This two-day course covers all the bases: from the fundamentals of web analytics to mobile measurement. We’ll use practical, real-world examples to demonstrate key concepts and provide hands-on techniques for developing robust metrics and indicators that work regardless of the channel.

Learn more: Click here for more information.

Register now: Click here to register to this event

Government services and information has never been as readily available to citizens as it is today. The number of touch points has grown significantly in the digital age and includes your web site, social media sites, mobile device access, mobile applications, email, chat as well as the tried-and-true call centers and storefronts. With the growth in the number of these channels has come increasing focus on measuring and understanding their performance.

This two-day course covers all the bases: from the fundamentals of web analytics to mobile measurement. We’ll use practical, real-world examples to demonstrate key concepts and provide hands-on techniques for developing robust metrics and indicators that work regardless of the channel. Alex will help you answer such questions as:

• Is email more effective at driving engaged visits and generating value events relative to our mobile app?
• How is usage across our call center changing in response modifications of site content?
• Are our social media efforts working?

What You Will Learn

If you manage or work with one or multiple channels (web, email, mobile, etc.) you need good measurement systems in order to help you decide how to prioritize your investments. This course will teach you best practices and good techniques for developing effective customer metrics and indicators as well as:

• Fundamentals of web analytics
• How to capture data, develop metrics, and understand key performance indicators
• How to interpret data—what the numbers mean and how to use them
• How to measure social media and mobile web efforts
• How to integrate call center data
• How to get management to listen—and care

Who Should Attend

Anyone who manages communications, or any aspect of the online channel.

About the Instructor

Alex Langshur

Register now: Click here to register to this event.

101 Workshop:  http://www.publicinsite.com/google-analytics-101-workshop-2/

201 Workshop: http://www.publicinsite.com/google-analytics-201-workshop-2/

About PublicInsite

PublicInsite provides a comprehensive suite of digital measurement services and consulting to the the e-commerce, corporate, public and non-profit sectors. PublicInsite’s goal is to help you pinpoint which parts of your marketing investments are driving returns for your organization and which ones aren’t.  We use web analytics, multi-channel/Social Media measurement, search optimization, site optimization and insight to provide an incredibly detailed real-time view of how people are interacting with your ideas, products and brands online.  We provide you with insights as to how these interactions can be improved to save money; how to optimize the return on your bottom line; and increasing your competitive advantage.

Click here to register now

Do you manage your organization’s online marketing? Have you heard about (or are using) Google Analytics but want to learn how to unlock it’s potential? Are you a communicator or marketer who wants to understand impact from your campaigns, but is new to Google Analytics?  Or are you a budding analyst looking to understand the core principals of Web Analytics?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above then you should attend PublicInsite’s Google Analytics training.

In Google Analytics 101 you will learn:

Getting familiar with Google Analytics

• Why you must measure: improving effectiveness & creating value with web analytics
• How Google Analytics works: learn the strengths, be aware of the limitations
• Key definitions and terms: what they mean, when to use them & when not to use them

Working with the Data

• Setting up, configuring and managing your Google Analytics account & profiles
• Understanding site performance: tracking Key Performance Indicators
• Measuring conversions, building funnels and tracking goals
• Expanding your visibility – tracking documents and external links
• Evaluate the performance of keywords and referrers
• Connecting Google Analytics to Adwords and tracking campaigns

Presenting and Reporting Insight

• Your vital data all in one spot – custom dashboards
• Sharing  and scheduling reports
• Google Analytics to Excel – making data exports rock
• Sharing insight, not numbers: secrets from the pros

Agenda – Google Analytics 101

• Introduction and Fundamentals of Web Analytics
• Google Analytics Page Tags and Cookies – How Google Analytics Works
• Account Setup, Configuration and Best Practices
• The Google Analytics Interface
• Metrics and Key Performance Indicators
• Traffic Sources, Referrers and Keyword Analysis
• Goals and Funnels in Support of Conversions and E-Commerce
• Document Tracking
• Dashboard Reports and Customization
• Scheduling Email Reports
• Google Analytics and AdWords

Click here to register now

Click for details on our Google Analytics 201 Workshop

Who should attend: Marketers, Communications professionals, Analysts, and those responsible for online performance measurement.

Feedback from our previous events:

“Thank you for the excellent training session, can’t wait to apply what I’ve learnt.”

“Looking forward to the Google Analytics 201 workshop!”

“The instructor was great! Thank you for all your help.”

About the instructor

Scott Shannon, PublicInsite’s Manager of Google Analytics Services and resident Google guru, is an experienced and sought after trainer.  He has led Google Analytics seminars and consulting engagements for the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, the Smithsonian Museum, the United Way, and the Natural Step.  Scott has over 10 years experience in multiple industry sectors including technology, management consulting (ITIL), tourism, and government.

Find about more about Scott: http://www.publicinsite.com/team/scott-shannon/?cid=eb2

If you have questions or require further assistance with registration, please contact us at workshops@publicinsite.com, or call 613 232 8500 x104.

The foundation is there and now it is time to unleash the full potential of Google Analytics.  Are you familiar with the interface and reports and are ready to bring the analysis to a new level?  Do you want to learn about advanced applications of Google Analytics and how it can bring value to your organization?   Do you manage the online marketing of your organization and want to learn about tracking marketing campaigns and the impact of social media on your site?

In Google Analytics 201 you will learn:

Measure your Marketing

• Why measuring outreach efforts is essential
• Configuring marketing campaigns for tracking and optimization
• From e-mail to Facebook – measuring in a multi-channel world

Mastering the Data

• Advanced segments – isolating and measuring specific visitor groups
• The reports you need – building custom reports
• Why you should be monetizing your reports and how to do it
• Gathering insight from on-site search reports

Honing your Implementation

• Intelligent alerts – using and building alerting
• How to sanitize and organize your data with profiles and filtering
• Are you sure you’re measuring?  Testing and auditing your site

Agenda – Google Analytics 201

• Advanced Segments
• Configuring and Measuring On-Site Search
• Building Custom Reports
• Google Intelligence and Alerts
• Monetizing Goals and $Index Reporting
• Tracking Marketing Campaigns and Affiliate Referrers
• Measuring the Impact of Social Media Outreach
• Organize And Sanitize your Data with Profile Filters
• Site Audits – Page Tags and JavaScript Errors

Who should attend: Marketers, Communications professionals, Analysts, and those responsible for online performance measurement.

Feedback from our previous events:

“Thank you for the excellent training session, can’t wait to apply what I’ve learnt.”

“Looking forward to the Google Analytics 201 workshop!”

“The instructor was great! Thank you for all your help.”

About the instructor

Scott Shannon, PublicInsite’s Manager of Google Analytics Services and resident Google guru, is an experienced and sought after trainer.  He has led Google Analytics seminars and consulting engagements for the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, the Smithsonian Museum, the United Way, and the Natural Step. Scott has over 10 years experience in multiple industry sectors including technology, management consulting (ITIL), tourism, and government.

Find about more about Scott: http://www.publicinsite.com/team/scott-shannon/?cid=eb2

If you have questions or require further assistance with registration, please contact us at workshops@publicinsite.com, or call 613 232 8500 x104.

Why are error 404 pages so important? Because they affect the visitor experience so profoundly. Web Analytics is the art of measuring the online channel,  so it must take error 404 Pageviews into account . If a visitor encounters an error 404 page on a site it can impact visitor’s perception of the quality and the brand of the organization, or worse yet, impact the conversion rate and bounce rate for the site. If you are not tracking error pages, then you should start doing so now, as you may not even be aware of thousands of negative impressions being generated.

Google Analytics is a great tool that allows deep insights into the visitor experience, but by default it will not measure error 404 Pageviews. To do this you must find the error 404 template on your Web server and add some Google Analytics tracking code (The standard Google Analytics Page tag will report Pageviews, but you could also use Google Analytics event tracking ). Note that two common types of errors (error 404 “Not Found”, and error 403 “Forbidden”) can both be tracked in this manner.

Event tracking in Google Analytics is a new feature that was invented to provide an alternative method of measuring site activity that would not impact other key indicators including Pageviews, and the average number of Pageviews per visit. Below are the reasons why you should continue to use Pageviews to measure error 404 occurrences, instead of jumping on the event tracking band-wagon.

1) To take advantage of the Google Analytics onsite page navigation report in order to help us identify the broken link on our own site and understand what visitors are doing after a 404 experience. This means you can look at the specific sequence of pages our visitors view. Error 404 pages are part of this sequence, and can help us track down the source of errors, and identify the impact of error 404 pages.

2) To take advantage of the referrer report. The 404 error page may be a landing page in which case you will want to identify the referring site under ‘traffic sources’, and Google Analytics events allow us to drill down to the precise referring URL (click ‘Visit this referring link’) to visit the page with the broken link that is pointing back to your site and is resulting in an error 404 Pageview. If the referring site is a partner,  you can advise the partner of the correct URL for the resource and you can ask for a correction of this link. Look at the ‘landing page’ report under ‘Content’ and use the inline filter to isolate the error 404 pages that are the first page a visitor sees on your site (remember what people say about first impressions – very important!).

3) To think outside the 404 box. When a 404 page is encountered by a visitor it is generally considered a bad experience, but you can also treat this as an opportunity. You could include the site map on a formatted and branded 404 page, or by highlight the best content on your site (cross-selling) and showcase it on the error 404 page. Using the 404 error page in this way qualifies it as a regular Pageview, so an ‘event’ really doesn’t make sense. In addition you will want to include the onsite search box on the formatted and branded 404 error page. This gives us more information about the sessions in which the 404 error was encountered, including the ‘visitor intent’ – the visitors with 404 errors may tell us exactly what they were looking for on our site.

4) To take advantage of the goals and $index report. If you are using the $index reporting feature of Google Analytics you may even start to see the benefits of the ‘elegant error handling’ associated with a properly formatted and branded error 404 page. You might even consider setting up a goal associated with a positive action a visitor may take from an error 404 page… again think about turning a negative into a positive! Goals and $index reporting both require that Pageviews be used instead of events.

5)  To take advantage of this clever addition to your standard 404 Pageview report. Using Google Analytics Pageviews also allows us to modify our error 404 Google Analytics page tag to include the additional information about the 404 error that may not be included by default. This includes: document.location.pathname + document.location.search + document.referrer as shown in the following example. This will enrich the information you have about 404 errors for troubleshooting purposes, and to provide greater ‘granularity’ if using advanced segments to isolate specific groups of visitors who have encountered an error 404 page through the same pattern of activity (navigation, browser or device, common referrer link etc. etc.).

6) To take advantage of these Google Analytics reporting features. Using Pageviews, you can also set up automated email reporting for the Webmaster, and for those responsible for monitoring the online channel. Here you will want to report on all the 404 errors the previous day, or week. Staying on top of these errors will help to fix problems quickly, to ensure the visitors experience is the best it can be. Use the top content report, and the inline filter with   ^/404   to list all the 404 errors your visitors are experiencing – and watch for spikes in this activity. Also, consider using the Google Analytics alerting feature found under ‘Intelligence’ in the Google Analytics main menu. Next, select + Create a Custom Alert as follows.*Note that for the following example you may want to choose ‘Compare to’ the ’same day in the previous week’, to avoid the traffic effects often associated with weekends.

7) Because there really is no ‘downside’. Finally, some say that including error 404 Pageviews in your data will drive up your Pageview count and the bounce rate for your site unnecessarily. I would argue that you should strive to minimize error 404 Pageviews to the point that their effects are negligible. If they do start to skew our numbers, then fix the root cause. If you cannot do that, then consider building a separate profile in Google Analytics that will be clean of all 404 Pageviews (use a custom filter on this profile to remove all error 404 Pageview data by pattern matching against the request URI). Profiles that do not have this filter applied will capture all the Pageview activity for the above listed benefits and the profile that filters out 404 Pageviews will report the bounce rate and a Pageview count that is not impacted by error 404 Pageviews.

In a nutshell, these are the reasons why you should use Pageviews to track error 404 in Google Analytics!

Scott Shannon

All the principles behind the log formatting and compression remain the same. The difference becomes in the naming of the files. More specifically, there is an added layer of complexity through the addition of a folder structure. In a single log setup, the log files can be stored with an appropriate name in a single folder. When there is more than one server involved, the logs must be named the same and stored in different folders.

For example, if we have a Web site which is load balanced across 2 servers, we could store the logs on a networked drive as follows:

Server 1 Log:
X:\Site Logs\Server1\access_log-2010-06-01-w01.gz

Server 2 Log:
X:\Site Logs\Server2\access_log-2010-06-01-w01.gz

When managing log file analyzers with multi-server sites, it is common to require the same filename for each day of the logs. The name of the log as well as the data within is how the log analyzer ‘stitches’ the data together. When Server 1 and Server 2 log files have the same naming convention, the log analyzer can parse the logs alphabetically, which in turn happens to also be chronologically by date (when a proper naming convention is used). It is important to understand that if the names are not the exact same for each server log file, the import process in an analytics tool may simply import all the logs chronologically from one server, than from the next. If this happens, the analytics engine is not able to ’stitch’ together a particular visit (which may include pages served on both servers) as a single visit which results in higher and inaccurate ‘visit’ counts (page views will still remain the same however – a page view is a page view regardless).

Clearly we can see that it is impossible to store the 2 log files in the same folder with the same name, therefore, the need for the folder structure!

In conclusion, if your organization is growing and develops the need for load balancing, keep this in mind as analytics are not always considered as a priority when expanding technology needs for Web sites. It’s not complicated and when done from day one, can save alot of lost data and headaches in the future…

The Google Dance was a monthly ritualistic phenomena where Google would do a mass shake up of their database index. This usually meant Google had changed some of the mathematical formulas they used to rank websites in order to create better relevancy between what their users searched for and the websites which would be displayed. Invariably, a lot of websites which once ranked high for particular search terms no longer ranked as high, which left Webmasters and SEO’s  to retool their websites and scheme up new ways to get back to the top of the listings. This game went on for a great deal of time and it kept a lot of commodity Search Engine Optimization companies in business because they and their clients were focused on chasing rankings.

The business of Search Engine Optimization has evolved since those ancient times and a lot of the reason has to do with web analytic tools becoming better at measuring more than just hits, visits and pageviews. As an SEO and Online Marketing specialist I can use web analytics to look at things like visitor intent and visitor engagement. I can see if the keywords driving traffic to pages on a site are relevant to the content of those pages. I can measure whether traffic from the organic search segment is increasing or decreasing. I can measure traffic increases against bounce rates and engagement to understand whether the traffic is quality/qualified traffic or not. I can etc, etc, etc… The world of Search Engine Optimization is no longer about where website pages rank in Search Engines for a particular keyword. Instead you should be asking; Did I get more traffic and were they more engaged with my content? Or did I get less traffic but they bought more and the average order value increased? Quality is the name of the game these days – not where your website ranks in a search engine for your target keywords.

To illustrate another reason why rankings matter less than they used to, I’ve included 2 screen shots of searches conducted on Google using the exact same search term BUT done so using different computers at different locations (one at my office and the other at my home – both in downtown Ottawa, Ontario).

As you can see many of the results listed are different.

Why are they different? In all honesty I do not know. Different data centres could be pulling the results based on the IP from my ISP or there could be some personalization testing going on from Google. One thing I know for certain is I’ve seen this many times before and will probably continue to see it more and more in the future. Search engines like Google will continue to tweak and test their systems to make them more intelligent in the quest for relevancy in the age of search and era of intent.

I want organizations to challenge themselves to build better websites; better content; and better information architecture and usability. Think beyond rankings. Think about quality and relevancy. Do this and I promise fruits for your labour.

Aaron Wolski is the Manager of SEO/SEM & Optimization at PublicInsite. He has over 11 years experience in the online marketing field working in both client and agency side capacities.

This section of our blog will focus on highlighting benchmark data with respect to many of the core areas, questions and trends which we see in this space. Our initial focus will be on addressing the following types of questions:

• We know that there is a lot of non-human traffic on the Internet; how much traffic to our site might be spiders, search engine crawlers, link validators, etc.?
• What percentage of my traffic is referred through social media sites (i.e. Twitter, FaceBook, blogs, etc.)
• How much traffic to my site is on mobile devices (i.e. SmartPhones such as the iPhone, Blackberry, etc.)
• What percentage of the traffic is viewing content in English versus French?
• How much of our traffic knows our brand?
• Are a lot of people looking at only one or two pages on our site?
• How long are people staying on our site?
• We have a lot of PDF documents on our site; what is our ratio of PDF document downloads to HTML page views?
• Even though we don’t focus on an international audience for our outreach, how much of our traffic should we expect to see from outside of Canada?
• We try to understand how our visitors find our site by looking at the top 25 keywords they use; is this enough?

To create the benchmark data and analysis which will be included in these upcoming blogs, we will be looking through a variety of customers and dozens of web sites which have amassed over 250,000,000 visits and over 1 Billion page views since 2005. Over time, and as we add new client data to our warehouse, we will be updating these blog entries to maintain currency.

We update our data regularly and will be producing a more granular report exclusively for our clients who choose to be involved in this benchmarking program. Participation ensures confidentiality of the data specific to each client, however, provides mutual benefit across all those who participate. If you would like to be part of our benchmarking program and have your site’s data included, please contact Chris Riopelle at 613-232-8500 x 104 for more information.

While there are many different types of Web servers, this blog will focus on Windows IIS server log formatting and Apache log file formatting. In both cases, the goal is to ensure that the proper data fields are captured in a consistent way in the log files. The main difference in the two server types is that Windows IIS log files are configured and managed through a visual interface while Apache logs are managed in configuration files through text formatting. This entry assumes that people managing either of these server types are familiar with where to access this information and will not discuss that in detail, however, will outline some best practices with respect to the fields required in either case.

First and foremost, there are several fields which are critical to proper log file analysis while a few others are optional, but useful to have.

Critical Fields: Date, Time, Client IP Address, Method, URI Stem, URI Query, Protocol Status, Time Taken, User Agent and Referrer
Optional Fields: Bytes Sent, Bytes Received, Cookie

IIS Server Configuration

To configure a log file on a typical Windows IIS (version 5 or 6 for example), do the following steps:

• On the server, open the IIS manager and choose the Server name in the tree structure.
• Choose ‘Web Sites’, select the site for which the log files will be configured, right click on the site and select ‘Properties’.
• On the ‘Web Site’ tab, ensure that the ‘Enable logging’ box is checked.
• Select ‘W3c Extended Log File Format’ as the ‘Active log format’ from the dropdown and click on ‘Properties’ (found beside the dropdown).
• On the ‘General’ tab, ensure that ‘Daily’ is chosen as the ‘New log schedule’.
• ‘Browse’ for the ‘Log file directory’ location on the server (this can be a local hard disk or networked hard disk location so space should not be an issue).
• On the ‘Advanced’ tab, ensure that each of the ‘critical fields’ listed above are selected. To ensure maximum data analytics possibilities, we recommend also choosing the ‘optional fields’ from above.
• Click ‘Ok’ and the work is done. Exit IIS and the logs should now be configured for your Web site.

Should you have more than one site on the same server, or add new sites in the future, this process will have to be completed for each site. Note that the default settings in IIS do not include Bytes Sent, Bytes Received, Time Taken, Cookie or Referrer. Of each of these, Referrer is one of the most critical ones which is not included as it eliminates your ability to review where traffic is coming from and what keywords they are using in search engines to find your site (clearly a flaw in the default settings native to Windows in my opinion).

Apache Configuration

To configure a log file on a typical Apache server, use the default ‘Combined’ log format. The following code would represent the best practice for the log file configuration which would be acceptable for most log file analyzers:

%h %l %u %t \”%r\” %>s %b \”%{Referer}i\” \”%{User-agent}i\”

The above entry would translate to the following:

HOST IDENT USERNAME DATE/TIME REQUEST STATUS BYTES REFERRER USERAGENT

In the above example, IDENT and USERNAME are not typically required, therefore the %l and &u fields can be removed from the formatting. Should the log file formatting be changed while the server is live, a graceful restart would be required to action the changes made to the configuration. The graceful restart will allow the server to complete all current processes prior to restarting therefore no data would be lost.

More information on this topic can be read at the following address: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/logs.html#accesslog

Naming Conventions

Naming conventions are fairly straightforward. All in all, its nice to have a simple format which allows you to manage your logs in a chronological view. To accomplish this, a general name plus the month, day and year of the log can be included in the log name.

IIS servers will typically show names as follows:

EXYYYYMMDD.log – can be sorted chronologically by date when viewed in a windows Explorer.
Apache servers will typically show names as follows:
access_log-YYYY-MM-DD-WXX.log

The ‘WXX’ part of this log name references the ‘week’ in the calendar year; for example ‘access_log-2009-01-01-W01.log’ would refer to a log file for January 1st, 2009 which is the first week of the calendar year. While the ‘WXX’ data is not required nor is it overly useful, it is also not harmful in any way.

Compression

Like naming conventions, compression isn’t overly complex either. Whether using a Zip compression tool or GZip for example, the principal is all the same: make the files smaller as to use less hard disk space. Certain log file analyzer programs are optimized to use a specific type of compression so we’d recommend you review the documentation of your log analyzer to see what it recommends. In our case, we use GZip and compress log files on a daily basis through a simple batch file script. The log file from the example above would then be called ‘access_log-2009-01-01-w01.gz’ and would typically compress the file to between 10% and 50% of its original raw size.

In short, it is important to review the data being captured in the log files for your site. You may be surprised to find that certain critical information, such as referrer (which also holds the keyword values), is not present. While naming convention and compression are also factors to keep in mind, they are not as critical. Names of the log files can always be changed in the future and compression can be done or undone at any time.

Don’t get caught by surprise! Data not captured on a daily basis is lost immediately so please check your log file configuration (or have your IT people do it for you) if you are unsure what is being logged.