Mar
16
2011

19 Reasons to Use Google Analytics for Your Business

Google Analytics HacksThis is a guest post by David Murton, whose company, a small orange, provides personal and business hosting services.

Let’s get down to business! [Read more...]

Feb
21
2011

Review: Topsy Social Analytics

Topsy is a real-time search engine for the web that also provides nice information about what’s trending in real-time. A hidden gem is their Social Analytics which allows you to compare up to 3 different queries over time (in graphical format) for mentions.  Topsy only includes mentions that are what they call “significant and valid,” meaning they take out bots and only include posts that have a link or have been passed on. Topsy’s Social Analytics will definitely be on my regular list of tools. Here’s a closer look…
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Aug
16
2010

Choosing the Right KPIs for Your Business

I’m often asked what KPIs (key performance indicators) are the most important for understanding how a business is doing online.  My answer is always “It depends.”  There’s not a set of KPIs that works for every business.  Choosing the right KPIs for your business means understanding your business, your goals and what you’re trying to do online. KPIs are the metrics which tell you whether you’re moving closer towards your goal and objectives (see KPIs vs Metrics for more details).
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Aug
12
2010

Is Exit Rate a Useful Metric?

ExitExit Rate measures how many people left your website from a certain page. It would seem like it would show you where people are exiting from your site so you can fix problems with specific pages.  The problem is that everyone who comes to your website has to leave at some point.  What if they came, bought something and then left?  That’s what you want them to do.  Or what if you blog daily and people come to read your latest post and then leave.  While you may prefer they spend time on other pages, if they’re loyal readers, they’ve been keeping up with your posts. So is Exit Rate useful?  Yes and no.  Let’s look at it in more detail…
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Apr
21
2010

Consumer Insights & Analysis Tools and Techniques

Ken Burbary gave a great presentation at FutureMidwest on some tools and techniques he uses to gather consumer insights for clients.  I took a ton of notes during his presentation and was happy to find out he posted the slide deck so we can all benefit.  Great tools. Take a look:

Apr
05
2010

5 Quick Ways to Monitor What’s Being Said About You

As we’re all aware, the power of social media is the ability to have conversations.  Half of a conversation is listening.  And you need to be a good listener to have good conversations.  Monitoring what’s being said about you on social media will help you have better conversations.  Here are some easy ways to monitor what’s being said about you: [Read more...]

Jan
28
2010

Review: PostRank Analytics

PostRank ranks online content based upon social engagement (how much readers are interacting with the content by commenting, sharing, responding, bookmarking, etc.).  PostRank provides ranking services, blog discover, data services and also analytics.  I’ve had the PostRank plug-in installed for awhile and use it to see how individual posts are doing as well as see what the top posts are.  PostRank Analytics is a paid service ($9/mo or $99/year) which integrates with Google Analytics to provide an overall picture of how well your audience is engaging with your content.  I decided to give it a try to see what type information it was able to provide that I wasn’t getting through the plug-in.

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Jan
14
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – Measurement

Measurement is vital to the success of any strategy, Internet or otherwise.  You need to know whether or not your tactics are working towards helping you reach your goal and the only way to do that is to periodically measure what you’re doing.  If tactics aren’t working, measurement can both help you identify them and figure out how to improve them.

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Dec
15
2009

Are URL Shorteners & Social Media Sharing Messing Up Statistics?

mess-AliceJamiesonTwitter’s 140 character limit brought URL shorteners (like bit.ly, ow,ly, etc.) into the limelight.  Now, URL shorteners are commonplace – many services and applications embed their functionality (TweetDeck, for example), and even Google & Facebook have come out with their own shorteners (goo.gl and fb.me).  A lot of websites and analytics programs rely on variables included in the URL to know more information about where a person came from (what site referred them).  When an URL is shortened and then shared across social media sites, does that mess up the statistics?  Does Google Analytics, for example, know where someone came from when a URL which includes extra information is shared on Twitter?

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Dec
02
2009

Review: Sency for Real-Time Search

sencyAs more and more consumers start using social media to talk about companies, it becomes even more important for those companies to try to keep track of what is being said.  Social media has increased the use of the web in terms of having real-time conversations (which used to happen mostly via instant messaging).  Now customers can start talking about something immediately and companies often need to respond quickly to preserve their brand.  Sency provides a window into the real time web and what is being said.

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