Who Goes There? Google Analytics Will Tell You

I installed the Google Analytics tool on my blog earlier this week and so far the data has shown some pretty dismal results - one visitor came to the blog two times and averaged five page views per visit. Do you hear crickets chirping? I do. The blogosphere is a big and busy world millions of blogs. How am I going to attract visitors to my blog?

Let’s start with the good news. According to my Google Analytics report, my one visitor was engaged enough with the blog to spend an average of six minutes and two seconds on the blog. This is valuable information because it shows that the content was relevant to the visitor. Since content is the most import aspect of a blog (Raj, 2011; Odden, 2011), hopefully the visitor found some useful information on the blog and will come back for more. Better yet, maybe the visitor will tell others about the blog and they will visit too.

Another interesting insight Google Analytics showed is that the visitor came from a blogger.com referral. This finding made me think about the power of blogrolls. Blogrolls are an easy way to get your blog in front of readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog off the blogrolls, and find your content interesting and enjoyable, turning them into loyal readers (Gunelius, n.d.). This sounded like an easy (and free) tactic to try, so I updated my blog to include a blogroll all of my classmate’s blogs. Perhaps they will reciprocate and include my blog on their blogrolls. (Hint, hint.) Next week, I can check Google Analytics to see if I received more referrals from their blogs on blogger.com.
Since Google Analytics shows where my traffic sources are coming from, I sought out to see where else I could post my blog to generate traffic.  It is common practices for people to post links to their blogs on their social networking sites like Google Plus, Pintrest, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (Raj, 2011). Frankly, I am too embarrassed to share my coursework with my friends and family, so I looked for other ways to get my blog out to professionals who may be interested in my content on web analytics and search engine optimization (SEO). A blog about blog traffic recommended submitting my best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit as a way to quickly boost traffic to my blog (Gunelius, n.d.). I was intrigued by the quick aspect of this approach. After all, we are in week five of a nine week course. I went to all three of these sites and became quickly frustrated. With Digg and StubmbleUpon, I couldn’t figure out how to publish my posts. I consulted help sections and it seems others are pretty frustrated too. With Reddit, it was simple to set up an account, but it wouldn’t accept my article. What now?

Some blogging experts suggest leaving comments on popular blogs with your blog URL can get you a ton of traffic (Raj, 2011; Gunelius, n.d.). Caution should be used to make sure the comments are meaningful (Gunelisu, n.d.). For blogs on my topic of interest, there probably isn’t any better than the author of our textbook, Web Analytics 2.0, Avinash Kaushik. His blog Occam Razor contains hundreds of posts about web analytics and SEO. We have similar posts about bonce rate, so I thought I would leave him a comment. My comment is as follows:

“Mr. Kaushik, in your Web Analytics 2.0 book, so you said bounce rate is the sexiest web metric ever. I agree. What I Iike best about bounce rate is that it identifies the low-hanging fruit that need to be fixed now. If people are turned off by the page, fix it. My student blog on Online Accountability offers some advice on addressing Bounce Rate. Check it out at http://terabuckley.blogspot.com/2012/05/boing-boing-boing.html”

The post is awaiting his approval. Let’s see if anyone bites on it.

With all of the measurements Google Analytics offers, I am most interested in discovering if my blog attracts search engine traffic. Specifically, I would like to know what search terms prompted the visitor to land on my blog. There are a number of things I can do to improve my chances of being picked up by a search engine:

1.     Links: Links are one of the most powerful parts of a blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs (Gunelius, n.d.). Good news, I am already linking within my blog!

2.     Tag Posts: Tags (or Labels in Blogger) are easily noticed by search engines. They also help readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati (Gunelius, n.d.; Alexandrou, 2012). Labeling my posts with key terms was a simple fix. I could also optimize labels by using Google to identify key search terms.

3.     Images: Images don't just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic (Genelius, n.d.). Awesome. I am going to update my post that doesn’t have an image and include one in this post too! The downside to Blogger vs. WordPress is WordPress automatically suggested images for a post based on content. I miss that feature in Blogger.

4.     Titles: Write an attractive title to reflect the essence of contents of the informative post you have written. There is no need to repeatedly stuff in keywords (Raj, 2011). I am following this tip in a sense (with the exception of the Boing, Boing, Boing post). The title could be strengthen with the words bounce rate in the title.

5.     Write Well and Write Often: Frequently updating your blog with useful content is the first step to building your blog's audience. The content you write is what will keep readers coming back for more (Gunelius, n.d.; Alexandrou, 2012). This is obvious advice but not to be overlooked.

With all of these improvements, I am hoping for some improvements in the traffic report next week.

References

Alexandrou, M. (2012, May 16).  On-site SEO still works. ClickZ. [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2174910/-site-seo

Gunelius, S. (n.d.) 15 tips to increase blog traffic. About.com. [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingtips/tp/TipsIncreaseBlogTraffic.htm

Odden, L. (2011, November 7). Optimize and socialize your way to better business blogging. ClickZ. [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2122820/optimize-socialize-business-blogging

Raj. (2011, July 20). Build traffic to your blog: how to generate and increase traffic? [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://mtherald.com/build-traffic-to-your-blog-how-to-generate-and-increase-traffic/ 

Google AdWords vs. Facebook Ads

Advertising on the Internet has become highly sophisticated, yet easy-to-use thanks to applications like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. Both allow advertisers to quickly set up targeted advertising campaigns in a matter of minutes. The campaigns are highly targeted, adaptable, flexible, and most importantly, they are measurable. Advertisers can see in real-time what their return on investment is for each campaign using the specialized analytical dashboards provided in each application. All campaigns are free to create and advertisers only pay when the ad is viewed and/or clicked. Campaigns can be created for one day or indefinitely. Additionally, the advertiser gets to determine the price they are willing to pay for the ad. Clearly, the advertiser is in control of its own destiny using both applications.

Where Facebook and Google ads differ is in their ability to hone in on a target audience. Google allows advertisers to select audiences based on geography and keywords. For example, Google matches the keywords the consumer entered in the search with the terms the advertiser selected for the ad. Using this approach allows people searching for puppy toys to find stores selling puppy toys. Facebook also offers targeting based on geography but its demographic and psychographic targeting is much richer. Facebook allows targeting based on age, sex, relationship status, likes and interests, education level, workplace, and connections. You can even select to reach people on their actual birthday! Facebook ads can send consumers to a company’s Facebook page (i.e. event page, fan page) or the company URL. This allows Facebook users the ability to share ads with their connections. For example, if an ad directed people to an event page, the person could click that he/she is attending that event. When he/she clicks attending, everyone in his/her social network gets a notice. The person’s connections may then also be interested in the event and choose to attend. If they attend, the advertiser doesn’t have to pay an additional fee for the ad because the new attendees are going based on a friend’s recommendation, not by clicking or seeing the ad. Another benefit of Facebook ads is that they allow advertisers to post photos in their ads, which is not an option with Google.

Without question, Facebook offers superior targeting, but on the flip side, the ads are not as effective. Facebook has a much lower click-through-rate (0.04%) than Google (8%). Although the right people are seeing the Facebook ads, not as many people are clicking on them. This could be because when consumers use Google search, they are looking for something specific and are ready to take action (make a purchase). When people are on Facebook, they are looking to correspond with their connections and may not be in purchase mode. Also, Facebook ads are not shown as prominently as Sponsored Links on Google.

With each platform having its pros and cons, finding the right ad space is really a matter of trial and error. Try each and see for yourself which on works better for your audience. Maybe they both will!

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Some in the web world say, “Content is King” (Greenberg, 2009). Others say, “Conversation is King, content is just something to talk about” (Novak, 2010). Who is right? What we are actually debating here is even clearer than the classic chicken and egg syndrome. You can’t have a conversation without something to talk about. Content comes first, but the real benefit of the content comes from conversation. Without a conversation, content is just broadcasting or advertising (Novak, 2010). You are talking “at” people, not “with” people.

The approach to generating actionable content that people want to talk about is a simple process that most social media experts will agree on. Have something to say. Say it often. Be interesting. (Greenberg, 2009). Without these three things happening, no one will care enough to start a conversation.

So now that you have good content, how do you start a conversation? According to Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction, the key to generating conversations is to build relationships on the foundation of trust. Cultivating trust online is tricky and takes work, but is by no means impossible. She offers the following four tips to earn trust:

1. Acknowledge with Empathy

Recognize the type of feeling your customer is having, and respond in an empathetic, emotionally intelligent way. Also, when a customer has a good experience with your brand, amplify it. Thank them and then share their feedback socially.

2. Enable the Right Outcomes

Before they trust you, your customers need to know not just that you’ll hear them, but that when they raise concerns, they’ll see a resolution. That means enabling your customers to express their feedback in the place where it’s most productive for them, whether that’s Twitter, Facebook, product pages on your website, or anywhere else. In other words, your community needs to have multiple front doors under one roof.

3. Educate Through Experience

It’s not your job to tell your customers what the company values are. It’s your job to let them experience those values by bringing them into the fold of your brand’s community. That requires a system for archiving, organizing, and sharing conversations, the rallying point for your community of customers. Meanwhile, you still need to produce and share content.

4. Keep the Momentum Going

Ultimately, real relationships are a two-way street, and your customers know that. Trust is the foundation of a relationship, but to keep that relationship going, you need to prove that you earned it, every day and everywhere.

Wendy Lea’s tips are very helpful in building trust, but I would start building trust by first listening to the customers. Find out what is important to them, where they are having conversations, and who that are conversing with. Secondly, it is important to ask questions and solicit opinions. Jump into existing conversations. You don’t have to wait for them to come to you. Lastly, it is important to remember than not all of your customers are comfortable having a conversation online. This doesn’t mean that they won’t find the conversations valuable, but they just aren’t going to participate no matter how engaging the conversation is.

References

Lea, W. http://mashable.com/2012/05/17/online-trust-customers/

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king