Title tags are crucial for optimizing your search engine optimization and benefiting from natural traffic. Most webmasters and site owners know the basics which are keeping the titles short (below 70 characters for Google), placing the primary keywords first followed by a call to action and brand name. The problem is that what’s good for search engine optimization isn’t always good to guarantee high click through rate (CTR) which will drive the traffic your way. By using Google Analytics (in conjunction with other tools) it’s possible to test various page title text in order to try and predict the best performing titles in terms of click through rate.

1. AdWords – If you have an AdWords account go ahead and create a few ad variations containing your primary keyword and various messages in the ad title and or ad body. The next step is to switch on show ad evenly under the settings tab so each ad receives enough impressions and after a few days head to AdWords data in Google Analytics to view the creative with the highest click through rate to be applied in place of the title tag.

2. Google Base – If you’re running an e-commerce site, you’ll notice that in most cases the product title is used for the page title. Even in cases where you have the option to override this setting, after a while and depending on the number of products in the store, you might give up. Using Google Base, you are able to test various product titles (which will then be used for the page title of course) using two methods. The first method is using Google Base own performance tab, while the second requires a simple filter in Google Analytics to distinct traffic coming from this channel:

Filter name: google base
Filter type: Custom > Advance
Field A -> Extract A under ‘Referral’ type google\.co.uk/products
Field B -> Extract B under ‘Campaign Medium’ type organic
Output To -> Constructor under ‘campaign source’ type google base
Field A Required Yes
Field B Required Yes
Override Output Field Yes
Case Sensitive No

Now for testing:  Assuming you haven’t added more products, you’re able to measure the traffic coming from Google Base before and after the changes. Once you have enough learnings, apply the new product title logic across the entire product range taking into account keyword positioning as well. Make sure not to undermine product ranking by removing important keywords.

Note: When applying advance filters, I’d always recommend adding a new profile so the original profile stays intact.

3. Google Organic Traffic – Optimizing your title tags is likely to have two reactions on organic traffic, the first a possible inclusion of more pages in the search engine’s index and the second, higher click through rate for an existing page.

- Testing the inclusion of new pages in the index: In Google Analytics head to ‘Traffic Sources’ > ‘google / organic’ > and under the ‘Dimension’ box, choose ‘Landing Page’. The result is the number of pages which received at least one visitor from natural search. Now, choose another date (before the changes) and look at the number of pages which received traffic from natural search.

- Testing possible higher click through rate: Slightly more tricky. In order to test the title tags changes you’ll need to head to google organic traffic and look at the number of visitors. However, an increase in the number of visitors could also be attributed to the inclusion of new pages in the index so I suggest you look at the number of keywords which drove the traffic. If you’ve seen an increase in organic traffic and the number of keywords has stayed the same, you could assume you’ve increased your CTR. To further validate the results, you could also look at the keyword ranking in Google Webmaster tools.

Google URL Builder is a wonderful tool for tracking, analysing and finally improving the quality of website traffic. By adding a simple piece of string to any URL using this tool, Google Analytics can distinguish the particular link, highlight it as a traffic source and report on its quality in terms of bounce rate, user interaction and e-commerce transactions.

Here are some common and not so common ways to use Google URL Builder:

Tag Google base traffic – Google Base is a free Google service that helps store owners publish products (or services) on Google Base or other Google properties at no cost. Tag URLs before submitting them using Campaign Source: Google-Base Campaign Medium: Web and for Campaign Name: <feed-name>. Now under traffic sources in Google Analytics you’ll see ‘Google-Base’ traffic source, its bounce rate, conversion etc.

Tag email and newsletter traffic – Understand and analyse your click through rate, conversion rate and other user engagement issues using Google Analytics by tagging the links in the email using Campaign Source: newsletter Campaign Medium: email and for Campaign Name: <newsletter-name>

Tag social site traffic – Before shortening the URL using one of the many URL shortening services, tag the URL. For example, before adding the link to Twitter, tag the URL as Campaign Source: twitter.com Campaign Medium: social and for Campaign Name: <item-name> so www.conversioncounts.com/blog/optimization/5-search-engine-optimization-tips-for-quick-wins/ turns into www.conversioncounts.com/blog/optimization/5-search-engine-optimization-tips-for-quick-wins/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=widgets and finally becomes http://bit.ly/aXEW7

Tag external banner display campaigns – If you’re running any ad display not via one of the banner display networks, chances are you’ll need to tag the campaign to get a better picture on conversion and user interaction. Tag the campaign using Campaign Source: display Campaign Medium: cpm and for Campaign Name: <promo title>.

Tag away!

When you’re working on your site SEO, one of the most important aspects (often forgotten) is to continually measure, analyze and fine tune your work. Firstly, to make sure you’re not wasting your time by not having anything to show for your efforts and secondly to ensure you haven’t done more harm than good. Good SEOs will often use analytics to measure the result of their work so using your Google Analytics account here are some ways to measure your SEO:

1. Compare total organic traffic of similar dates - Google Analytics has a fantastic feature which allows you to compare similar dates.

- Enter your main Google Analytics profile and click on the date range button
- Now tick the option ‘Compare to past’ and select two similar dates (for example May 2008 Vs. May 2009)

- Now head to traffic sources and click on Google Organic to see if your efforts are working

- Click on ‘google (organic) to see which keywords are driving more or less traffic

2. Compare brand Vs. generic organic traffic of similar dates – Use the compare similar dates above

- Head to traffic sources and click on Google Organic – Under the ‘Filter Keyword’ option leave ‘containing’ and type your brand names for brand SEO results, for example conversion counts|conversioncounts|conversioncounts.com etc (use | to separate your keywords)

- Now change the ‘Filter Keyword’ to ‘excluding’ to see generic SEO results

3. Compare how many unique pages got at least one visitor from the search engines – an indication of more pages indexed and ranking well

- Switch off ‘compare to past’ option, head to traffic sources then ‘google organic’
- Now open the ‘Dimension’ drop down box and pick ‘Landing Page’

- You’ll now see how many unique pages received at least one visitor from Google and are therefore indexed

- Repeat the same steps for another date range to compare the two (compare past option won’t work here)

There are more indications in Google Analytics that your SEO work is paying off as you can also look at avg time on site (which should increase once quality content is added), avg page view etc, but the keywords and landing pages are a great start.

Using Google Analytics filters, it’s very easy to create a handy twitter profile which groups together twitter sources such as web clients, mobile clients and short URL services into twitter specific traffic channels. By grouping the twitter traffic sources together it gives better clarity on which twitter channel is converting better. To achieve this level of reporting you’ll need to create a new Google Analytics profile, apply a few simple filters and use an advance segment.

Step 1: Create a new profile ‘Twitter Traffic’

Step 2: Filter one (Grouping different photo sharing services to one source)

Filter Name – Twitter Photo Sharing Traffic
Filter Type – custom filter then advanced
Field A -> Extract A – under campaign source add the leading twitter photo sharing services (for example, I’ve used twitpic|twitxr|mobypicture|visualtwitter)
Field B -> Extract B – none
Output To -> Constructor – campaign source and name it Twitter Photo Sharing Traffic
Field A Required – yes
Field B Required – no
Override Output Field – yes
Case Sensitive – no

Step 3: Filter two (Grouping different twitter mobile clients services to one source)

Filter Name – Twitter Mobile Clients Traffic
Filter Type – custom filter then advanced
Field A -> Extract A – under campaign source add the leading twitter mobile clients services (for example, I’ve used twitterberry|tweetie|twitterfon|twittelator|m\.twitter.com|tweetsville|twitterific)
Field B -> Extract B – none
Output To -> Constructor – campaign source and name it Twitter Mobile Clients Traffic
Field A Required – yes
Field B Required – no
Override Output Field – yes
Case Sensitive – no

Step 4: Filter three (Grouping different twitter web clients services to one source)

Filter Name – Twitter Web Clients Traffic
Filter Type – custom filter then advanced
Field A -> Extract A – under campaign source add leading twitter web clients services (for example, I’ve used twitter|ping|friendfeed|brightkite|hootsuite|twitthat|twitterfon)
Field B -> Extract B – none
Output To -> Constructor – campaign source and name it Twitter Web Clients Traffic
Field A Required – yes
Field B Required – no
Override Output Field – yes
Case Sensitive – no

Step 5: Filter four (Grouping different URL shortening services to one source)

Filter Name – Twitter URL Shortening Traffic
Filter Type – custom filter then advanced
Field A -> Extract A – under campaign source add the leading twitter url services (for example, I’ve used twitturly|bit\.ly|tr\.im|cli\.gs|zi\.ma|poprl|tinyurl|Is\.gd|snipr|snipurl|snurl|tiny\.cc|dwarfurl)
Field B -> Extract B – none
Output To -> Constructor – campaign source and name it Twitter URL Shortening Traffic
Field A Required – yes
Field B Required – no
Override Output Field – yes
Case Sensitive – no

Step 6: Filter five (Tagging URL traffic)

Filter Name – Twitter Campaign Traffic
Filter Type – custom filter then advanced
Field A -> Extract A – under campaign name type ‘blog‘ (as an example, depending how you’ve tagged the link using Google URL Builder )
Field B -> Extract B – none
Output To -> Constructor – campaign source and name it Twitter Campaign Traffic
Field A Required – yes
Field B Required – no
Override Output Field – yes
Case Sensitive – no

Step 7: Filter six (optional) – Exclude Other Traffic Sources

Filter Type – custom filter then exclude

Filter field – campaign medium

Filter pattern – I’ve used organic|(none)|banner|cpc

Step 8: Under traffic sources in the new Google Analytics profile, you’ll find the new grouping twitter channels

Step 9: Create an advanced segment under source for filters 1 to 5

Step 10: Done!

Just apply the segments under advanced segments and start understanding better the nature of different twitter traffic channels.

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Other great resources

Yoast blog twitter analytics

Epikone blog tracking twitter

Getelastic blog e-commerce twitter tools

Web analytics key performance indicators (KPI) are a mean to measure how successful your website is at reaching your goals. Google analytics KPIs can be specified by answering the question, “What is really important to different users on the site?”. Some users are after great content (length of visit and pages per visit KPIS) and some are after great products (conversion rate, basket value and days to purchase KPIs).

Now days however there are more KPIs which your online business should start paying attention to, track and improve. Here are just a few KPIs which I recently started tracking for some clients.

- Website Comments KPI

Provides an indication of the level of site content, its relevancy and interest. Especially great for online retailers offering blog functionality as a mean to engage with more customers.

Measuring the KPI – Using Google Analytics goals, you’ll need to track two main actions, ’submit your comment’ and ‘post your comment’. In order to set the goal, you’ll need to trackonclick events by setting up a virtual page view (a page that doesn’t actually exist – such as the ‘post your comment’ button) and link this virtual page view to a goal in Analytics. Google has an excellent explanation on tracking onclick events.

- Website User Reviews KPI

User generated content is truly king when it comes to reviews. I have seen reviews helping to increase a product conversion rate over and over, and together with the fact that it is possible to act on a negative review to retain the customer, it’s clear why it should be considered a KPI.

Measuring the KPI – If you are enticing reviews via email, then simple tag the URL using Google URL Builder and measure the campaign ‘conversion rate’.

- Social Bookmarking KPI

An indication of the viral nature of the site content. If you’re offering some sort of social bookmarking buttons on your site, wouldn’t be great to know if it’s working and whether users are actually clicking on the widget and sharing your content.

Measuring the KPI – Using Google Analytics goals, tracking clicks on outbound links is quite easy to achieve. First you’ll need to tag the link itself by tweaking the GA tracking code and adding /outgoing/ then set the goal page as /outgoing/.* using regex match. I use Addtoany.com for Conversion Counts and have set my goal using head match to /addtoany.com/services/. Here’s more from Google on tracking outbound links.

- New RSS Feed Subscribers KPI

Another indication of the site content relevancy, offer and the ability to attract more returning users (which of course is great).

Measuring the KPI – You’ll need to assign another Google Analytics goal using the trackPageview tag again and update the feed link on the blog or website. The goal page should look something like onclick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’/page/rss.html’);” Once the tag is up to date and assigned to the RSS link create a goal using head match.

- Social Networking ROI

Similar to social bookmarking KPI, use this one as an indication of the viral nature of the site content and how well your online agency is nudging your content in the right direction.

Measuring the KPI – To make life just a bit easier, you’ll need to create another profile in Google Analytics and an advanced segment for the social networks.

Before you start tracking, you’ll notice that Google Analytics allows tracking of up to four goals in one profile so don’t start deleting your normal sales goals . To track more goals simply set a duplicate profile and you might also find it useful to add a date next to the goal name. If you are interested in more information on KPIs we are now covering this subject in our Google Analytics Training Course so do get in touch.

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Other great resources:

Google Conversion Room key performance indicators

If you’re considering implementing Google Analytics across your organization there are a few steps I strongly recommend you take. Normally a good Google Analytics consultant will gather the organization requirements, study the website architecture and configuration before implementing initial and advance setup. Finally don’t forget to provide training to ensure the people at the organization are getting the most out of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is considerably better with a selection advanced segments, some basic segments have been added by the Google team already, while others are just a click away. The segment listed below is one of my favorite as it allows you to compare different traffic properties such as social networks Vs organic traffic Vs direct traffic in terms of conversion rates, bounce rates and much more.

It includes one filter to group all the different social networks websites to one new medium and a few advanced segments. Before you start, I strongly recommend to create a new profile for this segment as it includes a new filter (always apply new filters to a new profile and leave the master profile unchanged).

Stage 1 – create a new website profile and name it… Social Networks Traffic
Stage 2 – group all the different social networks under one new medium by applying the following filter

Filter Name – social traffic
Filter Type – custom filter then advanced
Field A -> Extract A – under campaign source add your social networks (for example, I’ve used digg|aim|friendfeed|blinklist|fark|furl|misterwongs|wikipedia|stumbleupon|netvibes|bloglines|linkedin|facebook|del\.icio\.us|feedburner|twitter|technorati|blog|faves\.com|wordpress|newsgator|PRweb|msplinks|myspace)
Field B -> Extract B – none
Output To -> Constructor – campaign medium and name it social networks
Field A Required – yes
Field B Required – no
Override Output Field – yes
Case Sensitive – no

Now, under traffic sources > medium you’ll find a handy ’social networks’ traffic medium source which includes all the social websites

Stage 3 – click on advanced segments to create a new segment
Stage 4 – under dimensions open traffic sources and drag the ‘medium’ button to dimension or metric window
Stage 5 – under matches exactly option type social networks (the filter created before)

Stage 6 – repeat step 5 and type organic
Stage 7 – repeat step 6 and type referral
Stage 8 – result! just apply the new segments to the report and start optimising your content

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More great resources

Google Analytics official blog Advanced Segments & E-Commerce

Measuring Success blog Tracking social networks with Google Analytics using filters

Google Analytics is my choice of website analytics software for couple of reasons. One of which is the ease of installation and set up as you will read further down, other reasons are its high level of customisation which is optional and of course the fact that it is free. Once installed, Google Analytics will provide your business with a 360 degree view of the marketing mix, from tracking phone orders (under a more advance event tracking) to understanding and fixing your website bounce rate.

Basic installation steps:

Step 1: Open a Google Analytics account by using your existing Google Account or open a new account.

Step 2: Add your website URL so to create a ‘profile’ and remember to pick either HTTP or HTTPS from the drop down list.

Step 3: Copy the website tracking code to notepad

Step 4: Paste the tracking code into the bottom of your content, immediately before the </body> tag of each page you are planning to track. In cases of a common include or template, you can enter it at:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((”https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>
try{
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(”UA-xxxxxx-x”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}
</script>

Step 5: Verify the tracking code across your website pages by heading to ‘Analytics Setting’ > ‘Edit’> click on ‘Check Status’

Basic installation quick guide: