. (to spice up the report example, I replaced Michaels conversion metrics (called Goals in Google) with a Revenue metric, but any metrics could of course be presented here.


The report result is as follows. (N.B. I have replaced the keywords, as the revenue is from one of our hospitality industry clients)


Where I have the sought after oppertunity to expand the tree and compare engines - "side by side". Like this:

And one could re-arrange the metrics and put Keywords on top as well, for a different view. Giving the Web Analyst the freedom to investigate, turning metrics upside down anyway they want.

And this is of course something that is doable in any of the “Big Four” analytics packages that Michael mentions; this including a few contenders... as us :-)

So: “Is Google Analytics really as good as other tools?” - The answer is No. Not because of the above of course, but the tool has technical limits in regards to customization that most enterprise clients not want, but need to carry out their analysis. However; my question would not so much be, whether it is as good, but whether the tool of choice solved the problem at hand – and for a lot of people, Google Analytics does and for that reason I think it is a splendid tool that I can only highly recommend. And with Avinash beginning to advocate Google Analytics as a consultant, I might as well just surrender now.. :-)

.. I am as we speak on my way from Arlanda Airport to Stockholm – where I tomorrow will meet up with Brian (Head of Google Analytics EU) at the Web Analytics Wednesday event. So plenty of time to debate the above on the Vendor Panel. More about that event later.

Search Engine Strategies London 2007 (+Bonus Interview)

I recently returned from Search Engine Strategies (SES) in London. And I think most people would agree that an event / forum like this is successful if you return with ONE advice/input on how to optimize and improve your business. I of course, as an exhibitor, was there for the leads! :-)

Two of our really smart partners demib.com and SEOmoz.org were both part of the advanced track panel: “Organic Listings Forum” – where the following simple but powerful advice where presented and debated:

SEO Advice: “If one are to start a new web project – do NOT register a new domain, instead Google your industry keywords and start looking from 'page 5' for old mismanaged domains. Acquiring such a domain will give you a very valuable head start in your SEO efforts."


NB:
I had the pleasure of being able to add my comments on the Analytics industry in general - at the last London SES. So here goes a 5 min Interview With Dennis R. Mortensen (me!)