Findability Blog

Website Traffic Analysis (Filtering through the Data) . week eight

June 3rd, 2010

analyzing data graph imageWith the large amount of information gathered in website traffic analysis tools, it is difficult to understand what is the most important data to observe and how to read for your site. Filtering through all of the data and analyzing the information that can help improve your website is a skill. Below are a few tips and techniques on what to focus on amongst all of the data and how to read the information.

Hits – Hits measure the amount of files that has been requested from the server when someone browses the website. These files include style sheets, documents, and other files. The data of ‘hits’ can be misleading since one page with multiple files generates numerous hits. A more useful look at the amount of users is the data from the ‘Unique Visitors’ that indicates the popularity of your website.
Unique visitors – Unique Visitors data reveals the findability of a website based on the amount of visitors who are viewing the site for the first time. This data is important to watch since a lapse in unique visitors could indicate a problem with the website server or that your content has not been updated for a while and has become uninteresting and irrelevant.
Return Visitors – A statistic that shows how many users are returning to the site. The information can be very valuable to gauge the relevance of your content to your users. Looking at ‘return visitors’ along with ‘page views’ and ‘time on site’ can reveal if users are returning to quickly refer back to the content or looking for more of the same content.
Page Views – Page Views data is a good statistic to read in relation to other statistics in order to gauge quality of content and usability of the website. For example, according to Aarron Walter, a high number of page views with a low number of unique visitors might indicate that it users are easily frustrated with navigation and cannot find the content they need. A low number of page views with many unique visitors might indicate that visitors find information quickly and do not need to navigate around the website too much. Watching page views data and navigation patterns are important to know what content your users enjoy.
Bounce Rate – Bounce rate is the rate at which users leave the site immediately, right after they arrive. A normal bounce rate is between 40 and 60% or lower. Your websites bounce rate can reveal problems with your website’s organization, content, or design. When considering other statistics, it is good to analyze ‘bounce rate’ in relation to ‘unique visitors’ to understand how the relevance of the ‘unique visitors’ statistic.
Referrals – This statistic can reveal how well inbound links, keyword search terms, and marketing campaigns are helping drive traffic to your website. Referrals from inbound links are a good indicator of the website popularity and findability. Also, you can determine the quality / relevance of the inbound link based on how long the user stayed on your site after being referred from another site.
Search Terms – Gauge the value of your keyword research through the ‘search term’ statistic. This statistic reveals the search terms that generate referral traffic through the search engines. The search terms can provide additional ‘niche’ long tail keywords as well as insight into how the content is reverbating with your audience.
Click Overlay – Click Overlay analysis places traffic statistics on top of your website’s page design to show where users click most. ‘Click overlay’ provides valuable information about how well your design directs your users and what information your users want to find. This information can also help you test and fine tune your website design and organization.

In order to sort through these and all of the other statistics and data, it is recommended to view only a few at a time and to organize the information to be able to compare the data in relation to each other. Viewing unique visitors with bounce rate or page views gives you more in depth information than viewing the data separately. To learn more about how to analyze your website traffic, visit Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Resources:
Building Findable Websites by Aaron Walter
‘Analytics Toolbox: 50+ More Ways to Track Website Traffic’ by Cameron Chapman on Mashable: The Social Media Guide

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The Long and Short of Long Tail Findability Theory . week seven

May 28th, 2010

long tail keywordsThe foundation of findability is content. The foundation of content is words. Keywords hone in on what your users want to find. If you can determine what your users typically search for on your website and utilize these words in your content, your website will become more findable. Although you might think that adding any frequently searched keywords to your website will create high rankings for your site, search engines realize when this black hat search technique is employed and will penalize your website as a consequence. Search engines look at your website’s keyword relevance in relation to content.

Not only are search engines ranking your website based on its relevant content and keywords, but users are also becoming more and more search savvy, searching for specific phrases and content. In order to capture these users and rank high in the search engines, it is important to pattern your keywords using long tail theory. Long tail theory is the technique of filtering keywords that might describe your website but are so commonly searched that the keyword is not unique enough to capture specific users. Using phrases that represent the middle ground between highly searched terms and unique search terms or more specific searches will create a findable site for the specific audience you are trying to target. The search engines will also find more relevant content for your website, with content that not many other websites have, thus creating higher rankings when those keywords / phrases or other similar search terms are used.

Consider long tail theory while researching keywords and creating content to capture the attention of search engines and your audience. Including these keywords in your content, Meta tags, URLs, and page titles enhance your rankings and create a more findable website.

Resources:
‘Long Tail 101′ on The Long Tail – Wired Blogs by Chris Anderson
‘Testing Search for Relevancy and Precision’ on A List Apart by John Ferrara

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SEO Techniques and Best Practices to Improve Website Search Rankings . week six

May 21st, 2010

It used to be that creating a website and putting it on the web gave you an automatic advantage over the competition who had yet to create a web presence. However today there are billions of pages on the web. Standing out in the crowd can be difficult but search engines greatly help filter the information for users and for web developers. Obviously the most important and useful edge over the competition is developing a website that is search engine optimized. This mastery is extremely important if it has any hope of appearing on the first two search page results. Users are becoming savvy searchers and have started to limit their review of results to the first two to three pages. Knowing how to optimize your website to appear on the first pages is critical if you ever want to reach your audience.
On Six Revisions Alex Cleanthous has described a list of techniques to improve the SEO of your website. These methods are reiterated below and augmented with a few techniques that will help guarantee great search rankings.

  1. Social and viral marketing add value and presence to you site. Include a blog on your site. Combining a blog along with viral and social marketing will increase search rankings of your website. A blog that is focused on a few topics adds many pages of keyword-rich content that users will want to bookmark, share with others, and will want to return to the website for more information. Many blog management systems allow you to provide easy access social media links so it is easier for the users to share information.
  2. Collect data about the traffic and audience with Google Analytics on every page of site. Google Analytics can tell you valuable information about your audience’s likes, dislikes, your sources for traffic, so you can tailor your website to better fit your users needs. Fine tuning your website with more specific content and information for your targeted audience will increase your search rankings.
  3. A third way to improve indexing is to reduce code bloat on your web page. Use progressive enhancement techniques, including external style sheets, external javascript files, and other presentation vs. content strategies to efficiently build your website. Another method to reduce code bloat is to code using web standards so search bots can recognize important elements and can find substantial and valuable content to easily learn about the contents of the page. Validating your code with the W3C will ensure it follows web standards and will create a clear path for the search bots to navigate your content.
  4. Along with reducing code bloat to provide the most valuable information on the site, you should include unique information on each page. Google search engine ranks web pages based on relevance and quality of content. The search bots look for content that is set apart from all other pages on the web. Using ‘niche’ keywords and utilizing long-tail theory to gather words that are unique but also search-worthy will place your website high in the search rankings. It is also important to remove any repetitive wording. The content on each page should be keyword-rich, unique, and 200-400 words.
  5. Using these keywords in Meta description tags will also help search rankings of your website. Meta description summaries appear on the search page to give the user the first impression of the page and explain what the page is about. It is the first opportunity to capture the user. The description needs to be limited to 160 characters in length so the whole summary will appear in the search results. Also use keyword rich title tags on each page that are 60 characters or less. Along with the description tags, the title tags appear as bold titles in the search page.
  6. Once the website is fully assembled, compile an XML sitemap (see this XML sitemap generator tool) and include the XML along with the HTML sitemap for you site. Search bots first look for sitemaps when they reach a unique web page. It creates an easy access reference for search engines to quickly navigate and rank your website.

Some simple yet important considerations and the main SEO pointers that will give you an advantage over the competition.

Resources:
‘9 Ways To Improve the SEO of Every Website You Design’ Six Revisions by Alex Cleanthous

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