Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [256]
Segment by Content
Publishers can segment their content by author, popularity, links, and any number of other factors that will enable them to determine the types of content that their readers like and respond to favorably. Publishers can also track to see which stories gain the most nonsubscriber traffic in order to see how their content can grow beyond their subscribers and attract new members.
One of the more interesting segments I look at is the page views prior to the conversion, especially on content and lead generation sites. It is always interesting to see the pages that are part of the decision-making process. Sometimes, they aren’t what you think. I often see the About Us page as one of the most previewed pages prior to a conversion.
Segmenting by content will enable you to develop an understanding of how your website is actually used by visitors. You will be able to find the content that may have required extensive time and investment to create but isn’t critical for the most conversions. Analyzing your content segments by conversion enables you to find direction in developing new content, optimizing current content, and possible interlinking within your own site to enable visitors to find the information they need more effectively.
One of the harder-to-track groups of visitors on the website is those who navigate directly to the home page. Most likely, these visitors have the site bookmarked or are just so familiar with it that they typed it in directly. For these types of visitors, I also like to segment the choice of content (the next page that visitor goes to) from the home page. By segmenting the most selected content from those visits, I can begin to see the preferences of different types of visitors. Most likely, these are returning visitors, so they have seen the site before. Knowing that, segmenting the paths from the home page may provide some enlightenment as to what content is important for a returning visitor.
Review and Hands-On
If you are reporting using the information found on the dashboard of your analytics, stop!
First, get familiar with your choice of analytics programs. How is the data collected? Are you using a page-tagging solution (which is what Google Analytics offers). If so, verify on random pages throughout your website that the code is there. Do this by viewing the source code; on most browsers you can do this by viewing a web page and then selecting View ⇒ View Page Source. I typically will press Ctrl+F (PC) or Cmd+F (Mac) and then search for ga.js. This will find the Google script on the page.
Next, look at the reports that you are currently tracking, and define visitors, page views, session, bounce rate, exit rate, and conversions. Understand that these are KPIs and report numbers but do not provide analysis that will point to action.
After reviewing your current reports, write down the goals you have for your website. Compare your goals to the reports you are generating or viewing. Are you measuring your goals with your reports? Do your reports include goal completion, conversions, or profitability? How closely do your reports match the stated goals for the website and for your visitors?
Now, move to analysis. This is where you take the goals that you have for the website and for your business and start to develop a report that will enable you to track the success of your goals, and not simply reporting KPIs.
Develop segments that will enable you to break down all of your visitors by their intent and activity. Return to your keyword lists that you developed for your optimization, and review your current keyword visits. Are you getting visitors for the words you are targeting? Segment your keyword phrases into large segments at first, using a single word or concept. You can use a spreadsheet or do this in Google Analytics