marți, 4 ianuarie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog


Tracking Traffic from Google Places in Google Analytics

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 03:04 AM PST

Posted by RebeccaLehmann

Google has gone to great lengths lately to incorporate local data wherever it can. Google Place Search rolled out in late October and services such as Google Tags and Google Boost offer increased visibility, for a price. It’s only natural that we would want to know if investing in these add-ons is actually worthwhile.

Most of us naturally would turn to Google Analytics for the answer, but what can you do when your referral URL says only that it’s from Google? That’s a rather vague answer with a lot of different possibilities. How can we narrow it down to traffic referred only from Google Places?

To better justify the time and money spent on Google Places for our clients, I set out to find an answer.

Method #1: Redirected Landing Page

My search for a reliable tracking method began with a question: How can we track Google Places without manual tagging? I wanted to avoid tagging initially since, as an agency, my company manages hundreds of profiles. Tagging all of them would be a huge multi-departmental project. Obviously I was going to look for a simpler way first. One method suggested to me was to use a nonexistent page on the website as the URL, then 301 redirect it to the index page. It wasn’t going to solve my “huge multi-departmental project” problem, but it was an interesting thought.

Pros: It would be relatively easy to set up, easier than manual tags. The resulting URL would be clean, visually speaking.

Cons: Given the nature of the new blended algorithm, I’m reluctant to 301 the primary landing page I’m presenting to Google. It could be downgraded at best, and regarded as a doorway page at worst.

Ultimately, we didn’t test this method. The risks were simply too great.

Method #2: Manual Tagging

So I tested manual tagging instead. The Google URL Builder is a terrific tool:

In the example above, I’m using the Content field to differentiate one office location from another, but this could also be done in the Campaign field. The resulting URL is then added to the Google Places profile.

Pros: Not only is the setup relatively easy, the data presentation in Google Analytics is really clean and easy to slice up. Different business locations are easily segmented out for deeper analysis of which locations are the biggest drivers.

 

Isn’t it beautiful? The first thing I did once I had this was to add keywords to the mix:

Oooh… ahhh…

Cons: It appears that adding a tracking URL triggers the dreaded “Pending Review” status instead of immediately going Active. Luckily, the change was approved within a week of submission when tested. Phew! I can’t guarantee such a short wait for everyone, of course, but the Google Places team does seem to be on top of things at the moment.

A second con is that tagging can only be used to track listings which you control. We often run up against Google Places profiles which were claimed by our predecessors who are no longer contactable, or which the clients claimed once upon a time but can’t find the login info for, or which are controlled by third parties who are still working with our client on other sites… you get the idea. In a perfect world, this wouldn’t be an issue. But it is, and until those others are magically relinquished to us, we can’t track them.

A third con is that it’s impossible to tell the difference between traffic which came from the Places profile versus traffic that came from the 7-pack search results. Google sometimes pulls the URL from its index, and other times pulls it from the Places profile. To see this in action for yourself, run a search for “Houston Breast Augmentation” and hover on the first result. It goes to a “naked” URL, with no tracking on it, exactly as you would expect. Now take a look at the SERPs for “best plastic surgeons in Houston” where you find the the same business: 

Aha. So this isn’t going to filter out all traffic from the SERPs. And it’s kinda ugly, too.

Method #3: Capturing The Full Referring URL + Advanced Segmentation Or On-Page Filtering

Manual tagging wasn’t going to provide me with exactly what I was after, but I remembered seeing David Harry refer to a method of capturing full referring URLs. It occurred to me that Google Places listings probably have a unique element in their URL structure which I could segment out from the rest of the noise if I (a) had the full URL and (b) knew what that unique element was.

I’m not going into how to set up the full referrer capture filter. Go to Reuben Yau’s post (linked in the paragraph above) to see how it’s done.

Once that has been set up, create an advanced segment or an on-page filter to pull out the Google Places referrals.

It turns out that there are two ways a Google Places listing can render. One version uses "maps" in the URL, while the other uses "place". At least on the surface, it looks like the difference between a normal search and a mobile search. My filter looks like this: 

Pros: Since the filtering works on the basis of the URL structure, profile control is unnecessary.

Cons: It took me awhile to figure out why the manual tagging method and full referrer methods were putting up different numbers, but finally I realized that the full referrer method does NOT include the 7-pack results. If you want to include 7-pack clicks, the full referrer method won’t do it for you. The data isn’t presented in such a pretty, clean way, and there’s no simple way to segment out traffic coming through different office locations. It can be done, it’s just a bit of a headache since it involves filtering for specific “cid” numbers from the URLs and knowing which insanely long number belongs to which location. The setup is a little more intense, too.

Method #4: Using Both Manual Tagging and Full Referrer Methods Together

Using both is how I got to this:

Between the two, you have almost everything you could ever want to slice and dice.  I used a simple filter grab Google Places and manually tagged URLs and exclude SERPs traffic:

The filter works because it relies on the full referring URL to provide the bits to be filtered in and out. Once it’s in place, you can slice and dice your Google Places referral data to your heart’s content.


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Social Media Marketing: Facebook + Twitter Aren't Enough

Posted: 03 Jan 2011 04:05 PM PST

Posted by randfish

 Facebook's had an incredible run for the last 6 years:

Facebook Growth 2004-2010
source

Twitter's had a remarkable 4 years under their belt:

Twitter's Growth 2007-2010

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

The growth of these twin networks has brought new discipline to the practice of traffic generation, branding and customer engagement on the web: social media marketing. But for those of us who participate in the practice, there are clear signs that Twitter and Facebook aren't enough.

Plenty of recent facts and figures have helped to hammer this point home:

  • Social media spending is estimated to be 10% of marketing budgets in 2011 (source: CMO Survey by Duke University)
  • StumbleUpon, despite having less than 1/10th the US users of Facebook and ~1/100th the engagement, sends more outbound traffic (source: Statcounter via The Next Web)
  • Quora, the social Q+A site is nearing 500,000 users and momentum is growing (source: TechCrunch + FastCompany)*
  • Stackexchange, a platform for Q+A sites, already exceeds 650,000 registered users (source: StackExchange)
  • Reddit grew 230%+ and now receives nearly 1 billion pageviews/month (source: Reddit via Mashable)
  • LinkedIn has likely passed 100 million users; they were at 85 million in November, adding ~1million/day (source: CNN Money)
  • Tumblr just entered the top 40 US Sites (source: Financial Times)

If your job includes the monitoring, management and/or promotion of a company's brand through social media, I'd strongly urge you to consider educating yourself about and participating in all the platforms that might matter to your company. The following are my personal recommendations for the average social media marketer to consider, grouped by users:

100 Million+ Users

25 Million+ Users

10 Million+ Users

Up-and-Comers

There's dozens, possibly hundreds of others sites worthy of your attention as a social marketer (and possibly helpful to those focused on social as a channel for SEO opportunity). So, please, let's be cautious about an overly narrow definition of social media marketing - your clients/managers/bottom line will thank you.


p.s. As a startup guy and technologist, I'm excited to see even more sites enter the social media playing field in 2011. Unlike search, where Google has a near-monopoly worldwide (excluding China, Russia, North Korea + the Czech Republic), social media offers a myriad of unique platforms for opportunity.

* I'm a fan of Quora, but this quote made me gag a bit: "Cheever dismisses the notion that there is a direct competitor for Quora." Hubris, I understand, but blatant disregard for the truth is unbecoming.


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Seth's Blog : In defense of RSS

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

In defense of RSS

Lots of buzz today about RSS (dying or not dying).

If you're not using it, can I strongly suggest you give it a try? I use Newsfire. Not sure the particular readers matters, though.

Here's what you need to know:

  1. It's not particularly difficult to keep up with 200 blogs you care about in less than hour using an RSS reader.
  2. RSS provides home delivery. Instead of remembering where to click, or waiting for a post to get all buzzy and hot, the good stuff comes to you. Automatically and free.
  3. Subscribing to a blog is easy. Just click here for my blog, for example. In Newsfire, you can paste the URL of any blog and it automatically finds the RSS feed for you.

RSS is quiet and fast and professional and largely hype-free. Perhaps that's why it's not the flavor of the day.

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Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog

Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog


What Social Signals Might Search Engines Use

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:34 AM PST

Post image for What Social Signals Might Search Engines Use

Late last year both Google and Bing announced they are both using social signals as part of the ranking algorithm. Those of us who have been in the game a while have long suspected this, but it’s nice to see it come from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. So, as a search marketer, what signals might they be looking at and what are some ways we can leverage to our advantage?

Probably the number one place you should be involved in is Twitter. It’s extremely likely that search engines are looking at who is tweeting and retweeting links that go to your website or are about your keyword. In fact you can already see this at work in the SERP’s right now.

Google SERPs with shared by link

Google SERPs with shared by link

A tweet from an authoritative account will carry more weight than yours …
The one thing we know, however, is that Google tries to give things credit using trust and authority metrics not just sheer numbers. So a tweet from a trusted account like say CNN carries more weight than yours. A tweet from an authoritative account like Kim Kardashian will carry more weight than yours (remember trust and authority are two different things). This is a similar concept to pagerank, and I mean internal pagerank not toolbar pagerank.

As a marketer, how can you go about assessing the trust and authority of an account, since Google and Bing aren’t sharing their metrics with us? One of the best tools right now is Klout. Before we go any further I’ll clarify there is no evidence that Google is using Klout’s data or that Google’s ranking for Twitter profiles is in way similar to Klout’s. What I am saying is Klout has fairly reliable method of assessing how “important” a Twitter account is. I’d also say that it pretty unlikely that you could have an account that is doing well in Klout but is given no value in Google. For example, let’s compare my Klout Score (screen shot) with Kim Kardashian’s (screen shot).

Michael Gray Klout Score (click to enlarge)

Kim Kardashian Klout Score (click to enlarge)

Her score is higher than mine, with the most dramatic difference in the reach, amplification, and network values. Next look at how Klout classifies our accounts and who we influence and are influenced by.

The people who I interact with fall in the middle right, lower left and lower right areas. The people who she interacts with are upper left and upper right, and are probably more trusted and authoritative (this isn’t meant to make anyone look/feel bad–I am using it simply as an example to illustrate the dramatic difference between accounts) . So, if you are looking to make the most of Twitter, concentrate on building trusted authoritative accounts and interacting with trusted authoritative people.

Where are some other places that search engines might look for signals? … Facebook. Yes, I get that a lot of Facebook is behind privacy walls and that, in Google’s case, there is almost an adversarial relationship to keep Google from the data. However, if something is popular on Facebook, it’s unlikely that it will stay on Facebook. It will leak over into other social spaces, like Twitter,  Stumbleupon, gmail, or at least pass through browsers with the Google toolbar. The more points of data that search engines see that tell them people are using, visiting, and sharing your website, the better.

This brings up the hobgoblin of paid/sponsored social media activity. Currently, all of the links are no followed on the outside, but the search engines are cagey about handling it if those tags are applied to the data they get straight from Twitter. Most sponsored tweets are required to have a hashtag to meet with FCC disclosure compliance, and Google has even said they consider hashtags a signal of low quality. That said, back room deals, friend networks, and non disclosed sponsored tweets do happen. Right now it’s probably small enough that the search engines don’t have to worry, but I expect this to change in the future, as engines become more sophisticated about interpreting social signals.

So what are the takeaways from this post:

  • Claim your names/brands/products on all the search services with a service like Knowem.
  • Choose the ones where your customers are and that you have the time to maintain–Twitter and Facebook are probably the best choices for most people
  • Strive to build up as much trust, authority, and reach as possible with your accounts
  • Use them to send signals to the search engines about your own quality content and to the content of people associated with you or who interact with you
  • If you engage in sponsored social activity, beware of algorithm changes that may devalue this tactic
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Related posts:

  1. Still Think You Can Ignore Social Media, Blogs, YouTube and Blended Search Still think this whole social media, blog, youtube, universal search...
  2. Google’s Social Search – Affecting a SERP Near You Late last week Google announced it was graduating social search...
  3. iPad Apps and Social Media In case you didn’t already know, I’m the owner of...
  4. Looking at Fake Social Media Profiles Somewhere in the middle of all the drama last week...
  5. Social Media and Publishing Paths For websites that are going to participate in social media...

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What Social Signals Might Search Engines Use

All the President's Pens

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, Jan. 4,  2011
 

All the President's Pens

Why do presidents use so many pens to sign legislation? White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown explains.

Watch the video.

President Obama's Signature

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog.

Food Safety Modernization Act: Putting the Focus on Prevention
The new Food Safety Modernization Act, which President Obama will sign today, directs the Food and Drug Administration to build a new system of food safety oversight focused on applying the best available science and good common sense to prevent the problems that can make people sick.

The White House Blog's Top 10 of 2010
As we start a new year, we bring you the White House blog's top ten most popular posts of 2010.

Looking Ahead to Education Reform
In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan looks ahead to a major opportunity for moving our country forward with bipartisan support over the next couple years.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

10:15 AM: The First Family arrives at Andrews Air Force Base

10:30 AM: The First Family arrives at the White House

4:30 PM: The President meets with Secretary of Defense Gates

WhiteHouse.gov/live  Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

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Seth's Blog : Making meetings more expensive

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Making meetings more expensive

...might actually make them cost less.

What would happen if your organization hired a meeting fairie?

The fairie's job would be to ensure that meetings were short, efficient and effective. He would focus on:

  • Getting precisely the right people invited, but no others.
  • Making the meeting start right on time.
  • Scheduling meetings so that they don't end when Outlook says they should, but so that they end when they need to.
  • Ensuring that every meeting has a clearly defined purpose, and accomplishes that purpose, then ends.
  • Welcoming guests appriopately. If you are hosting someone, the fairie makes sure the guest has adequate directions, a place to productively wait before the meeting starts, access to the internet, something to drink, biographies of who else will be in the room and a clear understanding of the goals of the meeting.
  • Managing the flow of information, including agendas and Powerpoints. This includes eliminating the last minute running around looking for a VGA cable or a monitor that works. The fairie would make sure that everyone left with a copy of whatever they needed.
  • Issuing a follow up memo to everyone who attended the meeting, clearly delineating who came and what was decided.

If you do all this, every time you call a meeting it's going to cost more to organize. Which means you'll call fewer meetings, those meetings will be shorter and more efficient. And in the long run, you'll waste less time and get more done.

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