“Keep It Simple Stupid” is a phrase in marketing that is undervalued. Applying this to website analytics means having clear goals allowing you to focus on finding the information you need. Overcomplicating analytics can not only make those difficult to achieve, but makes analytics a chore.

Keep website analytics simple by having simple goals, using simple strategies and above all, having fun!

Set Simple Goals

Children don’t have complex needs; sometimes they just want some attention, a treat or to play. Treat your voyage into the world of your website’s analytics with the same simplicity. Over complicating your goals will leave you confused, whereas breaking up a big research task into smaller chunks will mean you are more likely to succeed and emerge with good, solid conclusions with statistics to back them up.

Keep Reports Fun

Why churn out endless spreadsheets when you can illustrate them with colourful graphs and charts! Visual representations are much easier to digest and are fantastic for proving a point. They get straight to the point making them perfect for demonstrating theories or results. Most spreadsheet software allows you to make graphs, so spend an extra second or two the next time you have a spreadsheet finding those controls.

But, Why?! Be Inquisitive

Never, ever be content with what your statistics are telling you. Ask yourself ‘why’ at every turn just like a child. Remember: there may be more than one answer.

Become an Analytics Superhero

Just as a child learns through exploration and play, keep building up your analytics knowledge and skills. Develop your knowledge through exploring statistics. Challenge your own or your client’s assumptions about why users are behaving in a certain way and find the proof. In the process you will learn how to dig down to find answers. I guarantee that you will find a couple of things along the way you never knew before.

Website Statistics Need Attention Too

Children need attention; so do website statistics. Make sure you check your website statistics on a regular basis. “But, why?” I hear you say… So that not only will you know if there are issues with your tracking codes (it happens, especially if you are working on your website), but also you can react instantly to new trends as they unfold. Timing is key in marketing. Don’t forget to monitor any tracking filters you have applied to your statistics too to make sure that they are working and picking up the data you need.

Turning Website Analytics into Child’s Play is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

No related posts.

It all started with a tweet. I wanted to see if my theory that the number of bots exploring links posted on Twitter was on the increase, was correct.

If it was true, it would mean that it would correlate with an increase in Twitter ‘spam’ and automatic tweets filled with affiliate links; two highly irritating types of tweet that in my opinion pollute Twitter.

This triggered me to do some investigating. So I fired up Excel and started playing with my stats from the last 5 months from the links I’ve posted to Twitter (via cli.gs). This is what I found:

Percentage of hits from bots in Twitter links over the last 5 months
[Blue = percentage of bots, red = trendline]

It appears as though the proportion of hits from bots is decreasing over time; disproving my theory. So, what does this tell us?

• Are there fewer bots? I doubt this would be due to a decrease in new bots emerging, but more likely that Twitter is wising up and blocking bots. Lo and behold, here’s a recent example of this: Twitter calls time on sports stats tweeting [5th May 2009, digitalmedia.strategyeye.com]
• Or, are fewer bots being detected? Perhaps bot programmers are finding ways around being detected by Twitter and therefore cli.gs too?

It could be either. Actually, as I realised later upon further investigation, it could be that new bots are actually going back and exploring older links, thus causing older links to continue to accrue more hits. Cli.gs is limited in that it only shows a visitor graph up to the last 30 days, but I did notice literally one or two visits cropping up occasionally:

The lesson? Investigate more! And demand more features from URL shorteners such as cli.gs to enable us to come up with more conclusive results.

Once we have this reliable data, I’d also like to see a breakdown of which links triggered the highest percentage of bot hits – were there keywords in the tweet that attracted bots? (I’d expect so) Therefore, are my tweets latterly lacking those keywords and contributing to the trend above? How does that correspond to new followers? Which brings me to a topic I’ve been curious about for a while: SEO for tweets.

Naturally it’d be great to identify the bots too.

So in conclusion, a great starting point for a lot more investigation! Watch this space.

Twitter Bots on the Decrease? An Experiment is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

Related posts:

1. 10 Twitter Fundamentals for Businesses

As promised below are my slides from my talk at Think Visibility on Advanced Analytics including advanced segmentation in Google Analytics. Thanks to all those who came to watch – I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. If you have any questions about it at all or any feedback (both positive and negative appreciated!) feel free to drop me a line.

Several of you expressed an interest in some analytics posts with hints and tips to help you analyse your website statistics so I will schedule some of those posts shortly. I will also be writing up some step by step guides to using advanced segmentation so watch this space! To be notified on any new blog posts subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter.

Huge thanks goes to Dominic for ensuring such a fantastic event. Look out for the next Think Visibility in September!

Think Visibility: Advanced Analytics Slides is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

Related posts:

1. A4U Expo Slides: Barriers to Conversion and Discovering Untapped Opportunities with Analytics
2. Bigger and Better: Have You Booked Your Think Visibility Tickets?
3. I’m Speaking at Think Visibility

This afternoon I’m off to Leeds to speak at Think Visibility tomorrow. I’m incredibly excited (and nervous!) to have this opportunity and on top of that be speaking alongside some really great people – it’s no surprise the conference sold out months ago! Huge thanks to Dominic for approaching me to ask me to do a talk.

The topic I’ll be covering is Advanced Analytics. I’m not going to give anything away, but suffice to say that I hope to help you rethink a few strategies using your analytics data by teaching you how to break down and analyse the information given to you.

While I was doing some background reading on the topic I came across a really great extension for Firefox called Better Google Analytics. I’ve only used it briefly but it has some fantastic features. If you’re responsible for reporting website statistics back to your managers or directors it is a massive help as it turns percentages into real figures that they can relate to. For example, rather than blind them with a goal conversion rate, turn that into the real number of people who converted and they are much more likely to listen. The extension also gives you a shortcut to open profiles in a new tab and export to Google Docs. Download it here: http://www.vkistudios.com/tools/firefox/betterga/

Also, while I’m on the topic of analytics, Google released a new qualification on Wednesday (4th March) called the Google Analytics Individual Qualification. It’s a great way to show off your analytics skills especially if you’re consulting or freelancing as you don’t need to be a part of company to take it. I passed on Wednesday – you can too.

Right, back to preparing for Think Visibility! If you’re coming along, let me know and I’ll look out for you! If you’re coming to my talk then I’m afraid you’ll have to bring your own rotten tomatoes

Wish me luck!

I’m Speaking at Think Visibility is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

Related posts:

1. Think Visibility: Advanced Analytics Slides
2. Bigger and Better: Have You Booked Your Think Visibility Tickets?
3. I’m Speaking at A4UExpo London 2009