Agents of Value

Relying on web metrics tools to start changes on your website is a daunting thing from the start. The first time I took a peek at one of our Google Analytics accounts, it floored me. Though I was interested in the data on the dashboard, it was just too much- just like brain freeze. One thing that would keep anyone new to analytics sane would be to focus on the basic information you need to see how your site is doing. To be able to derive insights on a website, don’t let the numbers get your noodles knotted in bewilderment. Web Analytics evangelist, Avinash Kaushik advices people new to analytics to get their feet wet with 3 reports that introduce you to your website visitors. Mind you, Visitors are the life blood of any website- no visits would mean no one is finding your website. Deriving information from your analytics account entails you to inquisitive and ask questions to be able to formulate a report that would answer that. In the tradition of Web analytics [...]

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“The last social network to arrive…may be eliminated!” The race is on! Or is it? “Facebook Killer”, “Replacement for Facebook” are just some of the things that Internet users are saying about Google+. Google+ gained 10M users just 2 weeks after it was launched last July 4, 2011. The numbers are expected to grow, since people are just getting a feel of what is in Google+ that makes it different (or similar?) to Facebook. Considering the features Google+ has now, it can be said that Google is becoming the “social media site” it aimed to be when Google Buzz first came out. That one did not fare well though. But Google users are hoping that Google had learned from its past mistake and has probably managed to get it right with Google+. People have their own opinions (pros and cons, of course) about this newest Google creation. True, it does not have Facebook’s 7 features but it is still too early to tell what may or may not happen. As of the time this article [...]

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I recently had a case of uveitis in my left eye. I went to the eye doctor, and they gave me homatropine eye drops. The medicine eased the irritation in my eye, but left my vision completely blurry! It was nearly impossible to use my laptop for more than 10 minutes at a time without getting a headache. So, hoping to stay productive, I searched around for some podcasts related to web development and online marketing. I was amazed when I stumbled across Webmaster Radio. I’d seen them around at a few conferences that I had previously attended, but I’d never actually taken the time to listen an any of their episodes. In fact, they have a massive library of podcasts, and some of them are really great! Here are a few of the best channels that I can personally recommend: Marketing Nirvana, hosted by Brad Geddes – author of the Advanced Google Adwords book. If you do any Adwords advertising, you need to read his blog, buy his book, and listen to every single [...]

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      Google Analytics, the free software to track your website activities, provides users a lot of tools that can be used to generate a detailed report on how your site is doing. Different reporting tools are given to the user, depending on which area you want to view activities from. A site owner that wants to focus on how each content of the website is doing can rely on the “Content Overview Report” which provide a menu to be used.       For a newbie, it can be a bit confusing, but here are some basic “how to’s” on the 6 Content Menu Report of Google Analytics. Uses of the 6 Content Menu report of Google Analytics 1. Overview       From the word itself, this is basically the overview of both the graph and table views of the content report.       Here is where the overview is displayed for the Pageviews, Unique Pageviews, Bounce Rate and Top Content. Both graph and table views are seen in this page for the overall performance of your site contents by the date ranges [...]

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Since this March, lots of webmasters have been complaining about massive drops in traffic as a result of the recent ranking updates by Google. The Blogosphere is filled with reports of sites seeing drops in traffic of 40% or more. The thing to keep in mind through all of this is that, there has not been any drop in the number of people going online, searching for information. Nor has Google decided to just stop returning results. Even for the most silly searches, good old Google is going to pump out the 10 best results it can find in it’s index. The fact that traffic dropped on some websites, has more to do with the perceived quality, authenticity, and interestingness of the content on that website, than any other factor. Fortunately, Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow made a blog post, where he provided some insight into the way Google is trying to evaluate and rank website content. Some of the ideas are really just common sense, but they may require a change of thinking, if [...]

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