Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring site performance, but all too many sites install it and then never look at the info. We’ve found that automating the reporting and delivering stats via email helps clients stay on top of their site performance. Here’s a section from the book AdWords Evolved about how to do it:
Here’s a quick start to using Google’s Search-Based Keyword Tool to find new, high-value, low-competition keywords on your existing site with zero work. To do this, we’ll use Google’s new “search based keyword tool”, SKTool.
Click over to:
Click ‘Sign in’ and sign in to your AdWords account. (Screen shots below show a random site I’m not associated with.)
Looking today at a client’s blog SEO, I noticed that they’ve got PageRank heading to their wp-login.php:
There was a stray sidebar link that didn’t have a rel=”nofollow” on it, so I made the change (using the WordPress in-browser theme editor):
A second link to the login page was at the bottom of each post. The code change was in comments.php for the theme I was using:
Then I re-scanned using A1 Site Analyzer and PageRank is no longer flowing to that login page.
A simpler way to do this (but wasn’t an option on this particular site) is the Meta Robots plugin from Yoast. Good stuff.
Working today on a client site that had a couple of PageRank issues, I once again ran A1 Website Analyzer, and found a couple of interesting problems. Just let it scan the site, then click ‘Analyze website’ and ‘External’ to see how much on-site link love is headed off-site:
On this particular site, each page links to a customer support portal hosted by SalesForce.com. So by not using rel=”nofollow”, we’re sending all that tasty link juice to SalesForce. No good!
The way this link was set up, we were leaking as much PageRank to SalesForce as we send to our own 2nd-level pages. Fixing this should help significantly.
The other problem is that the home page has lower on-site PageRank than other pages, but the solution for that will have to wait for another day.
I’m a big fan of Google Analytics, and check it often for clients’ sites, to see how things are going and get ideas about how to make improvements. One of the most frustrating stats for me is the “Bounce”. Today, I’ll show you a new tool for getting inside what happens during a bounce.
I’ve seen this a bunch recently, so when I saw this on Twitter tonight, I was curious what was up:
I have a great new tool that spiders sites and helps understand what’s up with on-site PageRank flow. It’s A1 Website Analyzer (free full-featured 30-day trial download), from Microsys Tools. I’ve used Xenu and other spider tools in the past, but what sets this tool apart is their on-site PageRank simulator. This is a GREAT asset for understanding where PageRank is going and how to make it flow better.
One of the great mysteries of Google Analytics is just why they won’t let us see referring URLs of our users. Probably some privacy concern of Google’s, but it’s easy as pie to get from web server logs, so I don’t understand the issue.
I’m so dependent on Analytics for day-to-day work that I really would prefer to have all the info in one place (Analytics) instead of having to integrate log-based reporting (and deal with clients asking why the two give different numbers!). Here’s how to do it:
I normally set up sites to just log 404s and check the log files for problems, which is fine for me, but hard for clients. Here’s how I recently set up a site so the client’s marketing folks could spot 404s on their own:
I have a client who manages their own AdWords campaigns, but I check in on them once a month and see if anything is obviously going wrong. This works well, because the client is in control and handles day-to-day changes without me charging them, but they also have a “safety net” in case problems come up.
This morning, I noticed they have a broad match keyword getting LOTS of impressions and NO clicks. This is dragging down their Ad Group’s quality and costing them more on the keywords they are getting clicks on.
So, why might this happen? There are a few possibilities:
We have a little telescope, and were out looking at the moon a few weeks ago. The image through the eyepiece was just amazing, and I thought I might be able to get a picture of it holding my DSLR camera. It worked out pretty well!
I've got a new tool & book available for advertisers who want to move from losing money to making money with AdWords. Check it out!
I'm a web developer, SEO and PPC guy in the midwest. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you find some useful info! You can follow me on Twitter @gcrocker.
