Analyzing Your Website Data – Onsite Search is a No-Brainer

Do you feel like a reporting squirrel (a term coined by Avinash Kaushik) that does nothing actionable with your web metrics because no one else embraced data-driven culture within your organization? I felt that way in the past, but not so much lately.

Data-Driven Culture
I am very proud to be a web analyst (part of my many roles at ActiveState) so I can help improve site conversions and increase site traffic. Recently our marketing team has been stepping up and fixing many actionable areas (website improvements, SEO, conversion funnels etc.) based on my monthly data analysis and recommendations. This is totally awesome that we are embracing a data-driven culture as a team – more so now, since our new website launched! I cannot stress how important it is to have team members to see the value, understand the priority and pitch in with content -  it is a collaborative process.  One thing I want to stress though, is the web analyst has to evangelize and educate the team on how to become data-driven…and don’t give up -  if it is you who wears that hat!

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My Twenty Picks for eMetrics and SMX Toronto 2010

Its countdown! Three more days and I’ll be in traveling from Vancouver to Toronto to learn some best practices and tips on web analytics, social media, SEO and more.

From April 7- 9th, I will be attending tracks from both eMetrics and Search Marketing Expo (SMX Toronto). I am very excited to be going.  This will be my first time to eMetrics Toronto but my fourth time for SMX (previously, I attended SMX West and SMX Advance Seattle).

It took me a while to decide on my favorite tracks because there are so many. Keep tuned though, I have plans to compile my favorite key take-aways, if you cannot attend yourself.

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What to look for in a search engine friendly platform

When your website is SEO friendly, search engines can visit, read, find, and remember all of the pages within your site. This enables them to know what you are about and to list your pages in relevant search results pages – preferably the first!

I find, however, that website owners will often ask me about search engine optimization (SEO) after their website has been built. This is because they are not seeing the desired results when their new site goes live (such as site visitors or site visitors that convert), and only realize after the fact that their site was not optimized correctly when built. To be effective, SEO is something that you must consider before designing and building your website. Otherwise, you’ll be left with nothing but a great looking site without significant visitor numbers.

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Comparing Website Optimization to Search Engine Optimization

It is important to note that website optimization is different than search engine optimization. I sometimes hear people interchange them – thinking they are the same thing. If you search on the net for website optimization, you will also get results that equate it to SEO. Guess what? I think they are wrong! Many larger online retailers know the difference between the two, and it was clearly dissected for me at last year’s Internet Retailer Conference in San Jose. I really think all website owners have a lot to learn from multi-channel merchants online as they already have this down to a science.

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