U.S. NetworX

Working to create and launch a website is one thing, but then what? How do you take care of it? If you want to promote it, how do you track results? Let’s take a look at website traffic stats and some of the tools Google Analytics offers you.

Engage, Mr. Data

Google’s Analytics suite of tools has become the 800-pound gorilla of stats tools for website managers. When a site is built, it’s easy for companies like U.S. NetworX to add custom tracking code, which is in turn used by Google to report on your site’s activity. You then log into their Analytics site to do all of your research and work.

The amount of data presented is mind-boggling, to put it simply. The initial view, called the Dashboard, provides the easiest to read and use data. It’s here that you can apply a date range for results, then view data such as visits, pageviews, time spent on the site, how folks found your site, keywords used, a map of users, and more. And to its credit, the Analytics system just makes sense; it’s laid out well and can be as simple (or as advanced) as you wish to make it.

If the Dashboard is too low-level for you, there are many ways you can customize the data and results you’re after. You can use the menus and settings to generate a myriad amount of data to track your site’s performance, from long-term campaign trends to “how many people visited my blog page just today?”

Put it to work for me!

Explaining Analytics’ virtues is one thing, but practicing it is another. Let’s do an example with some suggestions as to how to use it.

Let’s say you embark on a push to promote your company’s services. Your site has a Services page which you updated on March 1, and now that it’s a month later, let’s see how things went.

I’d first change the date range to match March 1 to April 1, so your first glance of data will report traffic for just that month. However, that’s the whole site. In order to see traffic to that one page, click the Content link. From this section, you should easily see a breakdown of traffic in that date range for specific pages. (Note: for the sites U.S. NetworX builds, “/index.php” is your homepage.) If you can’t find your important page, click the View Full Report link and sort via the Page column which is really the URL of the page.

You’ll see the traffic data for the page in question. Here’s what you should keep an eye on:

Pageviews: how many times your page was viewed

Unique Views: out of the number of Pageviews, how many were seen by the same users during the same session.

Time on Page: the average length of time a user was at your page

Bounce Rate: the percentage of visits to the page which resulted in the person leaving your site.

% Exit: the percent of exits from your site from this one page.

What’s the take-away from all of that? The number of Pageviews is one thing, but Unique Views can help you see if there lots of repeat visits to the page by the same users. Time on Page would help you see if a user is sticking around and reading a lot of data, watching a video, etc. But if your Bounce Rate is high, it’s possible folks read your content and moved past it and the site. Not necessarily bad, if they left your site and acted upon your info, though. But if your % Exit rate is high, you might consider changing up things to keep the user in your site, such as a link to more info or form to request more info.

A note to our clients

We’ve been transitioning new projects and sites to Google Analytics this year with good results. Existing sites can be moved to the tool with minimal fuss; please contact us to discuss the process. We think you’ll enjoy viewing and acting on your website’s traffic.

UPDATE: As of Jan. 20, Congress is backing away from the bills and postponing action.

You’ve heard about SOPA and PIPA, the two pieces of legislation aiming to stop online piracy of copyrighted material, and the accompanying protests. But let’s distill it even more, as this is a controversial enough topic we all need to consider.

To make things simple, let’s attack it with the 5 W’s we learned in school, and we’ll certainly leave you to dig even deeper if you like.

Who?

As NPR reported, the battle is basically Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. You have the media conglomerates (movies, music, media lobbyists, etc.) on one side wanting to stop the online piracy of their content. The other side, you have the vocal opposition of many Internet users and those who rely on it for their own jobs, including Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox and LinkedIn.

What?

While SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act – PDF) gets the majority of coverage, there’s also PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act – PDF). SOPA originated in the House of Representatives, while PIPA is the Senate version. Both seek to add powers to respond to copyright infringements across the Net. The New York Times reports that some methods could include preventing search engines from sending users to sites with questionable content, as well as interacting with payment tools/sites like PayPal to stop the transfer of money for possible pirated media.

When?

Reports show that the Senate could begin voting on PIPA on Jan. 24. However, protests were hitting a feverish pitch starting Jan. 18, with many big-name websites (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) going dark in protest, as well as explaining the issues and requesting their visitors to take action.

Where?

While the two bills have originated in the U.S. Congress, their reach could extend even farther. The Internet being so decentralized will lead to so many problems as to searching for possible infringements, you might see foreign websites, hosts, ISPs and the like stuck in such a legal morass. Let’s say a user in Ireland posts an infringed movie file from a California movie company to a website hosted in Israel – it’s likely both groups will be pulled into the fight with the studio. How do you get all the groups, with their separate legal issues, to comply with one another?

Why?

At the heart of the matter is a fight against online piracy of copyright infringed works. I don’t think people want to have free or vastly cheap access to songs, movies, TV shows, etc., but the too broad, too powerful laws are irking many. There is talk of these laws having an adverse effect on free speech rights and the integrity/security of the technology that “powers” the Internet.

I want to know more!

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21380/SOPAPIPA-blackout (Disclaimer: I’m a paying member of this website, but this post goes into a very detailed account of a SOPA-like request to shut down a site due to alleged copyright infringement.)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/copyrights/index.html?smid=tw-nytimes (Once again, the Times has a great overview on a large topic, with multiple links and details.)

http://www.vice.com/read/pipa-supporters-copyright-violations (Some of the SOPA and PIPA legislators are in fact using copyrighted works without request/permission.)

http://theoatmeal.com/ (The animation takes a humorous look as to how SOPA might shut his website down. It might be crude, but the points are valid. Note: the animation might not be safe for work.)

I’m a huge fan of maps and their graphical display of any topic. With Google’s mapping technology as just one of many options, there’s a huge selection of data being presented on top of base geographic information. Here are some of the best ones I’ve found lately.

Ship-ment tracking

It’s one thing to see where your UPS package is located, but how about tracking an entire cargo ship? You can use the Live Ship Map at MarineTraffic.com to see what’s currently sailing and any associated data with that vessel. For instance, you can follow this link to see what’s sailing near New Orleans. Click any vessel to bring up data such as name, speed and photos of the ship.

Hurricane help

As of this writing, there are no active hurricanes near the nation, but the Google Crisis Map was a boon to recent weather events like Irene and Lee. It allowed users to overlay possible tracks as well as current storm location. Other information included shelter details for storm victims and power outtages. Here’s hoping we don’t see this map receive any new storms to track.

Which state has the most football fans?

Not one map per se, but the New York Times takes a look at how states break down among college football popularity. Part of their article looks at Google’s own search data, via their Insights tool. From Insights, you can see which state is searching the most for college football-related info, and you can go as deep as to seeing that within the Jackson, Miss., area, Brandon is searching the most.

Comings and goings

Using migration data from 2007, this map provides users a graphical look as to where people are going from Country X or where they came from in the first place. Following this link you can see where Americans have been emigrating.

This conversation happened Friday night, while waiting for a table at Mug Shots in Flowood, Miss. Apologies to my wife in advance!

Dinner Discussion

“So what’s this I keep hearing about that new thing … Google+?” my wife asked before supper.

“It’s their Facebook killer,” I said. “They’re looking to move people away. Think I saw where some 20 million have created member accounts in the last two weeks or so.”

“But what makes it different?” my Facebook-loving wife asked. “Why would I want to move away from Facebook?”

“It’s all about the Circles, baby. It’s all about the Circles.”

Circle of Life

“See, their Circles allow me to group and organize folks,” I said. “I can put some people over here, and some folks over there. Maybe I only want to read what my closest and local friends say, not what some others say. I can use Circles to break those groups of people up.”

My wife then asked, “So I could have one Circle of friends and one for co-workers, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “And you can set it up so that what you say to one Circle isn’t directly seen by the other.”

“Well, that’s cool. What else does it have?”

Group Think

I said, “The Hangout function is cool. You can start a Hangout, invite folks into it, and it can become your little private chat room of sorts. But in addition to text chatting, you can do video chatting at the same time. You can also share and watch YouTube videos at the same time, but I don’t see the use of that so much.

“Facebook of all things added their own Skype-powered video chat about a week after Google+ was launched, but for now it’s just one-on-one video,” I said. “And they’ve had a text chat mechanism in place for a while now, but that’s just been one-on-one.”

Sparks

“You also get the Sparks feature,” I said. “That gives you hints and suggestions as to themes and topics they think you might want to follow and read more about. Like sports, movies, entertainment and such. But for now, it’s just a series of headlines from all over, such as a more restricted Google New feed or RSS feed.”

Brands and Businesses on G+

“However, one thing that’s an issue is that brands, companies, businesses and things like that can’t be on Google+,” I said. “At least not yet. So far, I’ve seen two branded accounts disappear: Thinkgeek and the Atlantic’s In Focus photo blog. Google said from the start that their tool was for personal use only, and they’d shut down any other accounts that infringed on that.

“But there are rumors that Google is letting branded entities sign up for a possible version or implementation of the G+ system. Now how that will work or be implemented with the millions of existing personal accounts, only Google knows.”

Additional reading

I’ve put together a list below of a variety of Google+-related notes, critiques and the like.

Mashable has an in-depth Google+ 101 walk-through

New York Times’ tech journalist David Pogue provides his own take on Google+ vs. Facebook

Mississippi blogger Knol Aust delves into the Circles settings

Infographic of Facebook’s features vs. Google+’s

In the meantime, follow U.S. NetworX’s Twitter account for more real-user feedback while we put Google+ through real-world use.

New research from Outbrain, a content recommendation service and tool provider, shows that maybe we shouldn’t be trading in search engines for social media platforms. At least not just yet.

As reported by Search Engine Land, the report showed that out of 100 million visits to connected sites, 41 percent fell in the search category as the method they used to arrive to a site. In addition, the top three traffic sources were non-social media tools.

In another bit of research, Outbrain investigated the average number of page views per session – basically, once the user was there, did they click around the site? Visitors who arrived by a search mechanism clicked around more, while social media visitors tied for last place.

You can view Outbrain’s original report by clicking here.

So what does this mean?

I wouldn’t toss out search engines in favor of social media placement if you are looking to promote your site and your message. Simply put, folks are still using Google and the like to find the information, despite the current hype social media tools are garnering. As financial experts say, “diversify.” Social media might be growing, but there’s still a large audience of potential visitors who are going to want to use Google and co. to find you, and once they’re there, they want to stay.

Gather ’round, kids. Here’s some interesting things I’ve come across in the shortest month of the year.

Did Google catch Bing’s hand in the cookie jar?

Earlier this month, Google posted on their blog about what they charge Bing doing: surreptitiously taking Google search results and branding them as their own. Reading through their blog, it’s an interesting experiment as to how Google created nonsensical search results and let staffers search for those “loaded” terms. Within time, the fake search results (nonsense terms that lead to even crazier results) were finding their way to Bing. Google alleges that there looks to be some sort of connection of either Internet Explorer 8 or the Bing Toolbar that is taking Google search results and forwarding them to Bing for use.

Universities reaching out to social media for student retention

Colleges are looking at social media tools, including customized Facebook apps, to help stymie an up to 40 percent loss of students after the freshman year. NPR reports that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (yes, that Bill Gates) are investing $2 million in Inigral for the work.

Design commentary for single-page websites

You’ve seen them before – single page sites, sometimes called single-serving sites. This SitePoint article looks at some of the better designed ones, and what makes them “work.”

Got a question? There’s a site for that

The New York Times delves into a new batch of question-answer websites that are giving existing Q/A sites a challenge. They report that sites like Quora, Stack Exchange and VYou are working to dethrone other sites, like WikiAnswers and Yahoo Answers. As a disclaimer of sorts, I’ve used (and had much success) with Ask MetaFilter for crowd-sourced help.

It’s all about the content, baby

And now for something completely different. Two cartoons have caught my eye that delve into the difference in what site owners want vs. what the end-user/public wants. The Oatmeal beats up on restaurant websites, while XKCD thrashes college sites.

‘I don’t want to be known for THAT!’

We’re a few days post-election, but this is still a good read about how political candidates and companies are paying SEO and online marketing companies to basically bury negative content. However, I don’t agree with the line that search optimization is a $2 billion industry; I’d think it’d be much higher than that.

What’s really needed in your email signature file?

I have to admit this article cracked me up on the train to New Orleans last month. I get a lot of emails, and the blessing (or curse) of that is that I get to look at a plethora of signature files. (You know, the phone-fax-email-address-blood type-website-Facebook-religious quote data folks automatically add to their email.) Check out the author’s example of how a James Bond villain would best use a signature file.

Three CMSs enter, one CMS leaves

Author Tim Stiffler-Dean reviews three of the most popular content management systems: WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. While there’s no clear-cut winner of “which is the best to use” Stiffler-Dean analyzes all three and provides a series of pros-cons.

Note: This section’s headline is an allusion to a quote from “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”

We can’t be serious all the time

Just in time for the holidays, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a smart phone to replace my brick of a phone. The big battle is the Apple iPhone vs. the Google-powered Android phones…with Microsoft way down the list. This FoxTrot cartoon from Bill Amend puts the smart phone wars in perspective: why not combine the two to cut down on gripes!

And just as I was writing this blog post, a Twitter buddy of mine showed me this cartoon: how iPhone, Android and Blackberry users see themselves and how they view others.

Gone are the days of being stuck with your Internet browser being locked down into a default set of tools. Welcome to today’s browsers that can allow plugins or add-ons customized for a variety of uses – run searches, view the weather, read documents without closing the window or going to a new site, and much more.

The following are a list of some of our favorites and why you might like them.

Firefox add-ons

FireFTP – FTP powers right there in your browser

FireShot – take screenshots of a website (or maybe just a piece of it)

Adblock Plus – Does what it says on the box: blocks ads, banners and more

Weatherbug – View your weather info in a quick glance, rather than visiting a stand-alone website

PDF Download – Robust tool for handling PDFs rather than separate programs like Adobe’s Reader

Fox Splitter – View multiple sites, or parts of sites, in just one browser window

Aging Tabs – older and unused tabs fade out, which is great if you have lots of tabs open

Google’s Chrome extensions

AdThwart – more ad-blocking powers

ChromeSEO – provides search engine optimization stats and tools

Vitzo WHOIS – run WHOIS domain name searches while in the browser window

February saw Google launching its Buzz system – the Gmail-attached message and sharing tool. After a few months of steady use in a very unscientific manner (read: my friends and I trading pictures, links, jokes and discussions), here’s a list of what works and what doesn’t.

I know it’s still young and has faced some external battles over privacy and access, but Buzz is shaping up to be better than Google’s earlier Wave tool. I’m considering Buzz to be the Diet Coke of Wave: a similar batch of tools, but fewer calories and issues.

So let’s see how Buzz is doing in real-life use.

The bees’ knees

• Unlike Wave’s invite-only access, all you need is a Gmail account to use Buzz. Voila, a much larger user base.
• Accessed via a mobile device, you can view Google Maps with a new Buzz layer, so you can plot out Buzzers. For fun, move the map to Midtown New York City and watch the Buzzes fly. (Take THAT, rural Rankin County, Mississippi.)
• Supposedly there is a mechanism in place for Buzz to recommend interesting posts, but I’ve yet to notice one. Maybe I’m just not interesting enough, eh, Google? However, I rarely start a Buzz but will comment on others. Maybe the Buzzes you start are somewhat weighted?
• The integration into your Gmail inbox is a one-stop shopping experience, and is making me consider making Gmail my home page of sorts.

Oh, buzz off

• Personal information and privacy remain the largest issue. Some say how Google was attaching it to public profiles, it could let the public basically see your conversations with other users. Later on, Google stepped in and added permissions and the like to control access.
• If you didn’t create the Buzz, your replies can only be text and links. So if the Buzz starter posted a great pic, your follow-up image can’t be inline – you’ll have to post a URL instead.
• Email notifications had been a touchy issue. When Buzz came out, the default method was to send an email alert for each comment that was made in a Buzz you were a member. So if you were in a large and active thread, your Gmail account would be full. The original work-around was using a filter to hide or even delete the notices. But Google quickly stepped in and added new settings in Buzz to allow or disallow email notification. (Personally, I don’t mind the email notices and I’ve kept mine on.)
• Buzz can let you connect other sites and social media platforms to your Buzzes. Meaning, what I post on my blog, Flickr, Twitter, etc. can show up in my Buzzes. Great, you might think. But like me, you’re cross-pollinating: I have Twitter followers in Buzz, so I get a double dose of whatever they post. Unless your buddy disconnects their Twitter feed from Buzz, your only recourse is to ignore or unfollow.

So where does that leave us? Where are Google and Buzz going? Good question. Facebook and yes even MySpace have the same functions. Is it a trial run for Google for a Twitter Killer, but with a much more powerful advertising and revenue-generating model?

(Read last week’s article on the Chrome browser by clicking here.)

Unlike Chrome, Wave certainly has its short-comings. Yeah, I know it’s still by invite only, and Google has slapped some big notices how it’s a preview version and not even in beta testing. In other words, like old maps show, “Here be monsters!”

The gist of Wave is Google trying to make an online tool for communication and collaboration, with some fancy widgets built in. Think of it like a chat room on a bad batch of steroids.

I received an early invite to the system and have spent some time in it with friends kicking the tires. The result? It’s got growing pains, but shows some potential. Socially, I prefer Twitter to keep in touch with friends. Wave, however, is more of a big chat room. You create “Waves” that you can think of like a topic. In that wave, you invite from your contact list folks you want to participate with. Inside that wave, you can post messages, upload files, add images, even little games and poll questions.

Here’s an example: let’s say I want to organize a dinner party with friends. I create a wave, give it a name/short post (“Let’s have supper before the holidays get here”), and add participants to it via my contacts list. Within that wave, I can start suggesting dates, time, location, etc. At any time, my contacts can reply with their own comments, via text, images, links and such. We can also input widgets like a polling question (“Will you bring a covered dish? Yes – No – Maybe”).

After a couple months of usage, though, Wave to me is not the end-all, be-all email or chat/message board killer some are making it out to be. The big gripe is the invitation-based method currently in use. If I can only Wave with folks who have accounts right now, what about other friends and family? In addition, it still is buggy and slow in use, even when I use Google’s own Chrome browser to use it.

Short answer: Neat idea, but much left to be desired. Now, Wave goodbye.