Well, the time has come to make the transition complete and put all out efforts into making our blog at Cardinal Path the premiere source for web analytics news and insights in North America.

That means that we will no longer be adding content to the PublicInsite blog, but you will still find many of the same writers and topics over at Cardinal Path.

Check out the Cardinal Path blog

See you on the other side!

More information about Cardinal Path:

Announcing Cardinal Path

A Message from Alex Langshur

Keywords categorization can give you a better view of what topics visitors are looking for from your website.

Depending on the particular services, information or causes a client is involved with, knowledge in various fields is required in order to effectively and accurately categorize keywords and place them into meaningful and useful buckets. By ‘meaningful and useful’, we can also infer ‘actionable’ – a term used to describe information or communication that is useful enough to drive and support a particular course of action. Sorting the keywords used by individual search users to arrive at your site in such a manner can help an organization make important decisions about the future direction of their website and the content that will best satisfy demand. Evidence-based decision-making at its finest!

The problem sometimes faced by web marketing consultants and business owners alike is that only an expert in a given field could understand the language used by visitors to find a website  that specializes in particular topics – be that health, technology, governance or products from any number of specialty e-commerce shops.

Who can accomplish this daunting task?

Therefore, the same sort of mindset that might win games of Jeopardy! or Trivial Pursuit might very well prove invaluable when making sense of a huge body of keywords. The ability to learn, retain and effectively recall (or at least recognize) a large variety of topics, themes and ideas referred to by a particular keyword is critical to quickly and accurately categorizing keywords, and in determining the categories under which they will necessarily fall.

Failing that, you’ll need someone who is incredibly quick and efficient using Google to find related information; an approach that will inevitably still take much longer and be much more cumbersome than actually possessing a general knowledge of a large number of fields.

It is because of this that experts in SEO or web analytics who rely heavily on keyword analysis for their business will, for the most effective and efficient discharge of their duties and contractual obligations, need to venture far afield of their specialty to dig deep into the peculiarities, unique language and different ways of thinking in which their clients are involved.

As a result, it could be argued that individuals with a diverse range of experiences, interests and education, or at least those who know or can quickly find out where to look, would be best equipped (and most cost-effective) to take on such tasks.

To fail to completely understand all of the relevant facets of a client’s business, mandate or cause, is to fail to provide the best possible service as an SEO or analytics consultant.

Read more about keyword research on PublicInsite.com.

Having performed an in-depth study, PublicInsite has determined that analyzing the top 500 keywords can provide an accurate reflection of visitor intent. To demonstrate this concept we’ve focused on brand vs. non-branded search and after reviewing over 2.9 million keywords, it became evident that looking at the top 500 keywords yields a fairly representative sample. The table below summarizes the percentage of brand related searches in the Top 100 through Top 1,000 keywords relative to all visits from keyword driven traffic.

Table 1: Percentage of Brand Related Visits Based on Top Keywords

The data illustrates the difference between the percentages of brand related keywords from tier-to-tier in regards to depth. We see for example when comparing the top 400 vs. the top 500 that the difference is minimal (1.1%). The difference between the top 100 and top 200 is much greater (5.0%). As the analysis goes deeper in to the long tail, we see this difference changes even less with each 100 keyword increment.

In short, the data we’ve analyzed strongly supports the concept of analyzing the top 500 keywords as a generally accepted approach to understanding general visitor intent across all keywords to a site. In principle, it would be preferable to study all keywords to a site, but this can literally be hundreds of thousands of keywords, which makes it virtually impossible.

Given the results from this study, we strongly recommend that organizations develop a library of keywords and categories which can be used on a regular basis to understand visitor intent through the top 500 keywords; not less and not more. However, for content development and in-depth analysis, we strongly recommend considering the long tail.

Read more about keyword research on PublicInsite.com.

• the total unique searches, or the total volume of demand for this specific set of letters and words;
• the resulting pageviews per search, the average number of times your visitors using this search term viewed the search results page;
• the percent search exits, or percentage of searches that resulted in the visitor leaving your site right away;
• the time after search, or how long the average visitor is known to have stayed on your site after conducting this search; and,
• the search depth, or the average number of pages visitors viewed after conducting this search.

We can use this information to understand what most visitors are interested in, and the percentage of people who are clearly not finding what they want after a search, and then leaving the site. The key here is building up some intelligence about our audiences to help us understand what terms and topics are closest to the hearts of our audiences. If for some reason audiences are searching for ‘pink elephant’, and this has nothing to do with our website or business goals, then obviously these are not the target audience we are interested in, and there is no point in building ‘pink elephant’ content into our online strategy.

Further, what we really care about can be called our online business goals – what we want our audiences to do online. For example: sign-up for a news letter, buy something, return to our site frequently and read through lots of pages, to support an advertising strategy for example, or to become educated and change their behaviour in some way.

DON’T FORGET TO LOOK AT THESE TABS! (THIS IS GOLD!)

These tabs will show you how certain on-site search terms contribute the goal completions and ecommerce conversions you have set up. To learn more about setting up goals see these sites:

1)      http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55515

2)      http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/web-analytics-tips-identify-website-goal-values/

So, once you have done your in-depth analysis to identify which on-site search terms are really valuable to you, you can apply this knowledge to your own SEO and SEM strategies. This allows audience feedback to drive the evolution of your website over time.

This approach gives you the best chance of striking a harmonic chord with your audiences – which can result in a surge in visits to your site. Best of all, these will be QUALITY VISITS, centered on topics related to what your website is all about, and what online business goals you’re really trying to accomplish.

Read more about keyword research on PublicInsite.com.

Keyword research has been a constant in SEO, and is one of the foundational elements when you are developing content for your site. Keyword research is like mining gold – when you discover real gold, then you’re rich, but of course there’s a lot of digging in the process to get there. Keyword research is the same; it takes time to find the right keywords to use in your content. But when you do find them, prepare to put them to work.

Keyword Research Best Practices

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when you are doing your keyword research. This is not a complete list, but two of the most important ones to consider when deciding the type of traffic you want for your site. They are:

1. Relevancy (Intent)
2. Popularity (Trend)

Keyword Relevancy (Intent)

If you are a car dealer in Ottawa, then you will want to advertise your cars to the Ottawa market. Likewise, if you are an e-commerce shop, then you might be trying to tap into a specialized group of people with a common interest. Depending on the type of business you are in, it is important to keep in mind that the keyword research process is similar in both cases, but the conclusions are dramatically different. The Google Keyword Tool is an excellent tool for segmenting local search volumes by country.

The dealer shop in Ottawa will be interested in those users searching locally. Such terms may be “car dealers Ottawa” or “used cars in Ottawa”, where it is a keyword phrase + location. These search queries are the most relevant to the business, and the intent of those searches is acceptable because we want customers who are looking for a car to find our shop before they find their competitors.

Similarly, an e-commerce shop optimizing for remote control cars may look into the brand of car + “remote control cars” as a long tail keyword option. Thus, the relevance and intent of a search is critical if you want to drive quality organic traffic to your site.

Keyword Popularity (Trends)

Often keyword research tools will give you an average monthly search volume for a term (make sure you are using exact match). As a result, items that have higher demand in the winter (i.e. Christmas gifts), are not given a weighted score to compensate for the lower demand in the other three season.

Seasonality trends are important if you are a retail store that sells an assortment of products throughout the year. We use Google Insights for Search to determine if there is indeed any pattern in search, dating as far back as 2004.

For example, if Jonny was a good kid this year, then he probably deserves a nice present from ma and pa. So his parents begin their search for that perfect Christmas gift online. You might begin your search with some of these keywords (Jonny and his family live in Ottawa);

• “Christmas gifts”
• “Christmas presents”
• “xmas gifts”
• “xmas presents”

Use your trusty Insights for Search tool to compare these terms and what do you find? “Christmas gifts” is the keyword phrase people use. So use this in your content and optimization efforts!

Although the other terms seem to be insignificant compared to the winner, it’s also important to note that it may be worth keeping those keywords in a separate list (secondary keyword list), evaluate the search volume, and write content around those keywords accordingly. At least you are covering your bases – and who knows… “christmas present” may be the better converting keyword!

You’ll just have to play around with your analytics tool and test to see if there is any correlation between the organic keywords and when visitors make a transaction. Google Analytics is good at slicing and dicing that data.

As we said at the very beginning, keyword research is like mining for gold. It’s not an easy job, but the reward is great if you do it correctly right from the start. Keyword research requires a lot of time and logic if you want to build that list of golden keywords. Keyword relevancy and popularity are only two aspects to consider in your journey of keyword discovery, but they are the most important, in my opinion, that you need to account for.

Happy mining!

Read more about keyword research on PublicInsite.com.

This blog should help you get a clue about why keyword research is important.

This background information can help inform the rest of your campaign and indeed your whole business plan by demonstrating what language is used to search for topics related to your business. Using this information, you can use the right words in your page copy and website code and get your message to the right people.

Target the largest audience

Perhaps the most important aspect of keyword research is simply seeing what terms are popular and using them in your page copy. Are you casting a large net or just focusing on one particular term? Using the keyword tools mentioned above, you can examine these numbers and discover if you’re aiming for a large audience, or if you need to re-evaluate your strategy. You may even find a group of visitors that no one else is reaching out to!

Example: Many people search using codes or abbreviations to refer to locations. For instance, most people will type in a state or province abbreviation rather than a full name, like typing ‘CT’ instead of ‘Connecticut’. By writing out the term in your copy rather than using the more commonly search abbreviation, you are limiting your possible audience.

Target the right audience

Just because you think that your targeted keywords reach out to the right audience does not mean that it is the case. There are many ambiguous terms, generic terms, abbreviations, and misspellings that could bring the wrong types of people to your website, or result in a poor click-through rate if your website does happen to show up in the search engine results in either the paid or organic sections.

Example: If your name or the name of your company is commonly associated with another person or brand, then you need to create a strategy that differentiates your website from others.

This can be as simple as using negative keywords in AdWords or optimizing your website content so that qualifying terms are always included. For instance, a lawyer in Alaska named Michael Jordan should write content that focuses on his legal experience in Alaska, rather than his love of sports. Then, people looking for legal services in that state are more likely to find him.

It’s important to remember that both paid and organic search results are impacted by the content on your landing pages. In paid search, the alignment between your page and the search query effects your quality score, and as a result, can have a direct impact on your cost per click!

No attempt at SEO or paid search should begin without keyword research to frame your efforts. Then, you’ll be on the right track to draw in the largest quantity of visitors and convert then after they arrive.

Read more about keyword research on PublicInsite.com.

Ryan Short of Teknision (far right) speaks to attendees of Web Analytics Wednesday in Ottawa May 25.

Blinking text. Hit counters.

These were the ways we used to attract visitors’ attention and track our success online. We’re a long way from Geocities and Angelfire, but have our testing and measurement practices evolved since then?

User Experience Designer Ryan Short of Ottawa’s Teknision spoke about designing websites that actually get visitors to convert. With a mix of client-based anecdotes and some general comments about what works, Ryan described how simple changes to call to action and font can improve conversion rates by 20-30%.

Testing is the key

It’s difficult to predict how visitors will react to new calls to action and web page design, but a systematic approach can help to give conclusive results.

If there was one message that Ryan seemed to want to drive home, it was that many A/B tests are done incorrectly, with multiple changes to the web page. This makes testers unable to determine exactly what element was responsible for the improvement (or decline).

One testing example that Ryan cited was Google increasing the number of search results on their page from 10 to 30. While Google may have speculated that searchers would more easily find what they’re looking for without clicking to page 2, the added page load time actually had a negative impact on click-through rate. This feature test lasted about two weeks and was then dropped completely.

Planning your attack

Many organizations also fail at properly identifying goals and designing their website in order to get visitors to complete these goals, Ryan said. Laying the conceptual framework for a website before beginning the design work can save lots of headaches and many hours of redesigning down the road.

We’re a long way from hit counters, but many organizations still fail to consider the visitors’ experience when designing a website. These reminders at Web Analytics Wednesday will make sure our websites look like they’re a long way from Geocities too.

Update:

Read Jordan Louis’ notes from the presentation. Download .doc (15.5 kb)

Photos courtesy Jackson Lo.

Special thanks to William Johnson for live-tweeting the presentation!

For more information about Web Analytics Wednesday in Ottawa, or to become a speaker or sponsor, contact Ben Myers -  bmyers@publicinsite.com.

As a result, it’s vital that each organization keeps track of their website, the ways in which these websites can drive and facilitate donations and the effectiveness of the website in achieving an organization’s fundraising targets and goals. This vigilance will provide the evidence needed to find ways to improve the performance of the donations page and make web design and development decisions that result in greater quality ($ per donation) and/or larger quantity of donations (number of donations).

In Google Analytics, there is a way to track individual transactions that go through a ‘check-out’ process where personal and payment information is input and a confirmation message is given to the user in response. The E-Commerce function, despite its name, can be a very useful tool in determining the general trends in donations over time, such as determining the success of a particular advertising campaign or fundraising drive, finding out which countries, regions or cities donate the most and the most often or learning which external websites or Google search terms are sending the most potential donors to the recipient organization’s website. By adding a few extra lines to the standard Google Analytics tracking code and feeding certain pieces of information into it, we can get a more complete picture of who our donors are, where they come from, when they donate and maybe even why they do or do not donate.

Click this image to enlarge:

Couple the Google Analytics E-Commerce function with Google Website Optimizer, and you’ll be able to test the effect of different form or page layouts, different text or different images on the number and size of donations. The information gained from such tests can teach you how to improve your donations page and your site as a whole (you have to get them to the donations page, after all) to make the most of the visitors who are already coming to your page and are already interested in your cause. Be sure to test and make changes on a regular (or constant) basis so that you’re always improving your website’s performance.

This has been just a brief overview of some of the ways Google Analytics can help non-profit organizations sustain their most precious, yet most fragile, income stream.

Read more about non-profit organizations on PublicInsite.com.

Over the years, we have worked with a variety of non-profit organizations and have watched them improve their online channel dramatically. In fact, we recently found that a handful of our clients have optimized their website content for search to the point that they are getting less phone calls requesting particular documents! Sounds good right? Well… maybe.

If your organization has a consistent base of users, you may find that their feedback on the telephone is important. The types of content they are requesting is important to understand in order to ensure you continue to serve these core stakeholders (and maybe even your unofficial spokespeople) effectively.Without getting the phone call, email or on-site form completion to request the information, it is largely impossible to track who is using the information. But, as with the French language, there are exceptions to every rule!

Read more about non-profit organizations on PublicInsite.com.

Enter a very cheap and effective CRM solution

Many organizations, whether for profit or not, have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. These tools will track accounts, contacts, leads, etc. and can be linked directly to your web analytics. That’s right. Your web analytics can include information about who is doing what. There are many tools that do this natively, however, many non-profit organizations don’t have pockets deep enough to dig in every month for $500 – $2,000.

Some relatively straightforward technical implementations can tie a unique value tracked in Google Analytics (also free) to a visitor which can be maintained in the CRM tool (we use ZoHo; it has a free version and a more customizable and very affordable paid version). Implementation is the hard part, but the results can be well worth the effort.

This isn’t about breaching privacy by any means; it’s about offering the best possible service and providing the content that matters to your core audience! In fact, this is far less invasive than signing up for a points card at your local Shoppers Drug Mart!

If your organization is looking for deeper and more granular analytics, it is possible! If you don’t have a CRM tool, Google Analytics, or both, they do have free versions of each which can be customized to accomplish this.

See Alex Langshur and Tyler Gibbs speak about CRM-web analytics integration on May 12, 2011.

But have you been through to the process of making a donation online and decide to turn away because you felt like you weren’t sure where your money was going? Or have your come across donation forms that just ask way too many questions, that you decide you didn’t want to write down your life story?

If you’ve made an online donation before, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you decide to run your own campaign to raise money for the Japan earthquake and tsunami relief, here are the top five points you need to keep in mind when you’re designing your landing page or donation page:

1. Use a persuasive image. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Using visuals will help convey the message of where the donor’s money is being put towards. Use real life images that would resonate with the individual and persuade them to make a donation.
2. Give options to the donor. Often times, online donation forms forget to provide donation options (using radio buttons) and simply ask you to ‘Enter the amount you’d like to donate here’. The key here is making it easier for users to choose how much they’d like to donate, instead of asking for them to think up an amount. You never know, if your minimal amount is $25 and their intentions coming to your landing page was to donate $10, they may choose $25 because it’s listed as a choice.
3. Make it shareable. If you are not in the social media game yet, be prepare to play. Not only are people sharing stories across social channels like Facebook and Twitter, but donators leave self-reflected comments which then sparks a conversation on the web. Some of the buttons that you should include on your donation page are: Facebook Share and Like, Twitter Retweet, and Email. Making the effort to add these social signals will go a long way for your campaign’s visibility and longevity.
4. Keep your form short and sweet. No one enjoys filling out long forms. Design for minimal scrolling and keep the entire donation process to as few pages as possible.
5. Make your button stand out and alive. I see many instances where donations forms ask me to ‘Submit’ my donation. How does it feel when you are asked to ‘Submit’ something? How about I ask you to ‘Donate’ to Japan? It sounds better already right? Use lively words like ‘Donate’ or ‘Give’ in your button to show that when they click on it, their money is going somewhere they will feel great about.

Here is one example of a donation page for the Japan relief by GlobalGiving.org.

These are of many points to keep in mind when you are optimizing your donations page. Often times, you will need to test different page layouts (A/B testing) to come to a conclusion on which page layout performs better.

Read more about non-profit organizations on PublicInsite.com.

Have effective donations pages made you more likely to contribute to a worthy cause? What aspect sealed the deal?