JM Spate Web Analytics

While web analytics has precise definitions for what constitutes a hit, a site visit, and a pageview, the wider web community is not always on the same page. In particular, those who claim that there site has ’12675 hits per month’ are sometimes a little confused (or being confusing). Let’s start by laying out exactly what analysts mean when they use these words:

Visits: When an individual loads any page on a website or more than one page, one after the other, it counts as a visit. If they leave and then return soon after or stay on the same page for a long time the waters get muddier (see the discussion on the way Google Analytics counts sessions for more on this) but right now it suffices to say that when a user arrives on site and looks around it counts as a single visit.

Views, or Pageviews: When a user opens a new page, they add to the view count. A single visit can contain many pageviews (and ideally, it usually should). If they happen to click onto another page than come back, that counts as two pageviews. There is another measure called ‘Unique pageviews’ that doesn’t count more than one view of a particular page in a single session.

Hits: A single pageview can generate several hits. Essentially, a hit is a request to the server, and it’s one hit per page element, not per page. A busy page with lots of images with have a higher hit count than a plain and unadorned piece of HTML.

So a person that claims 12675 hits per month could be talking about the total number of hits, of which a single visit can generate dozens or hundreds, or they could be talking about visits or pageviews. If they’re being underhanded they may be giving an honest hit count and hoping people will mistake it for a visit count.

Either way, it pays to be clear, especially when you’re trying to establish what a site should be charging for advertising. If in doubt, ask for a visit count and take care to distinguish between overall figures and those that relate to individual pages.

Efficient SEO is all about experimentation. Knowing that your campaign is working is great, but it’s a long way from the full picture.

A friendly, helpful log

No two websites are the same and operate in exactly the same enviroment, so it’s only natural that their rankings and traffic patterns will respond in different ways. The trick is to know what works for your site, and how to get the maximum SEO value out of the minimum amount of effort.

The first step towards finding out what works and what doesn’t is to keep a log of changes. Adding some new text content to a particular section? Note it down. Rearranging some categories? Note that too. Even if all you do is update some graphics or add a few new products, make sure the change log gets updated.

When experimenting, keep in mind that the full effect of your changes can take a while to filter through. The user experience might change immediately but unless Google and the other search engines scrape your site quite frequently, rankings probably won’t leap up or down overnight. As a rule of thumb, the less frequently you make changes, the longer it will be before Google notices new alterations.

Matching up a few months of changelog with a few months of monitoring or analytics data is often extremely informative. Of course there will be external influences affecting traffic levels and behaviour, but the timelines almost always have a few interesting tidbits to share.

Our new and improved PDF Media Kit landed today, complete with recommendations from some new clients and a lot more info about the services on offer.

Thanks to is due to Tom B Fowler print and design for good service as always.

Last week Google rolled out a minor but significant change in the way user sessions are calculated. They weren’t expecting many sites to see much of a change in their metrics, but a number of sources in the analytics community are reporting significant shifts, most likely caused by the algorithm change.

The changes only apply to visitors who leave a site, then re-enter by other means within the space of half an hour, or when a user closes their browser for a short time, then re-opens it. Under the old regime closure of the browser meant closure of a session, and that is no longer guaranteed. On the other hand, arriving on a site through organic search, bookmarking it, leaving and returning within 30 minutes would not have counted as two separate sessions before the changes came through, but it will now.

Sound complicated? It’s not the exact definition of a session that most users need to worry about, but the change in definition. Whenever a metric is altered, it can mean confusion. Some figures may go up and some may go down, even though there is no change in traffic pattern.

Google didn’t think that this batch of modifications would have much of an impact (and there were good reasons to tweak session definitions) but many reliable sources are seeing swings of up to 10% or more when comparing figures from before and after the algorithm change.

Conversion rates and average time on site measures are most likely to be affected, along with total visitor numbers and any metric calculated using it.

When tracking the changes in your Google Analytics metrics from July to August, be aware that you might see the effect of the tweak. If you want to check, take a close look at the data on either side of the 11th/12th of this month. Any sudden, statistically unusual jumps that can’t be otherwise attributed could be down to this GA update.

As an alternative to Facebook, I’m not really blown away by Google+, but like all social media sites, it’s only a communication system. It’s the quality of the content that counts the most. All those nifty widgets are great but they won’t work unless people use them to say something valuable. Despite the rapid growth- user numbers are estimated at 20 million- Google+ has a long way to go before it challenges Facebook as the number one social network.

Of course, there is more to Google+ than just another social hub. Behind the scenes it’s all about the socialisation of search. The way people find information online is changing, getting more social.

As social resources grow, they become databases of opinions, reviews, and chatter. Services like Twitter provide access to information generated by real people, without the need for a traditional search engine. Increasingly, people are turning to social media to find information. Why ask Google when you can find and ask real people you actually trust?

By bringing search and social media closer together with things like the +1 button, Google are following the trend. It’s a smart move. As for how well it will work, only time will tell!

We’ve been very busy over here recently, and we haven’t been updating as frequently as we should. The good news is that we’re very happy to bring two new clients on board.

Core Web Design are, without doubt, leaders in Cardiff web design. Their websites are visually attractive, highly functional, and coded in the best and cleanest HTML around. We’re now working together to make sure Core’s clients also get the most optimised site right from day one.

Effective Communication are based just around the corner in Pontcanna. As one of the most influential voices in Welsh public affairs management and Cardiff PR, it’s only natural that they want to explore online reputation management as well as offline possibilities.

We promise to try and update the site more regularly, as time allows!

Link building is an SEO fundamental. As a general rule, the more sites that link to yours, the better. Getting those links is probably the most frustrating and time consuming part of SEO but it does need to be done.

Why? Because, in search rankings as in life, you’re judged on the number and quality of your friends. A site that attracts a lot of inbound links from trusted sources is like a person that a lot of others speak highly of- reputation is all.

It’s worth noting at this point that being judged on the quality of your associates cuts both ways. If you buy links from a dodgy source it’s the equivalent of being seen shaking hands with a shady character. Links from poor quality sites are not good for your rankings at all.

So, the trick is getting respected and reputable sites to link to you. Naturally there’s a lot more too it than that- anchor text, landing page, and link placement are all important, but simply getting a link in place is a good start.

The first strategy is to give people a compelling reason to link. A piece of outstanding content or a useful tool can attract links very nicely, but producing something people really want can be tricky. The internet is full of useful things and it can be hard to make yours stand out. Getting some articles syndicated can also work very well, but again, it can be a little difficult for those who are just starting out.  We’ll say more on that another time.

If you’re new to the link building arena start with directories. Good, reputable directories are easy sources of inbound links and submitting your site is usually pretty easy. The most valuable directories in SEO terms are the picky ones (a listing at DMOZ.org is SEO gold) but even Google Places (very quick, very simple, and your listing will pop up almost immediately) is worth it.

Your local chamber of commerce is also worth a shot. Sometimes they’ll help new businesses out and they’re often on the lookout for innovative companies to showcase. Even if you sell UK-wide, don’t neglect local resources. They’ll often go further than most to help you.

Link building is all about making friends but you can start with the friends and business partners you already have.  The best strategy is usually to lay your cards on the table and just ask nicely for a link.  Talk to anyone your company does business with and talk to your friends.

Sometimes it’ll work and sometimes it won’t. Don’t get discouraged. Everyone gets turned down sooner or later. It doesn’t mean your site isn’t a good one. Link building is a slow process but keep at it and you’ll get there eventually.

Having a blog is the latest trend in SEO. It seems that everywhere you look there are online shops with blogs filled to bursting with content carefully written to target the phrases identified in their keyword research plan. The theory is that blogs are the easiest way to update any website with fresh content and build up a good body of text that will help build relevance in the eyes of Google spiders.

It works. There is no doubt that having a regularly updated blog is good SEO, particularly if it’s backed up by solid keyword research.

But here’s the catch. Google, Bing, and the other search engines aim to identify the best and most relevant website matching a particular query. That is the best website from the searcher’s point of view, not the one that pours the most effort into search engine optimisation.

The people who write Google’s ranking algorithms aren’t slow on the uptake. Sooner or later they’ll realise that not every online retailer really needs a blog and that many of them exist for search engine optimisation only. It remains to be seen just how rankings will change in response.

For now, blogging is a very effective tool for building SEO. It works, so we’re not going to tell you not to do it, but we do advise keeping it in perspective. Pay attention as much attention to other site content, to social media, and to link building as you do to blogging. The only SEO guaranteed to work in the long term is creating a great site.

Big changes at Google mean big changes in SEO. They hold something like 60% of the total search market, so when a major algorithm change comes through, smart search engine optimisation companies are quick to respond.

Instant hasn’t been rolled out across the board yet, and it’ll be a while before most of us see it as the everyday search tool that pops up as a matter of course. You can, however, try it at google.com/instant, and I recommend that anyone paying attention to SEO or a specific website’s performance do that ASAP.

This is a major change in the way organic search works. Now, you type in a query, click the button, and get results. Under Instant, suggestions will start popping up based on partial queries as soon as you start typing, and they’ll keep changing until you finish. Some users will ignore the partial results and just keep typing their search query, that’s pretty certain. Others may see something they like appear and abandon the full keyword phrase.

What this means for SEO is a whole slew of partial keywords that will become important, whereas up until now they saw precious little traffic if any. The cynical among us may see a clever way of making more PPC revenue from new keywords, but there is no doubt that Google Instant will impact organic search patterns and smart companies will adapt their SEO.

Organic search traffic keywords will change as Instant comes into common use. Longer keyword phrases will probably become less important sources and new shorter or partial ones will appear. Some websites will lose out, others will see gains.

Now is a very good time to go back to keyword research. Check out the new tool and see where and when your website appears for your existing keywords, and try to pick up any opportunities in the partial keywords. Smart people who get in quick will almost certainly find something valuable.

Banner advertising is a struggling beast, and as the massive pay per click industry depends on it, something had to change.

‘Banner blindness’ is the name given to the new-found ability of the brain to ignore any piece of a website that looks like an advertising banner. It’s not just an invention of SEO and web marketing types, but a well established and well understood phenomenon. Some internet users choose to block ads with software, others are so used to gaudy banners along the top of their browser screens that they simply don’t see them any more.

Making ads stand out from the background has been the favourite method of combating banner blindness for years. The idea has been to make ‘em bigger, make ‘em brighter, and in extreme cases make ‘em flash on and off or jump around the page. This strategy didn’t work, and annoying Flash-based PPC ads only really served to drive more people to install better ad blocking software.

Every impression that doesn’t result in a click is lost revenue, so obviously this banner blindness thing is a serious problem for AdWords and other PPC systems.

A couple of PPC providers got clever and started placing ads away from the usual locations, eg in sidebars, and this probably did work for a little while. Then, of course, users got used to an ad in the right hand sidebar and started ignoring it. The human brain is quick to adapt.

Google’s new search engine results page format takes a completely different approach to PPC ad placement. Smart cookies that they are, Google realised that making ads stand out is not the answer. The paid ads that now appear on their results pages now look more like organic search results than ever before. They blend in almost seamlessly, and even the most jaded internet brain has to actually look at the ads to decide whether or not they are in fact ads at all.

Seeing and reading are the first steps along the way to clicking a PPC ad. Will this new strategy drive up click through rates? Who knows, but I expect we’ll see more steathly advertising and less neon colours and flashy graphics in the near future.