Interpreting Google Analytics: What it All Really Means

Posted on by
interpreting Google Analytics

What do these numbers mean?
Interpreting Google Analytics

The metrics reported by Google Analytics provide valuable information about how users interact with your website. This guide can help you interpret the data and apply it to your marketing and SEO campaigns.

Sessions

Google defines a session as “the period of time a user is actively engaged” on a site. Sessions typically expire after 30 minutes, but the amount of time can be adjusted as desired. High numbers of new sessions means more new traffic. Low numbers indicate repeat visitors and a potentially higher level of engagement.

Visits and Page Views

Visits specify the number of people who come to your site. Every visit is counted, but only visits from new users are listed as unique. The “pageviews” metric shows how many visits a particular page on your site has received. Taken together, viewing data helps determine the popularity of your site. Continue reading →

High Bounce Rate? Here’s How to Fix It

Posted on by

bounce rateGoogle defines bounce rate as the “percentage of visitors” that leave your site from a landing page “without interacting with it.” Watch this funny and educational video by Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, calls bounce rate the “sexiest metric ever” and is a huge fan of it. As Avinash mentions, bounce rate is important for your inside pages also, not just your homepage.

A high bounce rate is often a sign that the user experience needs improvement. If your site isn’t getting the engagement you want, try these tips for lowering your bounce rate: Continue reading →

August Report on “Google’s Mobilegeddon

Posted on by

mobilegeddon

It is now 4 months since Google launched it’s new algorithm nicknamed “Mobilegeddon”.
The impact of this launch is still being studied as time goes on by SEO Analysts, and Online Marketeers, and other research sources in this industry. It is my continued goal to provide research results to businesses who might otherwise lose touch with what is going on with the Internet as they might be too busy running their own businesses and day to day issues that take up all their time.

I still see complacency occurring among web site clients that it was much to do about nothing. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some interesting findings as I continue my research on this subject. Continue reading →

Mobile-Friendly: Responsive vs Mobile Websites

Posted on by

Mobile friendly website comparisonWith last month’s release of Google’s new ranking algorithm that lowers non-mobile-friendly websites in a mobile search, people have been running to get their site mobile-friendly.  But for those out there who have yet to make the switch, the options for turning a website “mobile-friendly” can be confusing and frustrating, especially for those who aren’t familiar with web design terms.   Continue reading →

3 Red Flags In Your Digital Strategy

Posted on by
Digital Strategy Red Flags

3 Red Flags In Your Digital Strategy

First and foremost lets be clear on one thing, simply having a Facebook page for your business is not a digital strategy.

Many small to mid-sized business owners who aren’t as immersed in their company’s online marketing don’t understand this and this lack of realization adds to their concern of why they aren’t getting the attention or conversions they want in the digital space. Digital is all-encompassing and succeeding in digital isn’t a hobby. It all boils down to actually having a clear strategy, or roadmap, to be able to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

So, say it with me now: I will not set goals without creating a strategy to reach them in the first place. Great. Will there be bumps in the road? Inevitably. That’s why our overall strategies also need to be constantly monitored, adapted, and analyzed along the way. Continue reading →

Venn Diagram of Keyword Analysis: How Do Your Keywords and Marketing Goals Intersect?

Posted on by

image of venn diagram of keywords“Keyword research is one of the most important, valuable, and high return activities in the search marketing field.” It allows for better connection to your current customers and future prospects. Knowing the right keywords will allow you to be successful in your online efforts. It is no longer good enough for your business to just be online, these days you have to be found.

Here is the problem: Which Keywords?

(Note: When I say the word “keywords”, it can mean both a single word, or multiple words, as in a keyword phrase.)

As you delve deeper into SEO and internet marketing, you realize that sometimes there is an overlap, sometimes there is a disconnect, in the various ways keywords are used. In my mind, the image that comes up is of overlapping connections, or circles. At other times the connections between these keywords don’t exist, and the circles don’t overlap. Keywords, and their relationships to each other, can be imagined as a complex, multi-factor Venn Diagram of circles. Read on, and you will see that the more these circles overlap, the more coherent your internet marketing will be. Continue reading →

How To Make A Side-By-Side Competitor Ranking Report from a Linkdex Export CSV File

Posted on by

Before discovering this technique, I wasted hours copy/pasting client & competitor ranking data into it’s ‘proper’ place on a spreadsheet. Pivot tables save a LOT of time when working with ranking exports from Linkdex! See how it is done in a few short minutes with this video.

Turn this…

linkdex export

Into this… Continue reading →

Avoiding Google Penalties When Sharing Authentic Content with Authority Websites

Posted on by

No duplicateRecently after posting an expert level technical blog article, a client of Orion Group was approached by an industry authority website seeking to develop their own article based upon content featured in the original blog article. Our client recognized the invitation as being an opportunity for getting additional online exposure and gladly agreed. Continue reading →

Every Website Visit Is A DROP In The Bucket, But It Adds Up To Internet Success!

Posted on by

When you log-in to your Google Analytics (GA) account to look at your web traffic, it may look very confusing initially. Google provides you with LOTS of data. There are several ways an internet user can find you, and Google has the analytics to track and show you how they got to your website. In GA, under Audience Overview, click on the arrow, and Google offers several built-in views that make it easy.

image of Google Analytics: Audience Overview

Google Analytics: Audience Overview: Built-In

Every visitor to your website is another drop in your traffic bucket. If you want to remember the main sources of traffic in Google Analytics, think “A DROP“. Now you don’t want to see a drop in your numbers, but this acronym will help you remember the four main traffic sources: Continue reading →

Is Facebook Tracking the Status Updates that We Delete?

Posted on by

A screenshot of the form data sent to Facebook when my first status update was deleted instead of posted, a key labeled "trigger" has a value of "censorlogger"Tonight I found myself surfing tech articles and one title immediately caught my eye: “Facebook Tracks the Status Updates and Messages You Don’t Write Too”.

The article talked about about some slightly technical information regarding how Facebook gives code to your browser to take meta data related to what you do and send it back to Facebook. We can make that paragraph much easier to read by stating the following: Facebook, like many companies, runs analytics on its site. Sure, Facebook has much more sophisticated and specialized analytics than your average business site, but they pay lots of people lots of money to make sure that they can figure out what ads to show to their users. Continue reading →