How accurate is Google Analytics?

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Posted on 1st September 2010 by Ashlin Bouwman in General Info

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Being a small business on the web creates its own challenges, most often the challenge of a tiny budget. A web developer might be asked to provide a way to simply track visitors to a web site and naturally Google Analytics is suggested as it’s free, has great visual reporting of data, and is maintained by arguably the biggest name in the internet: Google!

But here’s the catch: Google Analytics is not a hit counter.

Analytics is a powerful and useful tool for spotting changes in user trends, seeing rises and falls in traffic and the like. It is not this decade’s answer to those crummy hit counter gifs from the 90’s.

There’s a million different reasons why the numbers given in Analytics isn’t 100% accurate. The tracking code can be blocked by the user, the code may not be implemented right by the developer (not that, surely not that :P ) and so on. This doesn’t detract from the power of the tool however, with a little study Analytics can be a great insight into your visitor base.

Just don’t call your Developer or Marketer and claim they’re a bunch of liars because there numbers don’t match what’s in Analytics!

On-page Optimisation tips

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Posted on 31st March 2010 by Ashlin Bouwman in General Info

For a search engine to be effective for its users, it needs to provide results relevant to a search term. On-page optimisation is all about making sure the pages on our sites scream out loud and clear what information is contained within, and targeting the relevant search terms that our prospective customers are looking for.

Keyword Targeting

Before you can dive headlong into covering your page with the terms you think your customers are searching for, it pays to do a little research. If you run a Chinese restaurant in Subiaco you may have a fight on your hands to rank for ‘restaurant’ or ‘Perth restaurant.’ You can try to target some more specific – and less competitive – terms such as ‘Chinese restaurant Subiaco’, ‘BYO Chinese restaurant Subiaco’ etcetera. When I refer to your ‘targeted keywords’, it is this search term I’m talking about.

Title Tags

This is arguably the most important change you can make to your page.  Make sure the first few words of your page title match a phrase you are targeting, don’t waste it on your company name. Even worse is using the same title for every page on your site – it’s often overlooked but can be a massive waste of those precious title tags.

If you have access to the code on your site, the title of each page can be found between the <title></title> tags in the <head></head> section of the code.

Headers

Second in importance to the title tag is the headers you use on the page. In HTML terms, this is the text within <h1> tags down to <h2>, <h3> and so on. Headers create a structure to your page which will make it easier to read for both the search engines and your visitors. Include your targeted keywords in an <h1>, and break down the content on the page as you see fit into sections following <h2>’s and <h3>’s.

Content

Search engines love content rich sites, with lots of text for their spiders to crawl. It pays to flesh out the text on your site and slot in your targeted keywords wherever you can. Make sure the text is human readable, not just a long list of keywords, as search engines have become more adept at detecting search engine manipulation by ‘keyword stuffing.’ Make sure your content is in text and not in images or javascript popups, as the search engines will a have difficult time reading it.

External Link Anchor Text

Technically not ‘on-page optimisation’, but all the optimising in the world won’t increase your ranking if no one links to your site. The anchor text is the word or phrase in the link, eg. In the link Plumbers Perth, ‘plumbers Perth’ is the anchor text.

It is very important that you try to include your targeted keywords in links pointing to your site, as it tells the search engines what your page is all about before it visits it. You won’t always have control over the links on sites you don’t own, but try to make it a part of your link building efforts.

Welcome!

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Posted on 4th March 2010 by Ashlin Bouwman in General Info

For most of us, including myself only four years ago, trying to rise through the ranks of search engines like Google or Bing is a complete mystery. You may have heard certain tips or tricks from other web site owners and marketing professionals, but how do you separate the good advice from the outdated nonsense?

This blog is here to help you, the small business or web site owner with easy to implement solutions to help your site rank better. Perhaps you’re not the person in control of your web site, or just don’t have time to learn SEO for yourself? I’ll explain the jargon of the search marketing industry to help you hire a consultant worth their salt.

In a nutshell, this is SEO for the complete beginner, from someone in exactly that position not so long ago.

Let’s get started with some of the more common industry terms: SEO, SEM, SERP.

Do any of those acronyms mean anything to you? The first one might, it’s in the title of the blog. But what exactly do they all mean? Here’s a quick breakdown:

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

Although this term is plastered onto anything to do with search engine rankings, it actually only refers to structuring your site to be more search engine friendly. This encompasses the best practices you can implement for free, and we’ll visit this subject more in coming weeks.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing

SEM involves paying for advertising on search engines. You’ve seen these ads before, ‘Sponsored Links’, ‘Ads by Google’ and the like. This is one marketing approach where you may need the help of a professional, as a dollar spent wisely on SEM can yield fantastic results, while the same budget spent without planning can be wasted entirely. A consultant can also keep track of current trends, write and test different ad copy and constantly tweak your campaigns to ensure you get the highest return on your SEM investment.

SERP – Search Engine Result Pages

Don’t let the industry jargon confuse you, as some is quite simple. If someone says ‘SERP’ they simply mean the ‘organic’ (not paid for) result pages from Google / Bing / Yahoo etc. for a particular search term. Ranking highly in the ‘SERPs’ is what we are all aiming for.

On that note, let me also say that if your business name is ‘Joe’s Plumbing’ and you’re based in Osborne Park, ranking first for the term ‘Joe’s Plumbing’ is no victory. You want to rank highly for terms like ‘Plumbers Osborne Park’, ‘Emergency Plumbers’, you get the idea.