If you are using Google Analytics on your website then you should be aware of a feature called Advanced Segments. Advance Segments is a way to isolate and analyze specific parts of your traffic. If you want to know who and how visitors are coming into your site, but you want to see more than just 50% coming in from search engines, and 15% from direct traffic. Have a seat and read this short and to the point on accessing your Google analytics.

Here’s a quick breakdown on accessing your “traffic sources overview”.  Once you click on the traffic source section on the left side of the analytics page, this hyperlink will take you to the traffic page.

• Once the page loads, look for a box call Advance Segment in the upper right.
• Click on AS then you will see another box to the left with some options to view your traffic.  For this example we click on the referral traffic and traffic with  conversion.

Once this is done you click on the apply button and see the results. Now you can view the “Top Traffic Sources” in this example we will click on the referral traffic source.

You are now taken to the referring site page, then go to where your link is and click on where the red circle is in this example.  This will take you to the “referring link” page.

Click on where it shows “visit this referring link”, in this example you will be hyper linked to this “Blackberry Bold parts“.

The reason why we show you this feature is that, not many webmaster know how to navigate to find these important information about their websites. Think about this, if your “restaurant consulting” site is optimized for organic search. Don’t you want to know your referring link to find out how and where your unique customers are coming in from?

Better yet, if you’re selling “poultry seasonings,” you would want to know the traffic with conversions. In other words the traffic that shows the number of people coming into your site, buying and knowing where they came from.  These are great information to know to increase your returns on investments.

Se pare că am ajuns la final cu această etapă.

Am reușit să adaug Google Analytics la proiectul nostru creat în Joomla iar coordonatorul nostru nu are decât să ne creadă pe cuvânt deoarece nu i-am găsit adresa de mail de la gmail nici pe blogul personal și nici pe siteul facultății. Iar pentru a-i da acces la datele noastre ne trebuie adresa de email de la gmail a asistentului nostru.

Deoarece durează aproximativ 24 de ore până ce siteul va putea fi monitorizat de către google voi atașa poze cu traficul de pe server oferit de aplicațiile deja instalate pe server.

Având în vedere că ne-am apucat de realizarea site-ului acum două zile se observă în grafice că traficul cel mai mare a fost obținut între  21 noiembrie și 23 noiembrie.

Los anunciantes han centrado sus esfuerzos en la medición del Post-Click, en lo que sucede después del click, pero la realidad es que la medición con sesgos lleva a conclusiones erróneas 

En Search (Google), el grueso de las conversiones vienen por las búsquedas de la marca, y el resto de acciones online alimentan Search 

Existe un porcentaje de las conversiones que se producen en usuarios impactados previamente por otro de los esfuerzos tácticos online llevados a cabo por la marca (Campañas de Gráfica en Online Media, acciones de e-mailing . . .).  Impactos previos al click y a búsquedas  

Existe un comportamiento previo al Post-Click, el Pre-Click.  Es necesario medir la Post-Impression ya que las acciones de Branding generan impactos de comunicación que influyen sobre el volumen de búsquedas de una marca en Google y otros buscadores, y sobre las conversiones que se producen gracias a la adquisición de tráfico desde dicho buscador

En el siguiente enlace encontraréis el PDF  “No podemos controlar aquello que no medimos”, donde presento de forma detallada las principales Fuentes de Información en Internet, y como explotarlas en beneficio de las ventas a través de este canal

RE Barcamp San Diego session: Google Analytics

On to the last session before lunch, I say that because at times it was hard to hear the presenters over my stomach, but I still got some golden nuggets I’d like to share.  Google Analytics (GA) was presented by Arizona REALTORS® (woot!) Kelley Koehler (@housechick) and Dave Smith (@daveintucson).  Y’already know GA tracks website traffic – we can move past that and get to the good ways to use it.  My lesson learned - set goals or you’re wasting your time.

Goals can be based on different measurements from the GA data, Kelley gave some examples.  One highlighted the difference between the Visitors stat compared to the Unique Visitors stat.  Let’s say your goal is to get lots of fresh traffic onto your site, but you have a low amount of unique visitors - chances are you’re not promoting your site enough to new people.  Get out there in new arenas and engage new people and create new ways for people to find your site.

Another way they talked about using the analytics is to see how well their call to actions are working.  GA allows you to watch the navigation path a visitor takes on your site. This is useful when you are testing different buttons, phrases, or whatever your call to actions may be.  When you  make a change you can see whether it was for better or worse.  Since website analytics will easily show you the highest ranking posts or pages on your website or blog – tweaking those pages will get you the most significant data.  Don’t be afraid to make changes to help drive traffic to specific destinations.

Their advice was not to worry about the time on site stat because with tabbed browsers, people leave pages open even though they are not using or looking at them.  They also recommended telling GA to ignore your IP address so your own visits don’t skew the stats.  And bottom line, if you’re not going to do anything but look at the analytics data, don’t waste your time.  Here’s some more analytics help to get you going.

Lunch!

(Next session: Posterous. You like?  Subscribe with your email or RSS reader.)

Most of the small businesses I talk to or have worked with, have a common concern for lack of available industry trends. We depend on either inside contacts, published competitor collateral or just plain old snooping around, in order to find out the current industry trends and offerings. As a result , small business leadership is plagued by lack of actionable industry benchmarks . ..how to understand where exactly their performance stand in terms of either the brand position or established benchmarks.

Google Analytics does a pretty good job with it’s benchmarking tool. It lets the businesses assess how their website compares against some of the industry verticals. I find this tool to be one of GA’s biggest strength.More so, since, there is so little actionable benchmark data available for small accounts( read business).

There’s one catch though. You have to have your data sharing with Google & other benchmarking tools enabled. Sometimes that can be the deal breaker. However, I’ve always been in favor of data sharing when it comes to Google ,since they do this anonymously . All identifiable data from your website is removed before it’s merged with other sites in comparable industry. There is no way you identify any of yours or your competitor’s data from the aggregated result . There is a bonus factor too. With your data sharing enabled, you also gain access to Google’s Conversion Optimizer that lets you adjust your bids to maximize conversions at the minimum price in Adwords .

The initial data presented takes into account all businesses of similar size. But you might want to drill down to your specific trade. GA actually lets you do that. This way you can ensure that the data is more pertinent to your particular business. In this example, I wanted to look at not only travel but even further ; Adventure travel players.

6 top level metrics data over the given timeline is displayed against the benchmark. It’s important to note that all figures are time dependent. Daily variations are possible due to parallel marketing campaigns and other promotional efforts. But comparing similar industry rules out any skew from the seasonality of the business since the seasonal trends of these companies are mostly alike.

Visits is the most basic top level measurement for any industry follower. The fact that in this example webpage visits are over 25% down from the industry benchmark, right away tells them to get their acts together and start working on improving the web site, spending more on paid search ,improve the quality of the links , landing pages and keywords , get more affiliate partners and network better on social media. Unless, this is a new brand, in which case, a benchmark has been established for them to work on. More on that in a min.

New visits= prospects= incremental sales. This is therefore such a key metric ,especially for new products or brands that just launched. The fact that in this example the new visits are about 5% over benchmark, almost tells me that it’s a new brand working to attract prospects and is generating a lot of interest. Over time, however, they can expect this figure to travel south and as long as it stays around 72% (which is the established benchmark)there should be no concern. Expectations set..Bingo!

Bounce rate – Anyone who has worked with me is aware of my obsession with this metric. I don’t know if I am obsessed or despise it, but for sure I can’t live without it. The fact that I’ve worked so hard to get this visitor to come witness my great offering and that he/she is leaving my site right away , without even giving me a second chance, kills me. If it was possible I would recommend the whole world wide web community to solely work towards bringing all bounce rate down to zero, and ban the word bounce rate. But hey.. that’s the extremist me. Sobering down..the bounce rate should never climb above 30%.. end of discussion. Even the benchmark bounce rate( 60%) in this example is super high. But it is what it is. Let’s accept it & move on.

Average time on site – I would definitely like my visitor to stay on. But there are times when we have them land on a page where all information is provided and they choose to just not look around. I am not sure I like that but that definitely brings down the average time spent on my site. That’s why we need benchmarking. If the visitor is spending around 5 mins on competitor’s site , am I not providing the quality experience for him/her to spend that much time on mine? What else can I do in terms of value proposition or in terms of uniqueness to improve that? On the other hand, if I am above the Industry benchmark.. oh well.. what can I say.. I ‘ve stopped bragging these days.

Pageviews & Pages /Visit – Benchmarking this can be counterproductive. That’s just me. Maybe it’s due to the nature of the business I handle. I am currently establishing a brand whose web site have a lot of information on single pages. Also, the page views depends on your product mix .Similar information can be served in different combination and layouts. But you might have a different perspective on this. Why don’t you share?

There is something else about benchmarking in GA that stands out for me- Able to visualize my brand positioning. Let’s look at these two examples.

The first one exceeds the benchmarking for every possible metric.From a top level, this is a leader to me. The alfha male!

Compared to that.. here’s another brand in the same category tracked over the same period of time. Does it tell you anything?. Look carefully. Compare it’s results to the industry benchmark. To me, it’s either a weak and a struggling brand or a new brand trying to make it’s mark.More likely, the later.. looking at the new visits.

What did I miss? How are you guys benchmarking your data? What are your sources? How do you validate? Please share with us.
Till then,
Happy Benchmarking

Bibi

Last days i refreshed and studied on some topics for my Google Adwords Professional Exam. Today I took my exam.

And guess what? I passed the Google Adwords Professional exam. Next step is continuing what I already do, managing Adwords Account(s).

I will receive my Google Adwords Professional profile and Logo/Certificate.

In the meantime I will go on with studying on Google Analytics and continuing Adwords Campaigns and Google Analytics on several projects/websites I own and manage.

I am planning to pass my Google Analytics Professional Exam before 2010.

LOOKING AT TRAFFIC

The first thing that Google Analytics displays is your traffic for the last 30 days.  This is immediatelyhelpful because you can quickly determine if people are even coming to your site.  If so, how frequently are they doing so.

- how many visitors are you getting?  Are they repeat visitors or are they unique visitors?  Unique visitors are those that are seeing your site for the first time.  This is important because now you can determine how wide an audience you are actually reaching.  Repeat visitors are good, too.  This indicates the visitors that are still considering using your products and services, or are returning because of your rich content.  All visitors are important.

- Examine your bounce rate.  This tells you the percentage of visitors that exit your site as soon as they see the first page.  Of course, there are a number of reasons why this might happen.  They may have gotten to your website in error (wrong domain name, dot net versus dot com).  Or they may see your first page and realize that your site is not at all what they were looking for.  For example “java” could mean the coffee beverage or a programming language.  They could be “turned off” by that first page and conclude that they have no interest in doing business with you.  Obviously the lower the bounce rate, the better.

- how many pages are visitors looking at?  Which pages are atracting the most visitors? The pages with the most views are the pages that are of most interest and therefore are the pages that you should give more attention.  These are the pages where you can place more and better “calls to action” for lead generation.  These are the pages that should be better optimized to attract even more visitors from search engines.

- take a look at the traffic and when it occurs.  Are your visitors equally spread across the week?  Probably not.  If there are specific trends, then you can take advantage of that when you post new content or new “calls to action”.

Where are visitors coming from?  Are they coming from search engines? What can you expect? Are they geographically dispersed?  We’ll discuss that in another posting.

Google Analytics new intelligence feature is heaven sent.

The new intelligence option within your analytics account allows you to create non-destructive custom filters which are then immediately applied to both current andhistorical data.

This speeds up the analysis time immeasurably, as you no longer have to fumble through exporting data into separate spreadsheets and workbooks, refresh pivot tables, etc. to find the answers you’re looking for.

Google offers up some template starter alerts, which are fine if you only want to know if something horrible is happening, but creating a custom alert is so easy there really isn’t any excuse for not doing it.

You can only filter on 2 fields -

one dimension field:

dimension alert choices

and one metric field.

google alert metrics

but it does give you some pretty great info, for example:

google analytics intelligence report information

This comes in very handy if you’re running multiple campaigns across several different marketing channels, or you want to monitor changes in revenue from day to day from different visitor segments – there really is a lot you can do with this once you dig in.

And while this type of information is very nice, the frosting on top is this handy bar graph -

This 'importance' bar graph helps you make sense of it all.

It’s too early for me to say how relevant this actually is, but the idea is solid. Get immediate insight into the data that matters. And you’re not limited to only daily alert views either, you can also choose weekly or monthly views – probably the better choice for analysis for most small to mid size companies running minor ad campaigns.

Gotta give some love to Google on this one.

Gazing Upon Pemberley - prints available on Etsy.

I can’t praise my web tracker highly enough! I’ve been using Statcounter for the past couple years, tracking all my visitors to www.taraflyphotos.com … and it has provided me with an overabundance of insight: I don’t necessarily take full advantage of this information, and I accept full responsibility for the limited growth of my business.  It takes a great deal of work to optimize and market a website, and I find wearing multiple hats (artist, PR relations, publicist, web designer, accountant, etc.) a bit daunting and time-intensive for this Infamous Procrastinator who would much rather be painting, watching period dramas on A+E, and baking honey biscuits. 

For those of you with personal websites and blogs that allow HTML-editing access… this is the tracker you should seriously take into consideration. Test it out!  Many people are using GoogleAnalytics, which I am forced to use for my Etsy Shop and my Artfire Shop (since individual shop owners are not given access to their pages’ HTML script)… I haven’t fully examined everything GA has to offer, such as Setting Goals for shop views, however I much prefer the set-up and detailed stats of my personal tracker overall. 

StatCounter is an invisible web tracker and hit counter, that provides detailed information about your web viewers. You can set up a free account and create a Project. It provides you with the html code to install on every webpage you want to track.  (I’m tracking all eight pages of my website)
 
They offer free summary stats for the lifetime of your website, with detailed stats for your last 500 visitors (250,000 page loads).  For a sliding fee, you can increase your “log-size”, allowing you to receive detailed stats for a greater number of visitors (up to 25,000 visitors/15,000,000 page loads for $29.00 per month). 

I personally find the free stats sufficient for my tiny slice of the web.  I’m currently getting an average of 72 viewers monthly, with page views ranging from 115-174 hits.  With detailed stats of my last 500 visitors, I can research visits in-depth back to mid-July.  In the beginning, I was glued to my stats report, but now I check in about once a month – whenever I remember, or if I want to research a particular spike in sales or activity. 

Here is a small slice of my hits for September – I’ve removed the individual ISP addresses in Photoshop:

Visitor stats for Sept. www.taraflyphotos.com

The detailed stats report provides a window to gaze upon each visitor: One of my favorite features is the service provider info. Typically the Host is a telephone or cable company for private users (i.e. Comcast, Verizon, BellSouth) but occasionally I’ll find business servers thrown into the mix.  Companies and facilities providing their own internet
services (for employees or patrons) include libraries, schools, government offices, and large private companies.
I’ve been able to identify visiting friends using this information; an example would be a former classmate who visited my website from a referring Facebook link, while he ate lunch in his office.  According to StatCounter, the Host was a private advertising company from the D.C. area, the name of which rang a familiar bell to me … so I checked my friends’ Facebook profiles, and discovered the classmate who worked at that very firm. lol   

Here is an example of a detailed status report showing a visit from Lily, the owner of TwoStrayCats on Etsy and a good friend of mine. I’ve removed her ISP from this screenshot.

Lily's detailed visitor stats - www.taraflyphotos.com

  You could say that I’m spying on people who visit my site, and you’d be right.  But isn’t that what ALL businesses do online?  Knowing who your customers are, what they’re searching for, and how they find you, is essential to marketing effectively. 

The majority of my visitors who find me via search engines, were using Web Images for their results. JPGs of my artwork matched the keywords in their search, and the visual image drew them inside with a click.  StatCounter provides the actual search page link, so I can follow it back and view their results… I find it flattering that my artwork caught their eye, on a page packed with related images.
  
Another aspect I like to examine is the Navigation Path.  Their initial search inquiry led them to a specific page of my website, but where did they go from there?  Did they view my artist profile? My art gallery? Perhaps their interest was piqued enough to check out my online selling venues – My Etsy or Artfire shop. 

Here is the Navigation Path for Lily’s multiple visits to my website.  At one point, she was checking out a small banner (advertising her Etsy shop: TwoStrayCats) that I placed on my Biography page. Notice the referring link came from an Etsy convo (i.e. private message).

Lily's navigational path on www.taraflyphotos.com

I also take note when a visitor does not use a referring link; when they have typed the address directly into their browser, instead of clicking on a provided link.  It could mean they know my address already, have it bookmarked, copied it from a business card, or simply cut-n-pasted it into their browser after finding it online somewhere. 

There are a few flaws with StatCounter that I’ve noticed; the most obvious one is the “length of visit” stats are sometimes a bit off – when you figure a visit with multiple page-views had to last longer than 0 seconds.  Perhaps I simply haven’t learned to interpret it properly either. lol 

Also, don’t take the visitor’s “City” location literally. People who live in small towns may not have a local internet provider, so their service will be hosted by a neighboring city. (Note Lily’s stats: she does not reside in Red Deer, Alberta, but rather, a small village nearby). 

Comparing GA and StatCounter: they feature many of the same tidbits of information – most popular pages, keyword analysis, visitor maps, referring URLs, etc.  Except that for those of you, like myself, who find GA’s layout a bit confusing, you will enjoy the direct approach here.
The summary page will show graphs, for people who like visual pie charts and bar graphs… but I prefer accessing my information as a straight-forward list: 

Top exit links for visits to www.taraflyphotos.com

As I’ve said, the tools are all here to develop websites (and businesses) into the best they can be. The real challenge is to take these tools and refine the site, maximizing its potential to reach the right crowd, and shedding light upon the dark recesses where folks stumble and lose their way. 
And that, I’m afraid, means shutting off the Arts and Entertainment channel. :_( 

Nous avons inséré un widget “flux RSS” (en haut à droite) pour que nos lecteurs puissent suivre assidument nos articles récemment ajoutés.

Google analytics permettra de suivre le trafic du blog.

- analyse du nombre de visiteurs, de pages vues, du taux de rebond…etc

=> Se fixer des objectifs préalables et voir si on les a atteint.

- analyse des liens entrants. D’où provient notre trafic ?

=> peut-on profiter de  ces liens entrants à long termes ? Ou bien quelle stratégies peuvent être mises en place pour renforcer ces liens ?

Une analyse complète des résultats permettra d’élaborer  des stratégies de seeding sur l’échiquier du web.

Nous devons élaborer un “plan d’attaque” afin de générer du trafic vers notre blog pour accroitre sa notoriété. Au-delà du contenu posté, il serait optimal d’identifier les acteurs influents de notre secteur d’activité afin d’essayer de créer des ponts entre notre blog et leurs sites/blogs.

Aussi, pour être remarqué dans la toile, il est nécessaire d’exister ! Écrire régulièrement des articles, poster des commentaires, sur d’autres blogs,  réagir sur des réseaux sociaux..etc ne pourra être que bénéfique pour notre blog.

]]> http://willscullypower.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/macro-vs-micro-conversions/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:28:52 +0000 Will Scully-Power http://willscullypower.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/macro-vs-micro-conversions/

Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer questions about Analytics and other Google tools.

In this episode they discuss:

- Strategies for non-bounced non-converted visitors (Macro vs. Micro conversion)
- Ways to report total number of keywords over time
- Benefits to tracking transactions as conversion goals
- Tracking unique visitors to specific web pages
- Path analysis for keyword reports — why it’s bad and what to do instead
- How Google Analytics can be used on affiliate sites
- How site owners can exclude themselves from being tracked by Google Analytics
- How to properly track sites that reside on different domains but use a shopping cart on a different, common, site (cross domain tracking)

In this 50 minute talk by Dan Siroker, Director of Analytics for the Obama Presidential campaign, he explained how they used data to win the election.

He shows how they used tools like Google Analytics and Website Optimizer to get more engagement and more donations.

He also describes the lessons that they learned throughout the campaign.

With the successful election behind him, Dan is now focused on his startup, CarrotSticks, and he explains how he’s using the same principles within his own company.

In continuare vor fi descrise tehnologiile care stau la baza realizarii site-ului www.fanel.eu.

Widgets

Dupa cum se stie, o interfata GUI (Graphical User Interface) este formata din ferestre. Ferestrele unei aplicatii contin “widgets”(elemente grafice de control) care permit interactiunea cu utilizatorul prin intermediul mouse-ului si a tastaturii.
Pentru o mai buna evidentiere a functionalitatilor diferitelor tipuri de widget-uri, acestea vor fi grupate dupa cum urmeaza:

- cu rol de selectie si afisare:

• CheckBox -> butoanele de marcaj sunt elemente de control care retin o anumita stare
• RadioButton -> butoanele radio sunt elemente de control care retin o anumita stare, la fel cu cele de marcaj; deosebirea principala consta in faptul ca toate butoanele radio incluse in acelasi grup logic sunt mutual exclusive
• ListBox -> ListBox-urile afiseaza liste de optiuni, permitand selectarea unuia sau mai multor elemente dintr-o lista
• Slider -> un slider este un element cu ajutorul caruia se poate selecta o valoare, prin mutarea unui indicator, de obicei intr-o manieraorizontala
• Spinner -> element care permite ajustarea unei valori intr-o caseta text invecinata, fie prin simpla introducere a unei valori numerica de la tastatura, fie prin apasarea cu mouse-ul a unor “sageti sus-jos” pentru a creste, respectiv a scadea valoarea deja inscrisa in casuta
• Menu -> este o lista de comenzi “rapide” utilizate frecvent
• Toolbar -> este o regiune in care sunt adapostite meniurile
• Icon -> pictograma de dimensiune redusa

- cu rol de navigare:

• Tab -> element care permite comutarea intre seturi de documente, putand avea astfel mai multe documente intr-o fereastra unica
• Scrollbar -> obiect grafic cu ajutorul caruia se poate “defila” continutul text sau imagine dintr-o fereastra de afisare

- cu rol in introducerea de text:

• Text box -> o caseta text permite utilizatorului sa introduca informatii text intr-o anumita regiune pentru a fi utilizate ulterior de un program
• Combo box -> este un widget GUI frecvent utilizat, constand dintr-o combinatie intre o lista verticala si un Text box pe o singura linie

SQL Server 2008

SQL Server este o solutie completa de management si analiza a datelor ce ofera dezvoltatorilor unelte pentru dezvoltarea, implementarea si gestionarea aplicatiilor consumatoare de date.
Ca platforma de baze de date, SQL Server ofera flexibilitate prin suportul nativ pentru:

• date in format relational sau ierarhic – XML
• date spatiale geografice sau geometrice
• date nestructurate in format binar – blob

Mai trebuie adaugat nivelul inalt de performanta si disponibilitate, plus unelte puternice de Business Intelligence: instrumente integrate de analiza, motor de raportare, integrare si notificare.
Elementele distinctive ale SQL Server 2008 sunt:

• control deplin al alocarii resurselor cu ajutorul Resource Governor
• suport Hot Add CPU
• cu ajutorul Performance Studio se pot administra mai multe instante SQL Server 2008 in cadrul unei companii
• incriptare transparenta pentru client
• simplificarea dezvoltarii de aplicatii mai puternice printr-o interfatare mai buna cu tehnologii ca LINQ sau ADO.NET
• aplicatii client/server relationale
• date centralizate

ASP.NET

ASP.NET este un set de tehnologii care permit crearea de aplicatii web, fiind succesorul lui ASP (Active Server Pages).
Cateva dintre avantajele ASP.NET sunt:

• ASP.NET are un set larg de componente, bazate pe XML, oferind astfel un model de programare orientat obiect
• ASP.NET ruleaza cod compilat, ceea ce creste performantele aplicatiei web; codul sursa poate fi separat in doua fisiere, unul pentru codul executabil, iar un altul pentru continutul paginii(codul HTML si textul din pagina)
• .NET este compatibil cu peste 20 de limbaje diferite, cele mai utilizate fiind C# si Visual Basic

Chiar daca ASP.NET este gandit pentru a dezvolta aplicatii web foarte complexe, prin faptul ca se bazeaza pe .NET, prin faptul ca se insista pe un model de dezvoltare OOP, respectiv pe separarea interfetei de logica aplicatiei, totusi este extrem de simplu sa dezvoltam aplicatii mici, de genul magazinelor online, al aplicatiilor care sunt pur si simplu un “front-end” pentru o baza de date.

Acum vom focaliza atentia asupra tehnologiei AJAX pentru care ASP.NET ofera suport.

AJAX inseamna “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”, termenul fiind introdus in februarie 2005 de catre Jesse James Garett, iar tehnologia a fost implementata prima data in Internet Explorer 5 in anul 1999 sub forma unui obiect ActiveX numit XMLHttpRequest.
Avantajele folosirii AJAX sunt:

• eliminarea refresh-ului paginii
• micsorarea traficului de retea
• separarea datelor, a functionalitatii si a formatarii paginii
• o semnificativa imbunatatire a interfetei cu utilizatorul

Ca dezavantaj al folosirii AJAX trebuie mentionat faptul ca paginile care il folosesc nu vor rula corespunzator pe browsere mai vechi sau pe browsere fara JavaScript activat.

Google Analytics

Pentru partea de monitorizare a traficului web se va folosi serviciul Google Analytics.
Acesta ofera date generale despre elementele cantitative:

• numarul de vizitatori
• numarul de pagini accesate
• numarul de pagini vizualizate per vizita
• harta locatiilor vizitatorilor
• sursele din care au venit pe site: cuvinte cheie, link-uri

Pentru toate datele oferite se pot efectua analize “Cross Segment”, adica prin izolarea rapoartelor pe anumite segmente: surse de trafic, cuvinte cheie, vizitator, tara, oras, vizitatori noi si multe altele.

WordStream, recently added 2 new features to its service offering: Google Analytics API integration and multi-source keyword .

WordStream is the first keyword tool provider to integrate their software with Google Analytics, layering on tools to help search marketers take action on top of the data provided by the popular analytics service.

Multi-source keyword analytics enables user to aggregate not only paid and natural search data, but also keyword tool estimates and brainstormed keyword ideas into one integrated dashboard. This means more efficient and more comprehensive keyword targeting, which will lead to more and better targeted Web traffic.

More: http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2009/11/keyword-research-analytics-together-in.html

• FeedBurner and Google Analytics: Together at Last
• Social Media Can Change The World Through Common Ground
• Five Best Online Backup Tools [Hive Five]
• Torrent-Website mit Browserdownloads (httpTorrents)
• Mobil – “10 Dinge, die Android besser kann als das iPhone”

dotexe.wordpress.com – Akhirnya Google mengobati kekecewaan banyak pihak terhadapnya pasca mengakuisi FeedBurner 2007 yang lalu. Pasca akuisisi itu, FeedBurner belum terintegrasi dengan baik pada Google Analytics, yang justru merupakan tombak ampuh Google. Tapi, sekarang kekecewaan itu terobati,karena Google telah mengumumkan bahwa FeedBurner telah selesai diintegrasikan dengan FeedBurner.

Seperti dikutip dotEXE di blog resmi tim pengembangan FeedBurner, oleh Steve Olechowski

“If you use either AdSense for feeds or Google FeedBurner to track item clicks and also use Google Analytics, as of today, you will automatically start to see your feed item click analytics show up in Google Analytics with some additional information added to help you understand how distributing your feed with FeedBurner leads to traffic on your site,”

Tampaknya google tidak ingin melakukan kesalahan lagi dengan membiarkan investasi yang dibelinya berakhir sia-sia hanya karena tak bersahabat dengan produk satu atapnya yang lain.

[ Via Softpedia ]

After years of waiting, FeedBurner users can finally see their stats in Google Analytics. Google acquired FeedBurner in 2007. Since then, there has been a lot of grumbling about how Google handled the transition and the lack of innovation in FeedBurner since the acquisition. The integration with Google Analytics is still hidden and incomplete – right now you can only see feed item click data – but Google promises to slowly add more data in the coming weeks.

Subscriber count – the one statistic that many bloggers are most interested in – is not part of this current integration. Right now, you can only see data about the traffic that your feeds brought to your site.

How to See these Stats

Getting to this data isn’t easy, though. First of all, you have to use AdSense for feed or FeedBurner to track this data. Then, in Google Analytics, you have to go to Traffic Sources and click on All Traffic Sources. After this, you still have to filter your traffic by entering ‘feedburner’ in the search box at the bottom of the page. In the Campaigns view you can also filter stats by ‘feedburner.’

In today’s announcement, Google explains how to customize the way FeedBurner tags clicks it sends to Google Analytics. Google plans to create more endpoints for FeedBurner data in the near future.

More to Come

FeedBurner users will be happy to hear that Google plans to release more features in FeedBurner that will take advantage of this new functionality in the coming weeks. FeedBurner had been lying dormant for quite a while. Today’s announcement hopefully signals the end of this stage in FeedBurner’s development.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/feedburner_and_google_analytics_together_at_last.php?

I never thought I could be as obsessed about data as I have become over the past months even after spending 6 years at a data obsessed company. EC and I constantly pour over our reporting and have been aggressively implementing tracking to understand the dynamics of our site, users and acquisition channels. I have to admit EC is a little more obsessed than I am – he looks at the logs and Google Analytics constantly and loves to give me up to the hour reports (and even up to the minute if we are close to hitting a milestone).

So there are two reasons why I thought I would blog about reporting…

1. Building a business: After talking with some entrepreneur friends I’ve come to the opinion (accurate or not) that if you aren’t obsessed about the metrics of your start-up then maybe you need to rethink whether you have the right personality to build a business from the ground-up (this of course assumes that you are one of the main guys/girls of your company). I’m not making any judgement calls here; I’ve just found that getting your start-up off the ground and working to turn it into a real business (with lots of users) requires an obsession with metrics. You need to know what’s working or not (with the product, monetization, marketing, traffic sources, etc.) and iterate intelligently and quicklt on all of these “programs”. This requires a different mindset than when you are in the actual process of developing your product.

2. Google Analytics: Google is a great free product and a great product for starting your company but it has its limits. For transparency, I became intimately involved in the Omniture product (the enterprise version of Google Analytics) while at eBay – I kind of miss it but it’s super $$$. Here are some things we learned after taking quite a bit of time to implement and use Google Analytics. Thought this might be helpful for others (and hopefully I am correct!).

a. That funky 0:00 Average Time on Page.

• I’m sure you’ve seen this and said “huh!?” In order to calculate time on a page, Google needs both a T1 and T2. T1 is the time when you enter a page and T2 is when you go to another page on that site. When you go to the next page, that page pings Google and provides it with a T2. The issue is if a visitor only visits one page on your site (recorded as a Bounce), Google can never get a T2 for your visitor.
• Implications: If you look at the Content reports, the Average Time on a Page summary EXCLUDES 0:00; however, if you look at Average Time on Site, this value INCLUDES 0:00. So this will likely mean that your Average Time on Site will be less than your Average Time on Page. The differences in values can definitely make you scratch your head. My next step is to see if I can easily get the Average Time on Site when Bounces are excluded – I am not confident that this will be easy to do.

b. Event tracking and bounce rates

If you implement event tracking be aware that your bounce rates will decrease. On pages where event tracking is implemented, the page pings Google effectively giving it a T2 mentioned above. If you are going to implement a lot of event tracking I recommend that you take the time to map out how you are naming your Category, Action and Label and to understand how your site has been created. We have tracking at the .jsp and tag level so this created a little bit of complexity. ps – we had some issues implementing event tracking (EC said the Google instructions were wrong). I don’t have the exact details but if you are having some issues even though you believe you are following the instructions let us know and we’ll see how we can help.

c. Path analysis

Oh I do so miss Omniture for this! Unfortunately you cannot see, in aggregate, how people got to a group of pages and what they did after they left that family of pages. You can only look at how people entered and exited a specific page. For BlazingStreams we have “Article Pages” – I would love to see how, in general, people got to our article pages and what they did next but unfortunately I can only see this by clicking on a unique article. This type of reporting becomes valuable when, for instance, you can identify page types that drive additional click-thrus or page types that are particularly popular with certain traffic sources. Our site is very dynamic so looking at a specific page (unless it’s the Homepage/static) isn’t very useful.

d. Advanced Segments

After trying this, I’m not sure it’s going to be that useful for me beyond the basics. The important thing I learned is that Advanced Segments does not function like the filters in the Content section. My goal was to understand which categories of content people are most interested in (Sports, Health, etc.) and from this create segments based on Category type and track their behavior as a group.

For example, based on our website model this means I want any page associated with a Category ID I am interested. For example, for Sports I want any Category, Topic or Article page associated with our Sports ID. When I entered a request to pull results that contained our Sports IDs, Google Advanced Segments pulled every page related to a visit that viewed at least one page with the Sports ID. So if EC looked at an Article Page associated to our Sports ID, Google Advanced Segments will also show me that he looked at the Homepage and any other page during his visit. So in order to get the data I’m seeking, I am now filtering the information from Content and recording it in Excel (not ideal but you gotta do it).

I’ll post more info about reporting that might be useful for others as we come across it. If I’m thinking about my reporting wrong – let me know!

Cheers!

The explosion of the web may have caught out newspapers and a lot of journalists, but early adopters have been able to thrive in an environment where one man’s threat is another’s opportunity.

Certainly the web has caused a lot of problems for media and journalists, but the tools to adapt to this changing market have been provided for us.

What’s more, the vast majority of the most important ones for bloggers, journalists, editors and even PRs and marketers are freely available, easy to use and – perhaps most importantly – free.

Some of these tools are suited to building traffic, some for measuring traffic, some for sharing or collecting information and others to add value to traditional content.

Some will suit you, others will not. A couple may even be irrelevant and I will make no claims for what they will do for your traffic, brand, revenues or social life.

But these are all tools that I use, in some cases vital tools, and if you accept the metaphor of modern journalist as media Swiss Army Knife you need to constantly develop your skills and make use of the largely free tools you have at your disposal.

There are, literally, thousands of them out there and it can be confusing as to which may be of help and which – in all likelihood – will not.

These are the tools and applications I find most useful and I’ve tried to keep the apps, and descriptions of them, fairly basic. There may be some obvious ones I miss out, which just means I haven’t got round to making use of them or I don’t consider them worth flagging up for starters.

There seems to be a lot of suspicion surrounding social media and Web 2.0 apps. All I have to say to that is this: They are tools. How, and whether, you use them is up to you.

The only criteria are that they’re predominantly free and they are basic, widely-available online tools or apps.

Anyway, without further ado here’s the selection. Dive in.

Twitter and related

Twitter is, to my mind, so important now for online media types that it’s got a category of its own.

Twitter

The Web 2.0 Telegraph is the most fitting description I’ve seen of Twitter. Twitter is simply the platform of choice for important communicators interacting with one another: promoting links, sharing information, asking for help or shooting the breeze.

If you’ve built up good contacts in relevant fields on Twitter it’s the most important tool you will use.

• See: Twitter
• See also: Robin on Twitter

Twitpic

One picture is worth a thousand words, or 140 characters. Show Twitter followers what’s got your attention by connecting up your phone to Twitpic.

You can set up Twitpic so it directly and instantly feeds to Twitter, even old mobiles can do it.

• See: Twitpic
• See also: Robin on Twitpic

Twitterfeed

If you have multiple blogs and multiple Twitter personas you need to make sure the correct blogs are feeding to the correct Twitters. Doing it manually can be pain in the backside, so automating a feed to post to Twitter is worth investigating.

There’s some debate as to whether automated posting goes against the grain a bit on Twitter. As with anything, moderation and common sense are key.

If you’re using Twitterfeed you don’t want more than a couple of automated posts a day. A deluge of links will get you unfollowed. And Twitterfeed is no substitute for proper engagement on Twitter.

• See: Twitterfeed
• See also: Twitterfeed on Twitter

Hootsuite

If you manage multiple accounts it’s simpler to manage them from the same place, rather than logging in and out and juggling usernames and passwords.

I initially used Tweetdeck but it’s awkward and buggy. Hootsuite is easier to use as it’s on a webpage; simpler; customisable; and has useful add-ons like stats, URL shortening and scheduled posting.

• See: Hootsuite

Bit.ly

Essentially anointed by Twitter as the link-shortener of choice, Bit.ly is probably the best too. It will take your long link and make it into a 20-char link that won’t eat up your 140 chars in a tweet.

A simple interface and some basic metric-tracking and sharing tools are the cherries on the cake.

• See: Bit.ly

Twitterholic

Looking a bit rough around the edges now but this is the tool I used to build a following on Twitter by finding people in similar places or with similar interests to me.

It’s always easier finding people who will reciprocate if you have something in common, an area where a lot of people trying to build a group of followers fall down.

• See: Twitterholic
• See also: Journalists on Twitterholic

Social bookmarking sites

Using social bookmarking sites simply to try and drive traffic can be fruitless and potentially damaging. All have unique communities and all are different, even if they don’t initially appear to be.

If you’re representing a brand you may want to think twice before submitting ill-fitting links to Digg, Reddit and Fark. If you’re not going to engage or observe how things work, don’t bother.

Also be aware that chasing traffic, as an end in itself, can be somewhat self-defeating. Choose your bookmarking carefully.

Digg

Using Digg to its maximum potential – in terms of traffic – takes time, effort and patience. As with Twitter, it’s about building a community and using that community to promote your links.

I think Digg has a fairly narrow band of opportunities for editors or journalists. Funny, techy or sporty stuff seems to do best as Digg users tend to use it to share distracting, fun stuff.

The obscene amounts of traffic The Onion and Cracked get from Digg seems to bear this out.

Occasionally I happen to write something I think will do well on Digg, and I make sure I write a header and description that will appeal to Diggers.

A well-placed story on Digg will send you hefty amounts of traffic, and it’s good for in-bound links too. Also bear in mind the reason it’s there – it’s fun.

• See: Digg

Delicious

Of very little use for generating traffic in the way Digg and Reddit are, Delicious has probably grown into the most pure social bookmarking application.

It’s beautifully simple and, because it’s searchable, is a great repository for valuable information.

It tends to be used by people working in media, PR, programming and marketing so it’s a gold mine of peer-approved guides and information in these areas.

• See: Delicious

Reddit

Not a million miles away from Digg, Reddit has an arguably broader focus and is easier to get into for newcomers.

Reddit’s community is not to be messed with however. Get a link submission wrong and you’ll know about it.

• See: Reddit

Fark

Digg on speed, or maybe acid. Fark consists of ‘not news’ chosen by a community and as such a very difficult tool to wield with any success.

In fairness Fark is not a tool at all, but can be used as such. Many international media have successfully harnessed Fark as a tool to drive vast amounts of traffic.

A story on the front page will deliver tens of thousands of hits over a very short space of time, which often leads to servers being ‘farked’ – brought down by the deluge of traffic.

A very good understanding of the community is required, and there’s a good opportunity to sharpen up your headline-writing skills. Only the very best stories and write-ups are greenlit, but the resulting traffic can be huge.

• See: Fark

RSS, alerts and readers

Tracking the websites that are important to you, and sharing your own content with readers is an important element of the online Swiss Army Knife.

Netvibes

I say Netvibes because it’s the one I use and I think it’s smart, but any reader or personalised home page will do – they’re essentially much of a muchness.

If you’re in media or PR you need to keep up with events on a daily basis. That means browsing potentially hundreds of feeds a day.

Grabbing an RSS feed and displaying it in your reader alongside 50 others is a lot easier than going to those individual sites.

Add-ons like widgets, increased sharing abilities and clever use of APIs from other apps like Facebook and Twitter means you can potentially browse, and interact with, all the relevant bits of the web from one page.

Most have a public setting too. As a result I have a public homepage on Netvibes that displays all my various online real estate around the web.

• See: Netvibes
• See also Robin’s public page on Netvibes

Tabbloid

Takes your feeds and displays them in a newspaper format. A bit clunky, and there are a few similar tools out there, but handy if you get square eyes looking at a normal reader.

Can also be used as a promotional tool to round up your output on a regular basis.

• See: Tabbloid
• See also Tabbloid sample

Feedburner

Allows you to track and edit your RSS feeds, share links and embed ads in your feed. No earth-shattering, but provides far more control over RSS feeds.

• See: Feedburner

Google Docs

Put e-documents online, quickly, easily and – er – freely.

• See: Google Docs

Google Alerts

Track a developing story, stay abreast of any news concerning particular companies or trends or steal a march over others on breaking news relating to your chosen keywords.

• See: Google Alerts

Twitterfeed

Again. See above for details

Multimedia

There are a hundred ways to tell a story these days. Use images, videos and music to bring yours to life.

Youtube

There are half a dozen good apps out there that will allow you to upload and share videos, but for simplicity’s sake I’ve gone with Youtube.

Youtube as a platform is only really as good as your videos, but as a tool it’s probably more versatile than you’d think.

Most obviously it provides some fantastic, free, embeddable multimedia content. If you can’t do something with that you’re probably in the wrong job.

Insight actually provides some useful metrics – the one measuring the attention span of watchers per video for one – while playlists, audio beds and annotations allow for some personalisation.

Add a customisable channel page and Youtube becomes a valuable tool in branding and hosting.

Live Stream and Vimeo may be more obvious, and going forward will come into their own, but for ‘quick and dirty’ Youtube is good enough for most.

• See: Youtube
• See also MotorTorque on Youtube

Flickr

Please be aware of what Flickr is not – a free image bank. If you’re going to use Flickr to source images you need to have a thorough understanding of Creative Commons licences, and some form of contact with individual authors.

Also, Flickr is not a link-building tool. Any links are nofollowed and business accounts are frowned on.

With that in mind Flickr can be invaluable for finding good quality images to accompany articles and is also a pleasantly simple image storage and presentation tool.

Image sets can be presented as embedded slide-shows, which can be a great visual dimension to a story alongside a static image.

Flickr can also be used to create links within photographer communities and can be used to promote photographic work.

Again, its largely self-policed by one of the more righteous online communities, so ensure you know what you’re doing.

• See: Flickr
• See also Robin on Flickr

Pixlr

Essentially an online Photoshop but cheaper (free actually), faster and simpler. Great tool that’s good enough for most photo manipulation.

• See: Pixlr

MPEG Streamclip

Good tool for video file conversion and some very basic editing features. Plays virtually anything. Can also be very good at capturing online videos if that’s your thing.

• See: MPEG Streamclip

Spotify

Weren’t expecting that one were you? But any new free app should be considered for the possibilities it provides.

A few brands have flirted with playlists, and I’ve done a couple of articles involving playlists to accompany articles.

There may not be a huge amount more scope than that, but Spotify is a free resource that offers free access to millions of tracks. Who saw that coming a couple of years ago?

• See: Spotify
• See also Crucial Three article on Liverpool Culture Blog

Morgue File

A good free image-bank site. The value of a good image to accompany an article can make all the difference. If you have access to a free image bank you’ve really no excuse. Remember to add a credit and check licenses though.

• See: Morgue File

Stock Xchng

Another great free image bank, with a premium level.

• See: Stock Xchng

Mash-up and added value apps

Add value to your content with embeddable mash-ups and media that complement your content.

Dipity

Great for building timelines for events that can be embedded. Connect up RSS feeds to feed a topic or add manually.

The added value it can bring to a running story is not to be underestimated – it’s shiny and it’s useful, especially if you’re using your own content to build timelines.

• See: Dipity
• See: Dipity US car industry timeline

Google Maps

Google Maps should be subtitled ‘not just maps’. Any amount of mash-ups can be created with the API, but it’s just as easy to create interactive co-operative maps using the site itself. Also works well with Google Earth.

As with Dipity, you can add value to content and tell another dimension to a story. A no-brainer for travel reports and write-ups.

• See: Google Maps
• See: Half Map Half Biscuit

Cover It Live

The ability to cover an event live on a self-hosted platform can be invaluable. Cover It Live allows administrators to host guests, guide discussions and moderate reader comments.

While Twitter may be a more obvious platform for micro-blogging, Cover It Live can be embedded into a web page, customised and managed in terms of who can contribute. Images and video can also be embedded in the stream.

Again, it can add another dimension to traditional coverage and bring live events to life.

• See: Cover It Live

Xtra Normal

A tool that allows you to convert to text spoken by an animated character may be gimmicky, but it can be fun.

Any blogger worth their salt should be able to think of something at least funny to do with it.

If Xtra Normal had been around 20 years ago we could have had animated reports of Gerry Adams speaking to the UK via an animated avatar.

• See: Xtra Normal
• See: Worried about acid erosion? on AdTurds

PollDaddy

Encourage user feedback and drive user-generated content with a poll – it can provide valuable insight or be used to drive original content itself.

Easy to configure and embed, you can stick it in the middle of an article one day and write a follow-up the next day based on the results.

• See: PollDaddy
• See also: Widget on WordPress

Metrics, web editing and SEO

If you’re running a blog or website you want to be able to track its performance over a number of metrics. A basic understanding of SEO will benefit any journalist too.

Google Analytics

Or any decent analytics package that allows you to track, compare and dig down into various metrics.

Analytics will do all of that and more – you can’t seriously run a large website without something at least as powerful and detailed as Google’s statistics tool.

Analytics can be used at a very basic level for tracking your traffic and website performance, or can provide intricate details into what’s going on in the deepest reaches of your site if you drill down.

Makes a great pairing with Adsense.

• See: Google Analytics

Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools allow you to get your hands a little more dirty with the intricacies of web design and SEO.

If there are any obvious problems with the navigation and accessibility on your site, Webmaster Tools should flag them up, along with some SEO information on backlinks and keywords than may give you a different perspective on how your users – or search engines – view your site as opposed to how you view it.

• See: Webmaster Tools

Adsense

Making money from a blog or website can be something of a double-edged sword. I don’t have Adsense on any of my personal blogs, but do use it on other sites.

Simply put Adsense offers the ability to make money from your blog or site with a few clicks.

Style your ads, decide on what keywords you want to include on your ads, settle on placements and Adsense will generate code for you. Stick the code in your blog, verify your account and watch the cash roll in.

Don’t expect vast sums unless you’re doing thousands of impressions a day, and bear in mind the downside of changing your blog to a money-making device.

• See: Adsense

Google Trends

Stuck for blog topics or want to research a trend? Google Trends is a good way to track what’s popular, although Twitter Trends can be used in much the same way.

Comparing two or three different terms can be instructive if writing about brands, TV programmes or pop bands.

Trends also pairs up well with Insight, an advances search facility currently in Beta, which allows you to drill down into search data over different periods of time or by region and country.

Both are probably of more use to marketers, but keyword searches and tracking can also be useful for giving a fresh perspective on an article, creating unique content, driving Adwords campaigns or simply finding out who is currently winning out of Doctor Who and Star Trek.

• See: Trends
• See also: Who is winning out of Doctor Who and Star Trek?

Website Grader

A good all-in-one tool that will grade your site against others in terms of traffic, search engine placements, page rank and a dozen other metrics.

Can provide a good introduction to basic SEO and an insight into what you may be doing correctly or incorrectly.

• See Website Grader

Platforms

If you’ve not made the leap you’ll need a platform on which to host your blog or site. Make sure you pick a good one.

WordPress

So far in front of other blogging platforms it’s not even funny. WordPress hosted or self-hosted is easy to figure out, has an interface so intuitive it’s almost beautiful, good support and a peerless range of plug-ins.

If you’re a journalist you need a blog. If you need a blog, use WordPress. That is all.

• See: WordPress

Tumblr

Ultra-simple blogging platform that makes the easy-to-use WordPress look like quantum mechanics.

Tumblr’s simplicity and efficiency is its greatest strength, so if you need something that works out of the box and don’t need the extra bells and whistles, look no further.

• See: Tumblr
• See also: Robin on Tumblr

Promoting yourself

Much as it pains me to say it, you need to be a brand these days, and that means at least providing people with the means to browse your skills and experience.

I use this blog to do that, but there are a couple of other tools around the web worth a look.

LinkedIn

I’m not actively searching for freelance or seeking a new job, so I’ve not got much out of LinkedIn so far.

If and when I do I’ll no doubt investigate further as this is what everyone uses. I’m not clear how much business actually gets done on LinkedIn, but for now I’ve got a page on there with the basics on.

• See: LinkedIn
• See also: Robin on LinkedIn

ReTaggr

Unsure about ReTaggr at the moment, but it does what it says on the tin – essentially an online business card.

• See: ReTaggr
• See also: Robin on ReTaggr

• Image by Noodlepie on Flickr via Creative Commons

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