Your Host: Jill Whalen [jill@highrankings.com]
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~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~
*Introductory Comments:
----> Browser Wars Heat Up
*Search Engine Marketing:
----> Measuring Success Beyond the Search Engines
*High Rankings Offers:
----> Search Marketing Training Videos - Now With Free Previews!
----> High Rankings SEO Training Classes
*Stuff You Might Like:
----> Free Pass to SMX East!
*Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week:
----> Example Of Nofollow in Action, Unsustainable
*Advisor Wrap-up:
----> Preparing for This Week's Class
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~~~Introductory Comments~~~
Hey everyone!
The big news over the past few weeks was the release of Google's new browser called "Chrome." At first, I was not going to bother trying it because I am very pleased with Firefox and all my customized extensions. But, alas, I got sucked in after reading about it in Google's comic book:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-WiU0QBsciAjeA%403606128-gCCPEMffkUnmY
as well as in Matt Cutts' blog:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-M.ANf/29ytYF6%403606129-rYx5AgtLv62gI
Somehow they made it sound cool enough for me to download and try. In all honesty, it's definitely not a Firefox killer. Currently there are very few customizations and settings you can change, and that simply made me crazy.
I'll give it another try next year if/when they make it customizable. But for now, I'm stickin' with my Firefox all the way! As an aside, I haven't tried the new IE yet because I haven't used IE in many years. I've heard it has many similarities with Chrome. I doubt I'll be comparing them any time soon, however.
And speaking of browsers, something much cooler than Chrome came out recently. It's a Firefox experimental add-on called "Ubiquity." It's not for everyone because it's text-based and kinda geeky. But if you're a total geek like me, you might want to give it a try. Check it out here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-vi9At0eB5ITtk%403606130-eYhv/dXsk3Q9g
Enough about browsers...it's time for the good stuff! - Jill
___________High Rankings DVDs and Downloads_________adv.
Search Marketing Training Videos - Now With Free Previews!
___________________________________________________
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~~~Search Engine Marketing Issues~~~
++Measuring Success Beyond the Search Engines++
I admit it. I'm a Google Analytics junkie. I try to stay away, but every now and then I hear it calling my name and I break down and log in. I feel the familiar rush of excitement running through my veins almost instantly. And I know anything else I may have planned to do that day won't get done because I'll be in my own world for hours. My analytics world. Just me and my stats.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.
Sad, huh? Well, not really. I get a ton of great information out of Google Analytics that can later be put to good use in many ways for my business.
For instance, I've been writing monthly columns for Search Engine Land and TalentZoo for quite some time now, and it gets tedious. It's not easy thinking of topics to write about that not only fit the target audience of each publication but that haven't already been written to death. Being the lazy toad that I am, I sometimes just don't want to do them. When that happens, I wonder if it's really worth it and ask myself what exactly I get out of writing these columns? And being the good sport that "myself" is, it answers me back with "I don't know, why don't you consult your precious Google Analytics?"
So that's what I do.
I use Google Analytics all the time to see what keywords people are finding our clients' websites with, and I do the same for our own website. But I don't always think to use it for other information, like looking at where else (besides the search engines) traffic is coming from. After all, online marketing isn't just about search engine traffic. (Heresy, I know!)
It's a bit tricky to get information regarding articles that are not on our own High Rankings website. Ideally, it would be great if we had access to the other sites' analytics to know how many reads the articles are actually getting, but alas, we don't. Thankfully, the columns I write do have bio links back to our website, and many of them have links to other articles that are published on our site. So what I need to look at in Google Analytics is the traffic that comes from the sites where my columns are posted.
Digging In
To do this in Google Analytics, I simply click "Traffic Sources," then "Referring Sites," and then either browse through the listings until I see the domain I'm looking for or scroll to the bottom of the page until I see a search box. It says "Find Source" and has a drop-down menu with "containing"
or "excluding." In the search box, I type "talentzoo" and click "Go." This takes me straight to the page with information about referrals to our website from my TalentZoo articles. I can see how many people visited from TZ, how many average pages they looked at per visit, the average time they spent on our website, what percentage of them were new visitors as opposed to returning visitors, and I can see the bounce rate - i.e., what percentage came to only one page and then left.
It's pretty cool info.
And sure enough, there were a number of visitors from both TalentZoo and Search Engine Land! Not millions, by any means, but hundreds. Certainly enough to at least keep me writing each month. One of our marketing goals at High Rankings is to continuously try to get the word out about our free SEO information and resources, as well as our SEO services, products and SEO classes to people who have never heard of us. Along those lines, Google Analytics showed me that approximately 75% of the people who click through to our site from my columns are new visitors.
Not only that, but some of them convert into newsletter subscribers. We had a 5% conversion rate from SEL and a 1.5% conversion rate from TZ. Again, it's not huge, but we've already figured out that newsletter subscribers are our most valuable asset in terms of long-term conversions - that is, they eventually sign up for a class or some SEO consulting.
While I was reviewing this info, I had a look at some of our other referrers. I had a number of them from Sphinn, where I've had newsletter articles posted, as well as a bunch from SEOMoz, Search Engine Guide and Search Engine Roundtable. One of the largest groups of visitors came from StumbleUpon. While I don't "stumble" very often, now and then a newsletter reader will submit an Advisor article to them. Very often, these stumbles take off and we can end up with 1,000 visitors over the course of a couple of days. Unfortunately, while they are generally new visitors (more than 97%), stumblers are the worst converting visitors out there. They provide exactly ZERO conversions! Not a newsletter sign-up, not a forum registration, nothing.
But What About Links?
Interestingly enough, soon after I had gathered all this cool info from Google Analytics, I had just happened to come across an interview with social media exert Brent Csutoras http://m1e.net/c?86763832-R.x6eepEGNQYY%403606132-dtTXajZpbP6Vo that was talking about social media sites such as StumbleUpon, which said that it's not the conversions that are important, but the resulting links you get. (Unfortunately, I can't remember whose article it was or where it was posted or I would link to it.) So I fired up my Google Webmaster Tools and checked out the links received from one of my articles that had a lot of StumbleUpon traffic. It was the Linkbait-gate one:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-6HFLoZLSziIGs%403606133-D.OHhQSs.buns
At first glance, it looked good. Webmaster Tools said I had 154 links - nice! But on further investigation I found that most of those were just spam links from just a couple of sites. There were a few from some from Sphinn user profile pages as well. In terms of real links, there was only a handful. (I don't go soliciting links, and perhaps I'd get more if I did, so keep that in mind.) But the moral to this part of the story is that I will continue to measure the success of my articles by conversions, not links - although I do see the value in looking at both.
Back to Search Engine Traffic
After reviewing our referral numbers, I was curious how they compared with our search engine traffic. About 60% of the traffic to High Rankings comes from search engines, with most of that (51%) coming from Google. Referring sites make up close to 17% and direct traffic is just over 24%. The greatest amount of search engine traffic goes to a few of my most popular articles on our site. And a large chunk of search engine traffic lands on various High Rankings forum threads. Overall, when taken as a whole, search engine traffic doesn't have a very high conversion rate. However, not all search engine traffic is created equal. While traffic leading to my articles may not convert very well, traffic coming from people at Google looking specifically for SEO services or SEO training does indeed convert. But this is an article for another time!
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-x3WTst0NkMeAU%403606134-Hxax6lXPHYsF%2e
(P.S. If anyone would like to republish the above article, please email me your request and where it will reside, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.)
_________High Rankings SEO Training Classes__________________
An SEO Training Class Customized for You! (Nov. Class Available) ________________________________________________________
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~~~Stuff You Might Like~~~
++Free Pass to SMX East++
The folks at Search Marketing Expo have graciously provided us with a free pass to SMX East to give away to one lucky Advisor subscriber. The conference is being held in NYC October 6-8. If you live in the area and can pay your own travel and expenses, please email me at smxeast08@highrankings.com and let me know why you'd like to attend SMX East with the free pass.
If you don't end up with the pass, you can still save $75 with the High Rankings discount code of: smx75hra. I also just saw Danny Sullivan on Twitter extend the early discount until Friday for Twitter folks only, but you'll have to dig that one up yourself.
More info on the conference can be found here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-piqXgx03skYQc%403606136-ls.iul51eujgw
Oh yeah, and I'll be speaking on 2 panels. High Rankings guest writer Karon Thackston will also be speaking. Hope to see you there!
~~~Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week~~~
++Example of Nofollow in Action, Unsustainable?++
Last week Twitter decided to remove the ability to gain any link popularity via people's Twitter profile page. This set off a firestorm from some SEOs who always look for as much link popularity as they can gather. What really made them mad was that they felt that Google (via Matt Cutts) had "bullied"
Twitter into the decision.
Forum member "Nethy," who always asks insightful and interesting questions, pointed to Matt Cutts' post on the topic and provided some further issues to think about.
Read the thread and share your own comments here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-xcGplb2VVrvvk%403606137-rFQTXiU0jW0J%2e
~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~
That's all for today!
Got to continue preparing for this week's SEO Training Class so will end this now.
Catch you in 2 weeks! - Jill
Looking for SEO Services, Consulting or Training?
See what High Rankings has to offer:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-/0fIHFFO43.PA%403606138-8y6IeAQZXqhO2
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http://m1e.net/c?86763832-lCUsfztNfe7kY%403606139-OVoLkb9GGeU6Q
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