Book Preview: Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics by Brian Clifton

by Brian on February 24, 2010

A little more than a month ago, I wrote a post titled, “Top Resources For Google Analytics Training” in which I referenced some resources that I thought were quality training documents and offered the level of detail that was necessary to use Google Analytics effectively. One of the resources that I mentioned was a book  titled “Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics” by Brian Clifton. Well in less than 8 hours I received an e-mail in my inbox from Brian regarding my post and that he was publishing a new edition of his book that was due to be released in March of 2010 that was almost a total rewrite of the first edition due to how much has changed in the industry in less than two years. This response from Brian Clifton in such a short period of time makes it clear that he is using Google Alerts or some other form reputation management software to manage his online reputation and he is taking it very seriously. Impressive!

I was given a preview of the intro, Chapter 1, and Chapter 10 of the book and very solid information. Depending on your level of understanding of Google Analytics or any other analytics software, then Chapter 1 will be a refresher on many topics you already know, but a good refresher because often when are so close to topics on a daily basis, some of th basic fundamentals can be taken for granted. The first chapter focuses on why web metrics are important and the reports that are available in Google Analytics. This chapter also highlighted some of the limitations in Google Analytics reporting which has always been a problem for me. Several times throughout the chapter, Brian demonstrates calculations that are valuable to assessing your traffic, but the calculation must be done in Excel because it is not available in GA. That has been my gripe is that most of the reports require some manipulation in Excel in order to format and calculate the data in a way that is most meaningful for your organization. Obviously, Google can not create a custom dashboard with custom metrics for every user and the custom reports that were made available last year have helped a lot, there are still some calculations that would be really valuable in GA that are currently not available. Brian walks you through which calculations may be important and how to perform them.

Brian also sets the tone for preparing different metrics for different levels of your organization as the webmaster should not be concerned with the same metrics as the CEO and vice versa. To get buy-in on investments in your web properties, it is necessary to speak to each level of the organization with the level of detail that will interest them and allow them to make solid, data-driven business decisions. When ideas are supported with verifiable data, then it is much easier to make decisions because results are quantifiable. The value in all analytics is the ability to measure behavior and adjust accordingly and arguably most importantly is the ability to communicate those successes throughout your organization.

Chapter 10 was the other chapter I was provided and it was very helpful for me as it focused on a few aspects that I believe are the keys to valuable analytics information which are visitor segmentation, goal setting, and then the actions that you take based on the data that you have. Not to go into crazy detail because I would not do the book justice and Brian has covered this topic in great detail, but the overall theme is that every visitor is not created equal. Measuring visitors in buckets based on how they arrived at your site, how frequently they visit, and the actions they performed on your site will provide valuable insight into what is working properly on your site from a user experience perspective and what needs to be improved. Segmentation also helps to focus resources so that the most time and money are directed at the segments that offer the most ROI. Brian details how to measure this using goals and key performance indicators(KPI’s). Building on the theme from the first chapter, which I am sure continues throughout the other chapters, is using the data and KPI’s for different parts of your organization which is no easy task. The organizations that can communicate this effectively and gain support from all of the stakeholders in a organization typically make changes and the proper investment in their web properties to be most successful. Those that simply measure all visitors the same, never dive much deeper than pageviews and visitor counts, and refuse to set goals and values on actions that are completed stagnate their growth and lose valuable business from the website every day.

Needless to say, I appreciate Brian Clifton giving me the opportunity to preview his book an I look forward to it’s release in the coming weeks, but don’t buy this book until March 2010 when the new version is released. Brian Clifton is an ex-Google employee that worked closely with Google Analytics during his stint at Google and that experience coupled with his passion for web analytics has helped him produce another great book. For anyone truly interested in how to use Google Analytics effectively and go further under the hood than just viewing the dashboard, I would definitely recommend this book. I would also recommend Brian’s blog , Advanced Web Metrics, be added to you reader for good information as well.

I really appreciate that you keep coming back to my site, it's loyal people like you that make what I do worth it. If you have any questions feel free to email me. Oh and since you obviously like our site it'd be great if you could share it with a friend... They'll love you for it!

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Book Review: How To Succeed In Business By Breaking All The Rules By Dan S. Kennedy

by Brian on February 22, 2010

I decided to pick up one of Dan Kennedy’s books when they were put on my radar a few months ago by my friend, Justin Goff, who had read a couple of them and thought that the content and message were good enough to recommend. The book that Justin first referenced was Wealth Attraction for Entreprenuers, but as I looked at the several titles that Dan Kennedy has written, the one that appealed to me most was “How to Succeed in Business By Breaking All the Rules: A Plan for Entrepreneurs,” although I ordered a couple of other titles that I have not had a chance to read, but will get to in the coming months.

I think the reason this title appealed to me is because it matches some of my beliefs about how business works which is that there are rules and policies that are followed by about 90% of the employees and then there is about 10% who are doing almost whatever they want and running over everyone else as they do it. This was very obvious when I worked at Ameritech/SBC/AT&T as the people that were progressing through the company and being promoted or being given positions of increased responsibility didn’t follow the rules in the same way that everyone else did. They much of what they wanted and manipulated the rules to fit their desired outcome. And usually this worked with great success. So it was a nice validation to read this book and find that many of the beliefs that I have are in line with what Dan Kennedy has written about, but explains and develops these actions in much more detail than I previously had considered.

One of the better parts of the books for me was when he described how Deion Sanders changed the rules for defensive backs in the 90’s so that he could be paid in a way that was similar to quarterbacks. Deion realized that simply being the best defensive back was not going to be enough, so he created a persona that went along with his play that was arrogant and over the top, but caused him to be noticed in a way that was uncommon for defensive backs. Although Deion has on over the top the personality, most would assume that he is the life of the party and that his persona in front of the camera mirrors the rest of his life, but that is not the case. Deion is a homebody that does not drink, but he realized that to attain the level of success that he wanted, he had to break the normal rules and present himself in a different way which was obviously very successful.

Dan’s book is a very good read, but at times he can offend someone that is sensitive to borderline(or over the line) statements. Dan describes himself as “to the right of Rush Limbaugh” which most would deem impossible. Most of his writings reflect this mindset, but he offers very practical advice for success in business.

Dan closes each chapter with a contrarian view to conventional thinking that helps to view things in a different way.  Here are a few good quotes from the book that I think apply very well to both business and life in general:

“Stop letting lack of money imprison you. There’s abundant evidence all around you that you can turn your ideas into a successful enterprise without having a lot of capital. Access to plenty of money will not “make” a business. Having to fight its way into existence without money will not kill a really viable business.”

“Avoid seduction by technology. Ask yourself tough questions to determine whether the technology you let into your life is genuinely working for you, to your advantage, or against you, to your disadvantage. Have the courage not to use the trendy, popular technology if it is not right for you.”

“You cannot afford to be humble. If you wait to be discovered and rewarded based on merit alone, you had better bring a lunch and several good books because you’re going to be waiting a long, long time. The bigger your ambitions, the more likely you are to offend people while achieving those ambitions. And your opportunity to have meaningful impact will be in direct proportion to your willingness to offend. What others perceive as arrogance may very well be the level of confidence, self-promotion, and pushiness necessary. Also, arrogance magnetically attracts more than it repels because many people prefer association with an individual who is absolutely certain of himself and his convictions.”

Dan’s book is definitely worth the read and I am sure that his other books provide just as much useful information. I will get the some of the other books very soon, but am satisfied with the amount and detail of the information that was in this book. Now I must apply the information to gain the real value of the reading.

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Is Google Serious About Becoming A Broadband Provider?

by Brian on February 12, 2010

Google announced last Wednesday that they were entering the broaband service provider market and would be offering service with speeds of up to 1gb per second to 50,000 customers with potentially providing service to up 500,000. If successful, they would expand after that. Similar to when Google entered the free e-mail service with Gmail and provided 2GB of storage while Hotmail and Yahoo offered 10mb(how did we survive), Google is proposing a broadband offering that is many times greater than the 5-10mb some of us currently receive. Most modem tests would reveal that we do not receive downloads speeds that fast, but that is what our providers tell us.

So how would can Google offer broadband speeds so much faster than the phone and cable companies and offer the service at a competitive price? They can build it an offer it offer it at competitive price because their goal is to offer the service as a trojan horse that is subsidized by advertising that will offset the monthly costs.

I know from my several years working in Telecom that the build out of a broadband network is very very expensive and depending on the penetration rates among the customer base, projections of ROI can vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. Also with the high cost of construction, it is very likely that your estimated build costs will be much less than actuals. So here is where I think Google will focus to build fast and cost effectively:

Purchase Dark Fiber – Dark fiber is fiber that was placed in the ground(or Aerial) over the last 5-10 years that is not in use, but the capacity is available. The name is dark because there is no equipment on the ends of the fiber to “light it up.” Many companies bet on the growth of networks and user consumption faster than actually happened, so many companies put lots of fiber in the ground, but did not survive and this allowed other companies and many venture capitalists to purchase this capacity for pennies on the dollar. Fast forward 10 years and consumption is starting to catch up with capacity which presents a great opportunity for others to compete. Well sort of. Dark fibre primarily was placed in large urban areas or down large busy streets throughout suburban areas. Those rural areas that still struggle with broadband service today will still struggle with broadband under Google’s plan because the real expense is not in the placement of fiber on the main streets, although that is expensive too, the cost really skyrockets when you have to go through every neighborhood and backyard. The cost per foot of burying cable in residential areas is so high that most companies make decisions about what neighborhoods they will serve and how many homes they can serve from the same cable based on assumed adoption rates. If your nearest neighbor is a half-mile away, Google’s plan will not help you. Your only hope is your telecom service as they are the provider of last resort, but this does not apply to broadband services. It has been speculated that Google has been buying dark fiber for the last 5 or 6 years.

High density buildings – Google will be able to hit their mark of 50,000-500,000 relatively easily because they will focus on very dense urban areas where there are large, multi-tenant buildings. Think of cities like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. These are the cities where the population is dense enough and close enough to dark fiber, that Google can reach them quickly and cost effectively. Multi-tenant buildings only require a one time build-out and can usually service everyone in the building and if there is growth, the cool thing about fiber is you can typically just change the equipment at the ends and multiply the capacity. So you should not expect Google to be offering service in many residential neighborhoods  as they will have to focus on dense populations for their model to work.

Disruption of the industry – Much like many other industries that Google enters that does not seem like a good fit, my assumption is Google does not want to be a real broadband provider, but has a goal of reshaping how phone and cable companies offer the service today. Google know the faster the speeds that consumers and businesses have accessibility to, the increase of consumption. This translates to growth for Google and greater ways to track and target consumers from an advertising perspective. When Google bid on wireless spectrum a few years ago, it proved true that they did not intend to build out a wireless network, but what they did do was get the FCC to rewrite the rules in their favor. That push several years ago has opened the door for the Google phone and VOIP on mobile devices which over time will circumvent the wireless provider networks for minutes and all will become simply data. When that happens, then no one is at the mercy of AT&T or Verizon and they will simply become a pipe and the functionality will all be in the device, not the network.

Government Subsidies – The other way that Google will make the service affordable is because they will pressure the municipalities to cut them deals on franchise agreements  that are far and away more affordable than the telecom and cable companies pay today. My bet is Google will almost force them not to charge any fees or taxes and Google can do this because they are not required to offer the service anywhere. So all they need is a few cities to play by their rules and the others will have to adjust and play that way if the service gains critical mass. Since many of these cities are struggling financially, it is the perfect time for Google to form some partnerships that create some positive press for local politicians.

Previous Google Failures – Google has not always succeeded with it’s aggressive attempts to enter new markets. Their foray into municipal Wi-Fi is an example of a plan with large potential that never materialized. The plan was for Google to partner with Earthlink and offer free Wi-Fi service to the City of San Francisco. The plan had large political support, but as setbacks and price grew, the support faded and the build-out failed. So although Google’s plans for broadband sound good right now it is proven that the implementation is the more difficult part.

No matter what route they take, the plan is probably pretty far down the road already since they have made an announcement. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, because I can tell you from experience that building a network is far more simple on the drawing board than it is on the concrete. Things that make sense from a consumer and business perspective can be held up by local politicians, internal disagreements, and an inability to control costs. These are all challenges that Google faces and many more. Hopefully, they can pull it off, but would not be surprised if this does not make it.

 

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10 Essential Wordpress Plugins

by Brian on February 10, 2010

Wordpress is a terribly easy platform to use, but it requires installing some additional plugins to activate the functionality that you need to make your site run smoothly. Adding plugins is only an option if you are using the self-hosted installation of Wordpress from Wordpress.org and not the hosted option at Wordpress.com.

Here is a list of 10 plugins that I believe are necessary for your site. This is only a small list as there are thousands of plugins available that can perform almost any task that you can think of. All of them do not work perfectly and mainly this is due to them being open source and anyone can create a plugin, but they do not always work correctly. Especially if you are on a version of Wordpress that is higher than the plugin was created for. Fortunately, most of the developers are very good about upgrading their plugins to work with the latest version of the software.

The ten essential Wordpress Plugins are:

Akismet

Akismet comes installed with your Wordpress installation and only requires an API key for activation. Akismet prevents your blog from being overwhelmed with spam as it checks the commenters information against their database to determine if it is spam or not. You still have to go in and manually approve/disapprove spam though. If you do not have Akismet active, you will quickly find out how much spam your blog will receive very quickly. This plugin is a must have.

Tweet This
This plugin adds the “tweet this” widget to each of your post so that your visitors can share your story with their twitter followers if they are so inclined. This plugin works well and what I like most is that you can set which URL shortening service that you want to use. TinyURL is used as the default, but the plugin supports several other options.

All in One SEO Pack
All-in-One SEO pack is the most widely use SEO plugin for Wordpress blogs. It adds fields to your admin panel where you can easily add custom title, description, and keyword tags to each of your posts. It also has an option where you can have the plugin use your tags and categories as your meta tags. This is definitely a must-have to get your site optimized for the search engines.

Brian’s Threaded Comments
Have you ever seen a comment on a blog that you wanted to respond to, but there would be twenty other responses between your response and it would not be clear that you are responding to that commenter? This plugin solves that problem so that you can respond to someone else’s comments and the comment will be listed right below the previous comment. This is a great plugin for making your comments section more conversational.

Comment Relish
Comment Relish sends a short e-mail to users who comment on your blog for the first time to say thank you. You can customize your message to say whatever you like so that it matches your writing style and fits your readers. The downside is that if you have a lot of comments, it can cause your site and server to run more slowly. For smaller sites, it should not be a problem.

FeedBurner FeedSmith

Feedburner is a RSS platform that lets you customize how your feed will appear, monetize your feed, and track readership statistics for your feed. Every blog should have a feed and since Feedburner(owned by Google) is the best RSS platform, this plugin should be used.

Google Analytics for WordPress

Instead of simply adding Google Analytics through your theme editor, this plugin makes it simple to add the code, but also gives the functionality to allow you to track extra search engines, click outs, and downloads. It makes some of the stats understandable for people that may not be very knowledge about Google analytics.

Google XML Sitemaps
Generates an XML sitemap for your blog used by search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. What’s an XML sitemap, you ask? Basically it’s a file that tells the search engines which pages on your site are most important and which they should crawl on a regular basis.

Subscribe To Comments

Allows commentators to receive e-mail notifications of new comments on an article (checkbox option in the comments form) on which they have posted a comment.This is a great way to get people back to your site and continue the conversation.

WP Contact Form III
Adds in a simple contact page on your blog with a form for name, email, website, subject, and message. This one isn’t as fancy as the other contact plugins out there but it’s simple and easy to use and most importantly works properly. You also have the option of adding multiple forms to your site using this plugin.

This is just a short list of plugins that I have found very useful. I use many more and may detail them as well at some point. By visiting the Wordpress Plugins directory, you should b able to find any plugin that you need. If not, discuss it in the forums and most likely there is someone out that will develop it pretty soon.

 

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Phone Consultation With Justin Brooke

by Brian on February 9, 2010

On Tuesday nights, for the past several weeks I have been watching (more often listening while multi-tasking) a webinar of sorts on Ustream called the Twenty Minute Tackle that is hosted by Justin & Chaunna Brooke of Sitefling.com. As the names states, it is a twenty minute long show that usually runs over that covers different topics related to internet marketing and probably more important is the implementation of the techniques that are discussed and realistic results of what the actions will be. There are usually about 40-50 people viewing the show which is pretty good considering the show starts at 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

As a part of the show, they always conduct a contest at the end of the show to give away different prizes. Some times it is software, or a book, or a learning system that they are no loner using. A few weeks ago the prize of the contest was an hour phone consultation with Justin. The contest is simple in that to enter all you have to do is guess a number between 1-100 at the end of the show and the person that is the closest wins. I guess 92 and the winning number was 87 (or vice versa) which made me the winner of the phone consultation. Chaunna worked with me through e-mail to get the call setup which was a bit of a challenge due to some things that Justin had in the works that required travel.

Since I really did not have any specific questions that I wanted answered, I was not sure how the call would go and since Justin does not know me, he did not really have a script for the call either, so we just covered some of the things that I was working on and he covered some of his and give me some ideas that I could implement. Justin seemed really cool and also seems to have tired of the over-hyped internet marketing world where people are selling crappy products and in many cases not providing great value for the money that people are spending. Justin has sold many of his sites lately and has started to focus more on offering services to clients than focusing on what can be the unethical world of people selling internet marketing techniques.

A few take aways from the call and some posts that I have liked from their site, www.sitefling.com over the past several months:

  • PPC and SEO services are a gold mine when working with local businesses. Many do not have a clue about how to market themselves online and are willing to pay for help with these services.
  • CPV(Cost Per View) advertising has been great for list building and it is still very possible to get clicks for 1 & 2 cents. Traffic does not convert as well as PPC traffic, but is so much cheaper that cost per conversion can be much lower. As with all internet marketing, a lot of testing is required. I also viewed Justin’s CPV Bully program with was very detailed and informative.
  • Short reports are great for building lists and convert very well. Short reports are short informational products like whitepapers that require a person to enter their e-mail address to gain access to the information. An example of a short report that you might see is “30 ideas to help get your ex back.”  Lynn Terry of ClickNewz.com covers short reports in a lot of detail on her site.
  • Outsourcing tasks to workers in the Philippines has been very effective in quality and costs. Justin says the benefits to using people in the Philippines versus other places is that that time difference is not as great as other places and the people he has used have been more consistent and reliable.
  • I recently read Justin’s book, SEO Lies,  and it provided some great information about SEO and some of the myths that surround the industry. Much of the information I was already aware of, but some of the processes that he employs were interesting. A good book for well-grounded information about search engine optimization.
  • A couple of posts from their site that I found very informative were “Free Traffic Is 100% Possible” and “21 Places To Buy more Traffic.“

Needless to say, the phone conversation went well and the price was unbeatable! The biggest takeaway from the call was something that applies to everything in life and Justin learned from his mentor Russel Brunson and that is to continue to do the small tasks repetitively. It is not about just hitting home runs, but hitting singles day after day so that you are ready to hit the home. The Twenty Minute Tackle is a good show and worth tuning into if you want to learn some internet marketing tips. You may even win a prize at the end.

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The Value Of Instinct

February 8, 2010

Living in the Midwest and paying close attention to business news, the reports are very clear that the economy and the employment situation are not very good. Although I recently questioned how these reports added to the situation, I know from real life interaction and the stories that I hear that people whom have lost [...]

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Google Super Bowl Commercial Cleverly Demonstrates Many Features

February 8, 2010

As we all hope and expect to see some of the best commercials of the year during the Super bowl, Google purchasing a commercial during the game was a little shocker, but it was a good commercial that quickly demonstrates how importantly they view search( if you didn’t already know) and how much Google has [...]

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Based On Microsoft, Google, and Apple’s Earnings The Economy Is Recovering

February 4, 2010

Unfortunately, the United States is still in the middle of a recession/depression where depending on whose stats you listen to, between 10%-16% of adults can not find employment. Even at the low end, that is an alarming statistic that does not bode well for our national economy or the world economy. For our economy to [...]

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