Archive for the ‘Website Analytics’ Category
published by Dan in SEO | Tools & Resources | Web Development | Website Analytics
For some people who want to get traffic in a hurry, some pay third party companies in directory submissions. Some charge a reasonable rate, sometimes at 4 cents per directory and considering that there are a large number of directories on the web today, it is bound to escalate at prices beyond your imagination. This scheme of submitting your site at a “per directory” option is indeed tempting since it looks cheap. But once you accumulate it, you will be surprised at the bill you will get if you don’t keep track.
Regardless, this is a form of search engine optimization that your site will surely benefit from. Not all people who put up websites have the time and effort to do research and do the online marketing practices needed to be able to get the necessary exposure these days. Apparently, some people are likewise hesitant to shell out some cash since the validity of the claims of some services are sometimes categorized in scams.
But in reality, there are really people who do this as a specialization. The best bet you can get in locating these services is to ask around or perhaps read forums that focus a lot on web development and search engine optimization. While you are at it, you can follow the conversations. You can pick a lot of tips from how they go and for sure the rest will be easily understandable.
That is all you need to do and you can be pointed to the right direction to help your site flourish and return the expected results that you have in mind when you started out on a site.
published by Dan in SEO | Web Development | Website Analytics
So you have your site up and the next thing you want to know is for the whole world to know that you exist. How do you go about it? Well for starters, don’t expect an overnight success as far as obtaining a well-optimized site is concerned. SEO can be achieved but it needs the element of time. It may take some months to be discovered and it all depends on the online marketing practices that you will apply.
SEO is not based on how sophisticated your site is programmed and presented. It has to establish itself as a reliable source and answer to most queries done online. Patience is needed as well as you have to wait for indirect ways to which your site will mature itself. Some turn to content generation and use of keywords which can speed up the process. But it does not come easy.
Vying for the same slot and exposure is the thing in mind of most web developers today. Whether you are employing such strategies such as link building or comment marketing, you need to wait a bit. Site optimization can only settle down after it has been properly crawled on.
Similar to business, you have to plant your seeds to gain exposure and popularity. In this case, link popularity will set in once you have properly applied the various means of online marketing. Turning to more strategies such as perhaps social bookmarking or even article marketing will help but it still needs the curing time to establish your site. In short, you should first invest everything and before you know it, your site will get a good ranking with the search engines today.
published by Dan in Blogging | SEO | Web Development | Website Analytics | Website Standards | Writing for the Web
While there are various commercial sites where you can generate income from your site, bear in mind that there are also private ones who may want to advertise on your site. The manner of finding you is easy; they found you while searching for potential partners. While it may seem that it is a long shot, the validity of it all is the most important thing.
If you happen to get an email all of a sudden asking you if you wanted to accommodate certain requests as buying ad spots on your site or even certain posts, you will be amazed at how much people would pay you for it. One entry can make a difference and while it may seem low at first, imagine the number of advertisers who would do the same thing? In fact, the more posts you have the better since it would mean that you are offering quite a number of spots that can allow advertisers to choose from.
As far as payment for these ad spots is concerned, it would be wise to seek advance payments. For example, if they want to have a spot all to themselves for a year, payments made online like perhaps Paypal is fair enough. You can specify the size, number of words or even limitations (which is perhaps rare and dependent of the site where they will be advertised). Of course you would want ads that do not disrupt the flow of your content.
Finally, if they find you, it only means one thing. You have done a great job in marketing your site and it is safe to say that your site is optimized on the web after all.
published by Dan in Blogging | Web Development | Web General | Web Technology | Website Analytics | Website Design
When it comes to putting up sites these days, we can see a fair amount of people left with two choices, blog sites or websites. Some may ask what is the difference between the two since they can both be hosted using any domain and maintained using the standard ways of search engine optimization. Between the two, it seems that blog sites are easier to maintain since with software such as Wordpress or TypePad, you can easily just compose and save your blog entries and even add an image or two and you can start building on rapport on the web.
Websites on the other hand are known for requiring the need of advanced scripting and programming languages such as PHP or CSS. Not all people can easily understand how they can use these software and all they care about is putting up a site, adding some content and then applying certain scripts to get their website up and running. These programming languages are actually being studied by most people since they all know that websites are something that most businesses need right now to establish web presence.
Putting up a blog seems to be simple but it does require some scripting to get traffic. Blogs have so far evolved from the usual online diary belief into something that can be made profitable. Through adsense and some text link ads, blogs can generate good revenue if you really focus on building them. Its all about content generation using main keywords in demand in cyberspace today. That is where the profit lies these days.
published by Dan in SEO | Website Analytics | Website Design
We’ve been discussing the various sessionisation methods used to gather data to be used for web analytics but haven’t really touched on the benefits it can bring. Web analytics is in fact very important and beneficial not only to web designers but also to webmasters who take care of the site’s optimisation and to the marketing team behind the website as well. Some of the reasons why web analytics is important/beneficial include:
- helps determine performing/non-performing parts/sections in each web page - By being able to determine these sections of the pages the web designer can review these pages and make the necessary adjustments. It might mean a change in the page layout or something as simple as enlarging and changing the color of the BUY button or some other element.
- helps determine low traffic pages in the site - By being able to determine low traffic pages in the site SEOs can then focus on optimising the page to increase traffic to the site. Hand-in-hand with the web developer the SEOs can also determine if there is anything wrong with the site structure that results in low traffic volume to these pages.
- help determine quantify success of your online marketing effort - Some data gathered can also be used by the marketing team to see how well the online marketing campaign is going and compare the results with their offline efforts. The data can also be used not just for comparison but to adjust their efforts/strategy when necessary. An examples of useful data for marketers would be user location, which can be used to determine conversion rates for target locations and can also show the potential of an overlooked market.
published by Dan in Website Analytics
After reading about the various sessionisation methods that can be employed to gather th data needed for website analysis the next step is to determine which method(s) to use.
When choosing a sessionisation method to use the factors you need to consider include:
- the degree of accuracy of information you want/need
- company and/or government policies
- appropriateness of the method for your site
Quite obviously everyone wants the most accurate information, however, due to the two other factors a compromise is usually required. This means that even before you consider the first factor you should consider the last two. With company and government policies there’s no going around it because this could lead to lawsuits! So if it is your government and/or companies policy that persistent cookies can not be used then just choose among the remaining methods.
When it comes to level of appropriateness it is the authenticated user method that is usually struck out. However, this is the best method for shopping sites, forums, and any other site that already asks their users to have a username and password.
Usually the perfect compromise between the three factors is the session cookie. Session cookies are more accurate than non-cookie based methods (except for the authenticated user) but is still allowed by government sites and does not bother users since they are not required to login or divulge personal information.
published by Dan in Website Analytics
Non-cookie Sessionisation Methods
3. Autheticated User - This type of sessionisation gives the most accurate information but also “invades” the users’ privacy the most. Authenticated user sessionisation requires users to log in before being able to proceed with whatever they intend to do on the website. Of course logging in means entering a username and password and to have this it means signing up/registering on the website. Note though that registering on a website does not automatically mean revealing personal details beyond your email address, however, in many cases websites do ask for additional information such as name, address, etc.
The good thing about this method is that return visitors can still be tracked and identified as such even when using a different machine. On the other hand, the problem with this is that asking users to login is not appropriate for many websites. For those websites that can and do require logins though this is the perfect sessionisation method.
Source: Web Analytics Traffic Metrics Best Practices for Government Agencies by WebTrends Marketing Lab
published by Dan in Website Analytics
Non-cookie Sessionisation Methods
2. Session Parameter/ID - Another non-cookie based sessionisation method is the use of session parameters/ID’s. Compared to using IP-based methods (both IP only and IP plus agent) the use of session IDs actually result in more accurate visit-related metrics. The reason for this is that while IP-based methods gather data by looking at the assigned IP of the machine with this other method session IDs, which are simply random numbers and letters, are assigned to each visitor and sent back and forth allowing the visited site to gather data for each step taken by the visitor. Note that session IDs are erased at the end of each visit so that just like IP-based methods this does not allow for the gathering certain data that can be used to compare repeat visitors and first-time visitors.
Session IDs is non-cookie based sessionisation method but you should remember that session IDs are also often used for cookie-based methods. In cookie-bases sessionisation methods the session IDs are simply stored in cookies. In this case you get even more accurate visit-related metrics. But then again don’t forget that cookies are not allowed for US government sites.
Source: Web Analytics Traffic Metrics Best Practices for Government Agencies by WebTrends Marketing Lab
published by Dan in Website Analytics
Non-cookie Sessionisation Methods
As the name implies all the three sessionisation methods listed here do not make use of cookies. Since most people are more familiar with cookies they do not realise that there are other methods, such as the ones we’ll be discussing, that can be employed to gather the data needed for website analysis. This is good news for those developing government sites.
1. IP-based sessionisation - There are actually two kinds of IP-based sessionisation methods - the “IP Only” and the “IP plus Agent” methods. Both methods make use of the IP address of the user’s PC to be able to gather data such as numbner of page visits, page views, and click paths. However, the IP Only method is considered to be inferior to the IP plus Agent since, as we all know, IP addresses of people using the same service provider can be the same. Because of this there’s a big chance of lumping visits from different users as visits from the same user resulting in erroneous data. With the IP plus agent method the browser information of each user is also noted so that visits from those sharing the same IP address can be differentiated, leading to a more accurate data set.
Note though that neither of these two methods can provide repeat visitor metrics. However, if you are looking for something that works like session cookies then the IP plus agent sessionisation method should suffice.
Source: Web Analytics Traffic Metrics Best Practices for Government Agencies by WebTrends Marketing Lab
published by Dan in Website Analytics
Cookie-based Sessionisation Methods
- Session Cookies - Session cookies, as the name implies, are cookies that are stored on the user’s computer only for that particular session. Once the user leaves the website or turns off the computer all the cookies that was stored on the hard drive are deleted.
- Persistent Cookies - Persistent cookies, on the other hand, store the cookies on the user’s hard drive even after the computer is turned off. The main difference between the two in terms of functionality is that persistent cookies enable the website (or the third-party) to differentiate first-time visitors from returning visitors, a distinction that is important for those concerned with web analytics since you want to be able to identify and analyse the similarites and differences between user habits of first-time/one-time visitors verus returning visitors.
Both methods can gather very important visit-related metrics such as the page views, click path of users, time spent per page, exit pages, etc. As mentioned above the advantage of persistent cookies is that you can gather data about the same user and analyse each user’s long term habits as well as compare between the users habits. Note though that persistent cookies are NOT allowed for US government sites.
Note too both of these methods do not gather information regarding the user’s personal details such as name, phone number, etc, hence, ensuring the user’s anonymity.
Source: Web Analytics Traffic Metrics Best Practices for Government Agencies by WebTrends Marketing Lab
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