In our continuing series on the most useful functions within Google Analytics, this month we review how to control report data through the use of the Filter Manager which allows you to exclude static or dynamic IP addresses or domains from the reports.

The Filter Manager is an excellent function within Google Analytics that allows a company to remove data about its own internal traffic to their site, or exclude activity data from other known IP addresses that it deems to be providing unreliable statistics. This method of filtering enables the more accurate recording of relevant third-party visits to the site.

This is done by selecting the Filter Manager from the main Analytics settings page, then choosing either pre-defined or custom filters. These are in the form of exclusion of a single IP address, an you can exclude an IP address range through the use of Google’s regular expression generator that can be found here. This can be useful for larger organisations that may have their IP addresses mapped to their domain name rather than to their ISP, so this is a useful way to exclude the company’s visits as a whole. Filters can also be used to include or exclude all traffic from a sub-domain so that a profile can be created within the Analytics account to track activity within one section of a website, plus geographic regions can be analysed by setting up filters and custom reports.

Custom filters provide more flexibility and more advanced settings to help exclude or analyse certain traffic from the Analytics reports. It is also possible, for example, to exclude internal traffic by cookie content, which enables the exclusion of dynamic IP addresses through custom filters. However, all computers in a company’s network that have a dynamic IP address and need to be excluded have to visit a specially created page in order to have the cookie placed upon them first, so it can be quite complex to set up this level of filter.

By using Google Analytic’s Filter Manager in any of these ways, the relevancy of the data retrieved about a company’s website can be vastly improved and hence the resulting accuracy of the related figures can be deemed to be much more precise, reflecting only those visits from external users. If the internal site usage is also needed, then a separate profile for the same website can be created without the filters, which will therefore show the difference in usage statistics between the two.

If you’d like to know more about how this particular function, or how Google Analytics could be used to enhance your website’s performance, please contact us for further information.

In our continuing series on the most useful functions within Google Analytics, this month we review the use and creation of Custom Reports. These are most useful when you have to combine metrics and dimensions that are not included in the standard report layouts, or when you want to simplify an existing report format by removing data that’s not relevant.

Building a tailored custom report in Google Analytics is easy and means quicker access to the information you’re more interested in, with less data overload and easy exporting. It allows you to create, save, and edit reports that present the information you want to see organised in the way you want to see it. A drag and drop interface lets you select the metrics you want and define multiple levels of sub-reports. Once created, they can be exported in the usual way of clicking on the export button on the top of the dashboard and choosing the format in which to export it.

It’s easy to navigate to the custom reports by just clicking on the ‘Custom Reporting’ link in the menu on the left-hand side of the main dashboard. Then choose some of the Analytics data from the left hand side menu that can be classified in two simple ways: Metrics or Dimensions.

A metric is the horizontal column heading(s) in the report that is a quantitative measure of how visitors interact with your site. Metrics are always numerical and include things like page views, time on page and bounce rate (the percent of visitors that leave your site after only 1 page).

A dimension is the vertical row(s) in the report that is a characteristic of a visitor or a page on your website that you can use to organize your metrics. Dimensions are almost always text, such as “new” vs “returning” (visitor type) or “North America” vs “Europe” (region).

You can choose any metric to build your custom report with. You also don’t have to pair them with dimensions, which means there are no restrictions to which metrics you can use. However, when they are paired with dimensions, metrics are subject to certain restrictions.

By using custom reports, it is possible to drilldown to five levels deep into the data or to keep the reports more simplified than the ones displayed on the standard dashboard. So the choice of creating simple or complex reports is entirely yours with the flexible and extremely useful Analytics Custom Reporting Tool.

For more information or help on the Custom Reporting function in Google Analytics, please contact us now.

n our continuing series about how to get the most out of Google Analytics, this month’s newsletter takes a look at the Motion Charts feature. This recently added report allows you to compare visually the performance of several keywords over time and adds a new angle to the analysis of a marketing campaign.Usually, when viewing keyword performance from the Traffic Sources section of Google Analytics, it’s not possible to see a graphical depiction that compares individual keywords, although by clicking on the ‘visualise’ button above the graph, this is now possible. By doing this, keyword data can be analysed at a glance, over a specified time period. Any number of keywords can be selected and the time line can be moved to clearly see how particular keywords have performed over this period. For example, with ‘time’ selected on the X-axis and ‘visits’ on the Y-axis, a comparison of the number of visits each keyword has generated can be viewed and compared.

The parameters for comparison can be changed from visits to bounce rate, conversion rate, average time on site and more, so by selecting the ‘trails’ feature, the dots can be joined by a line, which shows the flow between them. The colour of the dots can also be changed to show the chosen parameters, which adds another dimension to the amount of data shown. To add yet more data to the comparison, the size of the dots can also be changed to represent any of these parameters. It’s therefore possible to see visits, bounce rate and average time on site over this period, and any other combination, including conversions and per visit goal conversion, which is a quick way to determine which keywords regularly produce the most revenue for a site.

The Motion Charts feature is a valuable tool for comparing different keywords’ performance on up to three parameters at a time. This enables a quick analysis of which ones are performing best and which are not doing so well, enabling the bids for those to be adjusted accordingly within Google Adwords. Over time, this quick comparison tool could lead to large cost saving within an advertising campaign.

If you’d like to know more about how this particular tool, or how Google Analytics could be used to enhance your website’s performance, please contact us for further information.

In the continuing series about Google’s Analytics reports, this month’s newsletter takes a look at the Keyword Positions Report. This valuable tool within Analytics tracks the performance of individual keywords within a Google AdWords campaign in relation to their ranking positions and gives advertisers feedback on which position is the most cost-effective to help them adjust their bids and ranking positions.

The Keyword Positions Report enables advertisers to view the number of visits and conversions (amongst other data) that result from the different positions that a particular keyword’s generated advert appears in the PPC ranking results. For example, an advert displayed in position number 1 for the keyword “product” may have resulted in 80 visits and 3% conversions, whereas it may have resulted in 90 visits and 4% conversions when appearing in position number 4.

An analysis of such data may demonstrate, for many advertisers, that a lower position in the PPC rankings may be more cost-effective for a particular keyword than one higher up. Therefore it can be decided whether it is fruitless to bid for a position on the top left side of the results when it isn’t proven to be as effective over time for that keyword than when it appears in the sponsored links on the right side.

This data gives a value to the keyword and can make it work more effectively for a lower cost by saving advertisers from excessively bidding for a high positions. It can also help to save an advertiser a significant level of spend within a large campaign consisting of numerous keywords and a high budget, by being able to focus on the most cost-effective positions and to adjust their bids accordingly.

This Analytics report isn’t perfect however - for example it can’t differentiate between search terms that are targeted as broad, phrase or exact terms, nor can it give an overview of trends by particular groups of terms. Having said that, the ranking of the ad slots as an average over the campaign can also be viewed by using the new “Advanced Segments” reporting function. This can provide a good comparison of how the left or right-hand side ranking positions produce results over the campaign as a whole.

The Keyword Positions Report can be very effective, especially as it can be used alongside the ‘Position Preference’ function in Google Adwords which allows advertisers to target a particular ranking position or range by automatically adjusting the bid levels.

If you’d like to know more about how this specific report, or how Google Analytics could be used to enhance your website’s performance, please contact us for further information.

One of the features that is often overlooked within the Google Analytics service is the ‘Site Overlay’ option. This can visually display the percentage of visitors who click upon standard links that are embedded on a particular page of a website and can be a valuable source of information on the ways users are actually navigating through the site.

For example, one way that Site Overlay can be used is to visually show what percentage of visitors clicked through to the main pages linked from the website’s Home Page, or within the main navigation menu. This is a great benefit to website owners as it gives them a clear depiction of which page most of the visitors go to from the initial home page, or the primary landing pages used in a search advertising campaign. Therefore it’s instantly possible to see the most popular paths that visitors follow and the most visited pages. By hovering the mouse over the percentage box in the Site Overlay, another box appears that displays the actual number of clicks to that page and the number of conversions to a particular goal on that page.

If the link is clicked upon, the Site Overlay takes you to that next page and then displays the information according to the links from that page. It’s therefore possible to see which are the best performing links or pages in terms of click density and what the most popular route to a particular goal is, without necessarily having to set up small qualitative research groups. This information can enhance a website’s optimisation by allowing site marketers to experiment with different landing pages, layout, content and navigation routes, leading to a much more effective streamlining of visitors to converting customers.

The Site Overlay tool does have some restricted functionality, however. Currently the results are only displayed on static (as opposed to dynamic) pages that have unique links to content located elsewhere on the website. So if a page has numerous links pointing to another page, the total of clicks for all those links will be displayed in each of those site overlay boxes. Other limitations include the inability to function within frames, with URL redirects, or with Javascript or subdomain links so that in these cases the Site Overlay stats are not displayed.

Overall though, the Site Overlay is a very useful addition to a website’s analytics toolbox, and should be reviewed at least monthly. If you’d like to know more about how Google Analytics could be used to enhance your website’s performance, please contact us.

As more businesses add Google Analytics to their website, it’s important for them to use the information to develop the marketing and usability of the site. One of the main criteria that should be set up and used within Analytics are ‘goals’ - these report on completed actions within the website and can tell a business how well their website is converting visitors to customers.

A ‘goal’ within Google Analytics describes the completion of an action on a website - whether it be the purchase of an item, the submission of an enquiry form, or the sign-up to a newsletter. Goal paths can be set-up within the Analytics profile settings, with 4 goals being tracked within a profile (and therefore if a website has more than 4 goals that need to be tracked, an additional profile needs to be created). The goal paths describe the stages that a site user needs to go through to reach the final goal, which is normally a ‘thank you’ page confirming a sale or other action on the website.

Once the goals have been set, the Analytics data allows site owners to review the information provided on the way that customers move towards the completion of these goals, following their steps, page-by-page through the site. A goal-tracking funnel within Analytics depicts where the website’s users may drop out of the goal path, showing the percentage conversions at each stage of the process. Therefore if a site has a shopping cart, it can be valuable to see where potential customers leave the process before completing an order. If there’s an enquiry form, a high drop-out rate may mean the form is asking for too much information and losing potential enquirers.

Armed with this type of data, the website owner can therefore make revisions to the website to try to increase the conversion rate through to the final goal. They can also compare the goal conversion rates from different referral sources (such as Google’s AdWords v organic search visits), as well as add generic or actual values to conversions, so that the ROI of the website and different marketing campaigns can be assessed.

Goals can therefore be a very powerful tool with Google Analytics but can be complex to set up on some websites. It you’d like more information about how goals can be used as part of your website marketing analysis, please contact us now for more information.

Many of the trends likely to have an impact in 2009 have already started, but what are our predictions for some of the key developments this coming year?

1) The economic slowdown focuses attention online: there is little doubt that the economic impact of the ‘credit crunch’ in 2008 will have a significant impact on business in 2009, particularly in the US and Europe. Progressive companies will still need to maintain and grow their business in the face of any downturn and therefore even if marketing spend is cut back, the focus on online marketing will be greater, due to the measurability and proven cost-effectiveness of this form of advertising for many businesses. Search advertising will still see an overall growth in spend and market share of online advertising and despite some companies withdrawing from this sector, many others will put more spend into this targeted advertising to support their business.

2) Analytics becomes more mainstream: partly because of the widespread uptake of Google’s free Analytics tool and partly because of the greater need for advertising spend to be effective in 2009, the use of website statistics or analytics is expected to become more common, even for small companies. However, the interpretation of the data and the way that understanding can be used will still be the most important aspect of this trend, but companies can now access much better data on their online activities which in turn can help to improve their website and marketing strategy to get the most from their online spend.

3) Yahoo won’t survive in its current form: it seems inevitable that Yahoo’s ongoing saga that was the source of much news coverage in 2008 will come to some sort of conclusion in 2009. Whether this is with Microsoft eventually coming back on the scene and buying Yahoo’s search business, or some other form of takeover by another leading online brand, it’s likely that Yahoo won’t be able to survive the next 12 months in their current form, despite – or maybe because of – the change in their CEO. It would be a shame for Yahoo to lose more search market share, as Google needs a stronger competitor, but with the economic problems in the US, it’s hard to see Yahoo surviving much longer as a key player and we can expect more developments here sooner rather than later.

4) Video becomes the new marketing tool: as mentioned above, with the growth and impact of ‘universal’ search, video is now playing a more visible role within search and in 2009 this is likely to see a bigger impact in the business sector. Companies need to think about ways they can effectively use video to drive traffic and new business to their website, as it is becoming a more widespread medium and one that can play a bigger role within search and advertising channels. The ‘optimisation’ of video will be as important as the production if the effort of creating videos is to reap the rewards expected, particularly against the massive growth of user generated video content on sites like YouTube, but the creative use and marketing of videos will become more mainstream this year.

5) Reputation management becomes a core service: we’ve covered this issue before, but with the increasing growth and focus on user-generated content sites - such as review sites, blogs and comments on social networks - the need for companies to monitor what is being said about their business and brands, and to respond effectively to that content, will become a bigger requirement in 2009 as more businesses realise the potential dangers as well as the advantages of this trend. Online reputation management will therefore become a service in much demand from PR companies and search engine marketing firms, as web content is monitored and responded to in a more effective manner.

These were our 5 predictions for 2008 that were made in January last year, together with a review of what actually happened:

1) ‘Universal search’ becomes a significant optimisation issue: the inclusion of all forms of search results – such as images, videos, news or maps – within the main search engine listings has become more prevalent over the year, particularly on Google. This has created many opportunities for companies to achieve visibility within the search results in new and more creative ways. Local business listings have been the most effective method for many companies who target a localised area, so much so that Google has had to control some of the more extreme methods by companies trying to get listings within these results. Video sites like YouTube continue to attract huge traffic volumes and videos do appear within Google’s search results, when applicable. Google has also introduced new formats for PPC adverts although these remain limited to the content network and have yet to be offered within the main search listings.

2) Personalisation gains ground: the impact of personalisation has yet to be understood as no figures have been released by Google, or other websites that offer this option, to show what the levels of uptake have been. However, at the end of 2008 Google introduced the Search Wikia option for logged in users, so that search results could be adapted to suit user preferences and notes could also be added to listings. There were also hints from Google that this data may also be eventually used to determine search engine rankings which is likely to attract abuse of the system. We believe that personalization is still in the early stages of development with the vast majority of web searchers being aware of, or using, this option, although it is likely to gradually increase usage within the market and to become a more significant issue for search engine optimisation.

3) Behavioural advertising becomes the next ‘big thing’: this is still expected to become a key service for advertisers but has still to become a mainstream function, partly due to the technology still being developed and data being collected, as well as the privacy issues that are raised once individuals realise how their data is being used to target advertising. The huge mass of data that’s being collected by search engines and other major web properties should provide highly targeted advertising opportunities but the balance between this and privacy concerns is still to be determined.

4) Content targeted advertising becomes the new PPC battleground: Google has made further improvements to the content advertising network for PPC advertisers in 2008, most notably with the introduction of Placement advertising, and with the use of display and video advertising options. This sector has not become a battleground as other PPC services offer weak alternatives, but with better data and reporting on Google’s own service, the content network has become a more accountable resource to extend the reach of this targeted form of advertising.

5) Mobile search finally becomes serious: the launch of the Apple iPhone at the start of the year and the new Google-apps phone some months later has marked the start of the mobile Internet in earnest. The range of applications seems to be limited only by ideas at the moment and so as these type of phones gain market share and become ‘the norm’, then companies need to seriously think about focusing part of their online presence to the mobile market. This has yet to happen in any significant volume but the signs are there and examples can be demonstrated.

The use of statistical information by companies to review how their websites are being found and used is now increasingly important to help understand where usability and marketing improvements can be made. The position of Google Analytics in this sector is now very strong as a free, high quality data source. This newsletter will be covering different aspects of using Google Analytics in forthcoming issues and this month we look at ‘bounce rate’.

The bounce rate figure shown within Google Analytics is one of the most useful indicators within a website’s activity data and is a figure that’s not included in some other analytics products. Bounce rate is described by Google as ‘the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page’.

The figure is shown as part of many of the default data tables within Analytics, such as referral traffic by website or keyword, and by page use within the site. Shown as a percentage figure, bounce rate essentially measures visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors, whereas a low rate means that visitors have progressed further into the site to find information or to take an action.

Of course, as with much of the Analytics results, you need to infer from the data what might be happening once a visitor enter the site. For example, your web page may give visitors exactly what they are looking for (such as a dictionary or other reference site) and so they leave straight away, which will show a high bounce rate. However, all websites ideally need to develop ’stickiness’ that will retain visitors so that they follow links and use more of the site.

From a marketing perspective, high bounce rates can indicate that the site is attracting the ‘wrong’ type of visitors, or that the landing page is not compelling enough to retain visitors and to convert them into enquiries or sales. If you are running PPC advertising or other online marketing campaigns, a high bounce rate can indicate issues with the keyword targeting and the quality of the landing page, so that changes should be made to the search terms or the content of the page to try to reduce this bounce rate percentage.

If you’d like to know more about Google Analytics and how bounce rates can be used to improve your site conversion, please contact us for further information.

This time last year we made 5 predictions for 2007 and so here’s a quick summary of our list and what actually happened (you can read the originals in more detail in our January 2007 Newsletter):

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