Author Archive
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Is your site ready for Google’s new mobile optimization requirements?
For those that missed the recent announcement, Google is updating their search algorithm to favor sites that provide a rich mobile experience. Meaning that if your site suffers from some common mobile ailments, you’ll need to make some changes or suffer the ranking consequences. There are some specific points made on the page, but do you know if this applies to you or not? Here are some custom reports built specifically to answer the issues this update spotlights. To install these reports, simply click the appropriate link, select the profiles you want ...
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Adding Clarity to Day Of Week Reports
If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to let my inner-analytics-geek out for some fresh air. And I think this is the appropriate forum for it. If you look at your weekly Google Analytics traffic, you’ll see something like this: To pinpoint a specific day, you will have to know which week and then mouse over until you can find Monday, Tuesday, etc. It helps to know that a Google Analytics week ALWAYS starts on a Sunday, although that can be an issue internationally where calendar weeks start on ...
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Direct Advice on Direct Traffic
Direct traffic may feel like an indicator that many people really like you, but don’t be fooled. “Direct Traffic” is a bit of a misnomer and does not always indicate people who came directly to your site. Knowing the true meaning of these numbers is key to understanding your analytics data. The “Direct” Misnomer Now that I’ve blown your mind saying that direct traffic may not be direct at all, what exactly does Google Analytics consider “direct”? A session is tracked as “direct” as a catch-all category. It’s just like your kitchen junk drawer - the place you ...
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Sound The Alarms!
Creating Comprehensive Custom Alerts in Google Analytics Have you ever logged into Google Analytics to discover something went wrong with the data a week ago and you had no idea? Or your dev team changed the PDF download page and broke your GA tracking funnel? Or maybe your IT resource spilled his beer on the web server? Things happen and data can go wild, and unless you are logged into Google Analytics daily, you might have data problems without realizing it. Google Analytics provides an incredibly helpful feature called Custom Alerts. Custom Alerts can help alleviate the need for daily checks on ...
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Crowdsourcing Custom Reports
The digital analytics industry is excellent at sharing information for the betterment of the community. This is often done through conferences, blogs, document integration, API hacks and more. If there are new ways to gather information, we share it. Within this industry, Google Analytics has proven effective at providing powerful data to any user. One drawback with the ease and mass appeal is that reports are often relegated to the lowest common denominator. This is often enough for most users, but for the typical analyst or power-user, teasing out important data takes a few tricks. Power-users will create Custom Reports to ...
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Two Key Takeaways from eMetrics & GAUGE San Francisco 2012
First, let me say that the eMetrics and GAUGE conferences in San Francisco were incredible. There were great keynotes, informative sessions, actionable round-table discussions and intriguing conversations with peers in the industry. I would highly recommend anyone who analyzes data to attend eMetrics. And if your job allows you to touch Google Analytics at any point, GAUGE will certainly teach you something new that you can bring back and improve performance and increase insights. That being said, I think there were two key takeaways from this past week: 1. Voice Of Customer (or VOC) is HUGE. 2. Methods in which you ...
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Pro Tips for GAUGE 2012 San Francisco
And the countdown begins for GAUGE in San Francisco. Two packed days of insight, hands on experience and networking. Day 1 a Google Analytics User Conference; Day 2 full of Training Workshops. With GAUGE only a few days away, we want to ensure you have the most enriching and meaningful experience possible. We will spend the days diving deep into Google Analytics and meeting the faces that are behind the scenes, so be sure to make the most of every minute. Here are a ...
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Designing in a Vacuum: How to Make Your Website Suck
Recently we wrote about common pitfalls of redesigning and launching your website. There was one section in particular that incited some debate, which is expected because we only touched on the tip of the iceberg. And because of that, we were inspired to expand upon the concept of Designing in a Vacuum. Sucks: Designers are designers, not analysts Clean Sweep: It is true that there is a left brain, right brain battle at times, but they are not at odds. As with most things in life, there is a happy medium. The job of an analyst is to be able to fully interpret a ...
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Pitfalls of Launching a Redesigned Site
Redesigning and launching a new website is an exciting and stressful time. It can be a big undertaking to coordinate all of the moving parts to come together at a single day and time. To help ease the stress, we’ve compiled some common launch, design and SEO pitfalls that are often encountered, as well as tips to overcome these. Launching Imperfection First of all, expecting a site to be 100% complete on time is a bold expectation. It is always best to design and build the site in a development (or staging) environment first, and then transfer the files to the ...
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GoogleBot Gets Smarter: Crawling AJAX Comments
For years, Google has not crawled a significant part of websites and blogs: the comments. There were two reasons for this: Regarding #1, Panda updates have done a great job in removing spam sites with bad comments. Also, most websites have now established a platform and ...
Speaking Events
Meet our team at these events.
Join us December 6th in Seattle for BestPractices and experience the latest and greatest releases from Google Analytics at this interactive conference!an from Analytics Pros. Details Here!
Web Analytics Meetup
Nov 6, 2012
Sponsors: Analyitcs Pros
A gathering of Web Analytics professionals who want to learn more and meet more people who love analytics! Presentation will be on the new feature released by Google: Google Tag Management. Drinks and light appetizers will be provided.
Registration - Coming Soon!
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