Find out more about behavioral targeting and download the free Behavioral Analytics For Dummies book from Quantivo.

The reason I bring up these wonderful events is that I would like to begin hosting them in Modesto, CA.  It is likely that my new employer, Unica Corporation, will sponsor the first WAW in Modesto.  I am interested if other companies would be interested in sponsoring future events.

Most Important

The most important part of this post is right here.  In order to make this a success, I need to know if you are interested in participating.  If so, please express your interest below.  My plan is to hold the first event in August.  In the near future, I will begin marketing this event through the valley.  I will also provide a free registration link at some point.

More recently, I have begun employment with Unica as a Technical Account Manager for NetInsight, the web analytics tool which has been positioned as the leader by Forrester Research.  I am currently at headquarters in Waltham, MA for training.  I begin working from home back in Turlock, CA, supporting our West Coast clients on July 1st.

That brings things up to date.  So how does this affect Thrivalytics?  Of course, I will be focused on Unica, but I am still available for end-to-end web analytics, SEO and SEM consulting that does not impede my work for Unica.  Feel free to contact me!

Now let’s put this into perspective.  My website has only been around for a few months (since Sep 10th, 2009 for the historians).  Should I think that I have arrived and stop all pursuit of website improvement until I am back to the level of the rest of my industry vertical?  Suppose I only pay attention to where I stand against my industry.  What if my metrics are declining along with the rest of the industry?  Am I still doing well?

Regardless of your website’s standings compared to Google Analytics benchmarking, this is the line of thinking you should have.  The bottom line is this – did you outperform yourself?  Another way of putting it is that you should compete against yourself and try to become better than you are.  If you push yourself to be better and focus inward, then you know you’re moving in the right direction.  Your plans will be based on what your KPIs dictate needs help, not where you stand against competitors.

Stop obsessing over benchmarks and outperform yourself!

Not surprising, since the seminar was hosted by the Stanislaus County Alliance Small Business Development Center.  There was a wide variety of industries represented by the small businesses from bookkeeping/income tax services to hair salons to vacation rental properties to agriculture.  There were even a few startups.

One very interesting aspect of the survey was a comparison of online tactics utilized in 2009 compared to what is planned for 2010.  The table of results is shown below.

My conclusion is that my seminar influenced businesses to really want to dive deeper into web analytics in 2010.  The next largest increase is in social media, which has been a growing topic of interest in this area during the latter half of 2009.  Increased interest in web analytics and social media is followed by search engine optimization and email campaigns.  Lastly, online advertising  promises small growth and small businesses seem more interested in developing other tactics (which can be done home-grown without spending advertising dollars).  It is very interesting to note that online tactic usage will be increasing from 25% to 51% in 2010.

The second part of the survey focused on the level of satisfaction with their business’s online strategy.  It is not surprising that 45% expressed discontent with their online strategy.

The last part of the survey asked how important their online presence was to their overall business strategy.  Not one respondent replied that it was not important.  In fact, two-thirds responded that it was very important, while the remaining third deemed it important.

This survey provided me with the following comforting outlook for 2010:

• I am glad to see that online tactic activity is promised to double in the California Central Valley in 2010.
• Their is a ton of room for growth.
• Although technologically behind, small businesses here DO care about their online presence, which leads me to believe that perhaps larger local businesses do as well.

I hope these survey results give local businesses in the California Central Valley insight.  I also hope this provides comfort for other practitioners in similar counties.  I would love to hear your feedback.

]]> http://thrivalytics.com/the-small-businesss-online-presence-in-a-technically-challenged-geography-survey-analysis/feed/ 0 http://thrivalytics.com/optimizing-your-website-for-profitability-seminar-followup/ http://thrivalytics.com/optimizing-your-website-for-profitability-seminar-followup/#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:18:14 +0000 dustin http://thrivalytics.com/?p=278 Thank you to all attendees of my seminar – “Optimizing Your Website For Profitability” – hosted by the Alliance Small Business Development Center.  I think there were about thirty-five in all.

• First, I’d like to apologize that I was unable to cover the search engine optimization portion.  In the future, I would love to present a seminar covering only search engine optimization.
• I received a lot of great, constructive feedback from the attendees that I will be definitely implementing.  Sometimes getting better involves swallowing a lot of pills.
• It appeared that it would also be beneficial to do a workshop in which attendees develop a web analytics strategy for their online presence.
• I will be writing up an analysis of the industry survey that I administered.  Thanks to all who participated.
• Lastly, there was a nice write up in today’s edition of the “News from the Alliance” newsletter.

“Do you know how many potential customers can’t find what they need on your website?” These and other thought provoking questions were posed at the most recent Economic Survivor seminar at the Alliance SBDC. Web analytics expert Dustin Wallace of Thrivalytics went on to describe a goal driven process for continually improving any company’s online presence.

Just as a storeowner needs to listen carefully to customers, businesses with websites are afforded numerous opportunities to identify client needs. Informed and strategic usage of Google Analytics and other web tools can create a virtuous cycle, tailoring the site to customer needs. Wallace reeled off a number of strategies and tricks-of-the trade for getting inside the mind of the web surfer. One example – take a look at how the search bar on your site is used and what results come up with these queries.

Bottom line: Now that you have invested a lot of time and money to build and maintain your website, is it paying off the way it should? How do you know? Why not find out?

Web Analytics

• Establishing the need for Web Analytics
• Establishing the need for a Web Analytics process
• Thrivalytics four-step Web Analytics process
• Practical Insights
  • Internal Search
  • Visitor Surveys
  • Content Distribution
• Cultivating a data-driven culture (or getting buy-in)
• The truth about online data

SEO

• What search terms to target
• On-page optimization techniques
• Off-page optimization techniques
• Discovering valuable search terms

“A Fun Game: Guess The Outcome Of 15 Tests” by Lars Johansson is an effective display of how little we know about how our customers behave and what makes them tick.  My opinion is that the closer you are to your business, the less you know about how your customer reacts to your marketing.  When working with the Sun Developer Network eCampaigns team, I had a colleague present a similar case study depicting which banner ads performed better.  It was an enlightening experience for all.

You owe it to your business to ensure that marketing dollars are being used on the most effective campaigns.  You also owe it to your business to optimize those that aren’t.  Don’t just throw them out the window.  Test different ideas before assuming it’s just a bad idea.  For example, you may have tried utilizing an email list to generate new sales leads.  It may have generated a less than stellar conversion rate.  Before you toss it, have you considered trying different subject lines or different content?  In fact, when you start a campaign, you should ask, “How can I test a few ideas instead of going with my instincts?”  With this method, you would have taken a small portion of your email list and tested a few subject lines.  Then you would have used the best performing one on the remainder of the list.

So how did you do on the Outcomes Test by Lars?  I am not embarrassed to tell you that I was only correct 53.3% of the time.  I should not be surprised.  After all, my point is that you should be testing, testing, testing.  I’m not an exceptional web analyst because I make the best guesses, it’s because I test.

1.  Can you give an example of an outcome directly related to an insight that you provided?

This question is about understanding their analysis capabilities and, more importantly, have they really done any analysis.  Many web analysts can provide “real life” examples of how web analytics can help you succeed, but you need to hear how they have actually used it themselves.  After all, they’ll be providing the analysis and should have experience digging around.

2.  Can you explain an implementation challenge you faced and how you overcame it?

Even if you have capable web developers to handle implementation tasks, it is important that your web analytics consultant have at least a basic understanding of the ins and outs of implementation.  If you don’t have developers on staff, then you definitely want your consultant to know more than basic tag placement in the site footer.

3.   If a company had no experience with web analytics, what would your strategy be?

It is very important, regardless of technical facility, that your web analytics consultant have a clear end-to-end strategy well thought out.  This end-to-end strategy should include starting with business goals to determine a few success metrics.  The continuous improvement process is then used to affect these success metrics appropriately.  Web analytics needs process to ensure that reporting is not random.  There may always be a need for ad-hoc reporting, but a clear method will provide the best results.

4.  What are common errors that you have discovered during QA testing (Quality Assurance)?

Web analysts usually use HTTPFox with FireFox or IEWatch with Internet Explorer to perform QA.  This is a way of making sure that all the parameters are being sent to your web analytics tool with the proper values.  Some common issues are variables not being set properly and improper placement of JavaScript tag.

5.  What web analytics tools have you used?

Your web analyst should have experience with Google Analytics, even if it is just on their own site.  Google Analytics is the common denominator among web analysts.  However, they should be intimately familiar with at least one other platform and hopefully more.  If they are certified by a web analytics vendor such as Omniture, that is great also.  Beyond the main tools, they should also mention some of the special-feature vendors like Tynt, FeedBurner or AddThis.  These vendors provide niche web analytics for behaviors like copy/paste, RSS and social bookmarking.

I hope this has been a helpful list.  It is by no means complete, but covers enough for you to understand your potential web analytics consultant’s breadth of analysis, technical skill, strategy, QA and tools.  If you have been through the process of hiring a web analytics consultant, do you have any questions or insight to add?

A few months ago, I discovered a tool that was at that time in beta. At the time, it was called Tynt Tracer. Now it has been released as Tynt Insight.  Anyhow, Tynt has created a nifty tool that tracks two things:

1. When a visitor copies text.
2. When a visitor copies an image.

It also does something that will make marketing folks happy.  When a visitor then pastes that text or image (into an email, a document, anywhere!), a link back to the originating page is placed below it (also called an “attribution link”).  How’s that for effortless marketing?

And that’s just the free version.  The pro version offers a few more nifty things:

• Customizable Attribution – Have full control over what the attribution link looks like.
• Detailed Reporting – Find out where your content is being copied to.  Gold means it was posted on a webpage and has generated traffic already.  Silver means it was copied, but the location is unknown until traffic is generated from that link.  Bronze means it was not copied to a webpage and has generated traffic.  Gold is the best, because you are certain that it is providing SEO value.
• Link Sponsorship – More control over attribution links.  Ability to add advertisement to pasted content.
• Auto Tweet – Have your most popular copied content tweeted from a Twitter account of your choice.
• Visualizers – Flash visualizers can be added anywhere on your site to showcase what is being copied (if you care to share).
• Address Bar Tracking – If a visitor copies and pastes the URL from the browser address bar, you can track return visits via that copied URL.  I’m also curious how they do this!
• Heatmap – This is a variation on click heatmaps.  However, in this case, the heatmap lights up (with gradients) what has been copied and gives a sense of the most popular areas on a page being copied.

Even better news – the Pro version is free for a limited time, so go sign up!