Which Analytic Tool Are They Using?

Ever wonder which of the many web analytics tool a specific web site is using? Maybe not, but rest assured that if you start getting more and more into web analytics the question will come up from one of your clients or even yourself.

To help answer this question, the folks at webanalyticsdemystified.com have made a free tool available called "Simple Vendor Discovery Tool". This tool can help determine which java script based web analytics tool a specific site is using. Unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, if a site is analyzing traditional log files, it won't be able to help.

So have some fun and check it out at http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/vendor_discovery_tool.asp

Search Engine Strategies - Toronto

For the third year in a row, I'll be speaking at Search Engine Strategies Toronto. While the search engine conference will run for two days (June 12-13), I will be speaking in the morning of June 12.

Look for me at the session entitled "Keyword Research: Purpose, Tools, and Tactics".

I'll be giving this topic a bit of twist by not talking usual SEO stuff, but about how to harvest data from your own log files. In essence using web analytics in support of search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Unfortunately, I'll only have 15 minutes to speak and I could easily devote several hours to this topic.

So if you're going to be in the Toronto area in June, keep this conference in mind. It is the only one of its kind to take place in Canada. If past experience is anything, it is well worth the cost of admission.

For more information visit the SES conference web site.

Paid Search and Spend Breakdown

Just read an interesting article based on a survey that was sponsored by WebTrends about paid search (SEM).

Some of the highlights from the article/survey include:

• 22 percent saying they run 1,000 to 10,000 keywords
• 31 percent stating they use 1-1,000 keywords
• 21 percent indicated they are running over 10,000 to more than 200,000 keywords

Most respondents indicated that they use multiple metrics for measuring success:

• "traffic" being the top choice at 44 percent
• "conversion" at 34 percent
• "cost per action" at 22 percent

What I found disturbing is that only 14 percent of marketers who responded indicated that they use "profit" to evaluate the success of their paid search campaigns. While I understand that measuring profit may not always be easy especially, when identifying web site conversion points is already difficult on most no e-commerce web site, however, not paying attention to profit or ROI means, that marketing mistakes will be repeated.

From a practical stand-point, I just believe it is laziness in configuring web analytic tools to measure conversions and assigning a value (profit) to these conversions. Followed by applying this revenue to the cost of the campaign for a clear indicator of ROI/profitability.

Read the full article - it is well worth the read

SEO and Baby Naming

Here is a great article from the Wall Street Journal on how important it is for you to rank high in Google for your name. The article goes on to talk about how people are even choosing baby names on how competitive their name (first name last name) is in Google.

What is interesting this is the same exercise that SEO professionals do before recommending specific keyword phrases to target for a business.

For more details see the article on the web site.