Towards the end of 2011, Google provided me with an early Christmas present; a present that as a PPC consultant has made a massive difference in reporting back to clients on the true value PPC was bringing to their business.

The present Google provided me with was the multi channel funnels tab in analytics. This new tab provides me with accurate, real time information on the part PPC plays in a websites overall online marketing strategy.

Previously in analytics, the data I could gather about PPC traffic drawn to the site was solely focussed on the last click. By this I mean I could only see what conversions/actions had being achieved directly by PPC. Now don’t get me wrong, this information is great and absolutely necessary because the bottom line is this data will tell you how much of a return the PPC traffic is bringing.

However, I always knew that a PPC campaign provides much more value to a website than simply just the conversions that can be directly attributed to it. The problem was I couldn’t prove it with solid, tangible figures. The new data available within the multi channels funnel now allows me to demonstrate in cold hard facts what additional value PPC is bringing.

With features such as assisted conversions and top conversion paths, I can now see what part PPC has played in the overall performance of the campaign. For example if someone clicks on a PPC ad and comes to my site and then leaves to research prices elsewhere before coming back to the site via an organic listing and purchasing then PPC is then attributed with an assisted conversion as it has played a part in the process. Previously, no information regarding PPC being involved in this process was available and the organic listing would take all the credit.

Now my reports have doubled in size and my clients are twice as informed as to the value PPC is bringing to their website. So, if you haven’t yet examined the figures in the multi channels funnel section of your analytics account I urge you to soon….your clients won’t regret it.

An SEO campaign, complete with all the add-ons of Pay-Per-Click, E-Mail Marketing, Guest Blogging and Internet Marketing is very similar to creating the LEGO castle you wanted as a child. You have all these various parts which when separated and laid out look as though they couldn’t ever provide the results that you want; however when carefully constructed provide outstanding results  and for an SEO campaign, the majority of these results can be viewed, dissected and analysed with the help of everyone’s favourite tool, Google Analytics.

Unfortunately whilst Google Analytics can provide certain results, when it comes to the final add-on, social media, it doesn’t provide any insights. This is because social media, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn can often be a dark, murky and mysterious world, especially for a novice. Luckily this is all about to change, with the introduction of Twitter Web Analytics.

Hold Your Horses:

Now before I go any further, I appreciate there will be those of you who are a dab hand at social media, in particular Twitter and will argue that there are already Twitter analytics available and I don’t disagree with this. After all, if you type into any search engine, “Twitter Analytics” an extensive list will appear. This list will undoubtedly include, Tweetstats, Tweetmeme, Twitalyzer. Being the conscientious person that I am, I had a brief look at all of these and I honestly believe that they add more murkiness and confusion to the Twitter-sphere.

An example of this is Twitalyzer. Using @crearecontent, the Twitter account used by Creare’s Content Writing team for research purposes, I was able to find that @crearecontent is in the 61st percentile of all Twitter users, has a Klout score of 23 and a PeerIndex of 19. Mean anything to you? Me neither!

The Future’s Bright, The Future’s…..

The future however, thanks to Twitter Web Analytics, looks a lot brighter and more promising for businesses turning to Twitter to boost their internet brand whilst engaging in conversation with customers and other businesses.

Working in a similar way to Google Analytics, Twitter Web Analytics when stripped down to its very basics and core principal will provide users with a detailed insight into three specific areas:

1) Help you understand how much your website information is being shared across Twitter

Not only will this help you see how much of your website content is being shared, but it’ll also give you information in regards to the click-throughs your content is receiving. This previously wasn’t possible in any of the other forms of Twitter analytics available, and to put the Twitter Web Analytics head and shoulders above the rest, the information provided enables you to dissect who is sharing and how they are.

2) See the amount of traffic your Twitter account is sending to your website

In the past it’s been debated as to whether this has previously been possible or not. Some theorists claim that the click-throughs to your site are shown as “organic visitors” whilst other theories don’t believe it has previously been possible. Whichever side of the fence that you sit on, one thing is certain, with the advancements of Twitter Web Analytics you can see clearly what traffic is coming to your site via Twitter.

3) Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button Integration (if you don’t currently have the Twitter button integrated onto your website, I recommend you do it today!)

We all love to share information, whether it’s a bit of office gossip, sport related news or SEO tips and tricks. With the Tweet Button integrated onto your site and by using this new analytic platform, you can see just how effective your “sharing” is in the social media world.

Sold?

By now I’m hoping that you’re already sold on the Twitter Web Analytics and that you’re itching to sign up to receive it. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to rein you back in (for the time being at least) as Twitter have announced that for the time being this will be rolled out to a select few (to ensure it works as well as hoped) before being rolled out to a much wider audience.

Despite having to wait to get our hands on this tool, the future certainly looks bright in terms of social media being the next brick in your SEO LEGO castle, and you’ll be able to see hard evidence as to how well your Twitter campaign is running , without delving too deep into the dark, murky and mysterious world of social media.

I believe Organic SEO is like a fine cheese, the older it gets the stronger it gets, unfortunately though the smellier it gets also. More on that later.
However, as with cheese, you cannot rush it during the creation process. You have to nurture it, and care for it. This applies of course to SEO campaigns.

However, enough of the cheese analogy.

Clients are quite rightly so, eager to see their campaign perform immediately. They expect this because they won`t necessarily understand the inner workings of SEO and this is where communicating with your client helps to manage their expectations. We understand that organic SEO has one downside that is directly visible to the client and that is the timeframe and this should be an important aspect of the sales process too, to make the client aware that results will not appear overnight.

The soft approach

Organic SEO is chosen because of it`s relatively low cost compared to Pay Per Click. But in reality it should also be chosen because of it`s long term results too. PPC is ideal for quick immediate results in the search engines but the expenditure is many times more than the Organic would cost the client and they must understand that instant results will cost. I find that explaining the timeframe to customers for Organic SEO can sometimes result in negative answers but I go a step further by also explaining that the time frame is all part of “building” a productive and effective campaign which will give longer lasting results and ultimately give them a better return on investment.

The soft approach is vital in campaigns especially when there are competitive phrases involved. When link building there can be a tendency to do too many links all at once or in too short a period of time and this can result in Google penalising your listing. When this happens it can significantly affect the timeframe you are working to to achieve your desired result. So there is great importance in gently building links each time you work on the site and to also ensure you are link building not to just one page. By concentrating on just the homepage or the optimised pages you run the risk of Google spotting that there is no natural flow to the site SEO and that you are actively pushing that one page. For the natural link effect you need to build across multiple pages and product pages, as well as the homepage. This will demonstrate a natural link effort on your part and should, over time give you the result you want.

I mentioned earlier about a campaign getting “smelly” or old and this is something that you should always look to address after a while during the campaign. What was decided months ago when you started may not be applicable now. There is also the design to think about and using the analytics to address issues that could be resolved either through the design on the website or the SEO. The rule is Keep It Fresh and don`t let your campaign go stale.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the simplest way to use the Pageview Tracker aka _trackPageview feature in Google Analytics. I’m joined by Luci Smethurst, one of our senior web designers.

Pageview Trackers let you record hits in Google Analytics on elements that are contained ‘within the page’. For example, the number of times a link to a download is clicked, the amount of clicks on a specific button, or infact any javascript controlled event such as jQuery Tabs, Show/Hide Sliders and ‘One-Page’ Wizards.

Variations of the _trackPageview Code

• Tracking Link Clicks: <a title=”Name of Link” onclick=”_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/linktype/linkname']);” href=”http://www.domain.co.uk”>Name your Link</a>
• Tracking Button Clicks: <input onclick=”_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/submit/contact-form/']);” name=”submit” type=”submit” value=”Submit” /></code>
• Tracking an Impression: <script type=”text/javascript”>pageTracker._trackPageview(“/page/impression/”);</script>

You can also setup Goals specific to your Pageview Trackers; E.G. Tracking the user behaviour and conversion rate of ‘One-Page’ Checkouts and Contact Forms, useful for quantifying the success of SEO Campaigns. Not sure on how to setup a Goal? Checkout our blog on Goals in Google Analytics.

There is one thing to warn about. By using an extra Page Tracker, as GA tracking is already in place – your Analytics of course will show 2 hits instead of 1 for the same page. It all depends on what you’re tracking, but this could result in your GA showing inaccurate data. You can curveball this issue by using an alternative Event Tracker.

In this week’s SEO Video Blog, we take a look at forthcoming interface update for Google Analytics. Google unveiled the revamp at last week’s GAUGE conference in San Francisco, California. We’ve managed to get our hands on a BETA Account of the new Google Analytics interface, so in the video screencast, we go over a few of the new features.

How to signup for the NEW Google Analytics

Google are currently hand-picking BETA Testers and rolled out the new interface to a few select accounts.
You can apply via this link for your chance to test out the interface.

What do you think of the update?

Are you one of the lucky view to check out the new Google Analytics in action? Leave your thoughts and comments just below.