Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

Of all the additions to Google Analytics within the past 12 months, none have made waves with analytics professionals more than the segmentation tool.  Obviously, this provides a million different ways for users to slice up data, but for beginners (and I run into this regularly) all of the possibilities can be confusing.  So now that you can create all of these segments, what are some practical ways to use segments?

One of the first things I point out to people is the ability to understand user intent.  What do people want when they come to your site, and how well are you connecting with them?  This is good information to know, and segments can give you some great information in this regard.  I will use the Netvantage site as an example.

We offer three primary services, obviously - SEO, paid search management and web analytics.  We target a variety of terms in each category from an SEO standpoint, and with that comes an assortment of long tail terms as well.  Our paid search management page will bring in traffic for terms like “paid search management“, “ppc michigan”, etc.  All of these terms imply a basic need for paid search management and it’s valuable for us to know if our landing page is engagin our visitors.  So here’s what we do in such a situation.

As you can see above, I’ve added three variations of terms that land on our paid search page.  This segment will cover all users who have landed on our site from a search containing the terms “paid search”, “ppc” and “adwords”.

Applying this segment will allow me to look at these users from an aggregate as well as a refined level with ease.  At the highest level I can look at the segment’s overall bounce rate and begin identifying if there is room for improvement.  If so, I can look at the keyword report and start breaking it down further to individual keywords and see if there are issues between sub segments - which may require me creating new segments.  If at first glance of the keyword report I notice that Adwords related keywords are underperforming, I may break that segment out individually and compare it to the other subsegments.

In the case that we have poorly performing visits for Adwords related terms, then it would make sense to start experimenting with the page to speak more directly to users who may not be familiar with terminology like “PPC” and “paid search” (a distinct possiblity).  Again, these people have the same intent (a need for our services!) but we may not be addressing them correctly.  Using Analytics, however, can help us uncover these missed opportunities and push more users through the conversion funnel.

Okay, there are a million paid tools and services out there supplying a dizzying array of SEO data to help your efforts and fill you in on the competition.  Truth be told, not everyone needs that or can afford it, particularly in this economy.  So in the spirit of running a lean, mean organization (hey, I have one of those…) I figured I’d start a series of tips that anyone can use for free to assist in their SEO efforts - thus, ‘SEO on a Nickel’.  ‘SEO on a Dime’ might sound more catchy…but it also sounds twice as expensive.

This one’s largely explained via video screen capture and uses only three things:

• Google (perhaps you’ve heard of it)
• Yahoo Site Explorer
• SEOQuake

Beyond that, all you need is a computer and an internet connection to start gathering competitive information on what content your competitors have that’s attracting links, or what tactics they’re using.  Enjoy.

Since I’ve been doing some video work lately, I figured it would be time to come back with another installment of the ever popular (at least by Google Analytics standards) HTMYVTDS series. The topic of today’s ridiculously acronymed segment? Post production. Thus far we’ve covered lighting, audio recording and framing, so once you’ve gotten those topics down, the last item to tackle is post production. There are some basic fundamentals that you’ll want to know as you begin any editing project, as it can be very easy to make editing mistakes that can ruin an otherwise worthy production.

• Jump cuts. Jump cuts are bad. Very bad. And nothing will make your video look more amateur than jump cuts. What are jump cuts, you ask?  Jump cuts are when a stationary camera cuts to the same shot with the subject(s) at a slightly different location.  Imagine if you cut out random sentences when someone was talking.  Their position would change and they would appear to twitch or “jump” around the screen.  This looks bad.  Very bad.  To avoid this, you can shoot with more than one camera and cut between them.  When this isn’t an option, it can help to change your camera shots frequently between tighter and looser shots.  This can provide the appearance of multiple cameras.Here’s a pretty good video covering these topics…although the guy is admittedly a bit weird, his points are nonetheless valid:

• Since that’s not always an option either, the best editing solution can be dip to color edits, or using b-roll.  If you have footage that covers the topic of conversation that you can briefly cut away to when the subject is talking, this works well, and is often what’s done in TV news.  When that’s not an option a simple dip to color dissolve of 1 second or less will give the viewer the impression of a change in time, but not jar them visually.  We do this regularly when we cut up talking head videos.
• Fix your audio.  Yes, you may have mic’d and mixed your footage well, but the very nature of the human voice will require you to do some fixing 99% of the time if you want quality audio.  Whether it’s the movement of the person or the peaks and valleys of their intensity, the audio will fluctuate, and it’s your job to even things out in editing to avoid highs becoming distortion and lows becoming inaudible.  Find a happy medium level that exports well and try to minimize the peaks and valleys where necessary.  I find that -6db works well as a midpoint for my work in Final Cut Pro.Music beds.  Be careful with them.  I know YOU may like the tune you have under the subject, but unless it’s more important than what they’re talking about, keep it to a dull roar.  -20 or less is probably safe, but give it a few listens to make sure you’re not muddying up the audio of a speaker.  For intro and outro music, make sure you drop to these levels while someone is talking and gently fade in and out.  Don’t be afraid to extend out those fades either.  Often the pre packaged transsitions are only one or two seconds, which is an awfully fast rise or fall in volume.  Stretch it out to 4 seconds or beyond for a nice smooth intro and outro.
• LAY OFF THE  CRAZY EFFECTS.  I know your fancy new editing program can do spins, slides and wipes and page peels and I’m sure your mother will be impressed.  But nothing will make a good production look worse than overdoing it with cheesy effects.  Quick question.  When was the last time you saw someone use one of the aforementioned effects in a movie?  A TV show?  Any professional video production?  Rarely to never.  Stick with the basics - cuts and dissolves (and don’t overdo these, either!)  Simpsons fans may remember Homer’s fascination with the star wipe, and you will also know that his producing career fizzled rather quickly.

Don't pull a Homer

Between adding new employees at Netvantage and the growing number of presentations and speaking engagements I end up doing, I’ve found myself referring people to a lot of tried and true resources.  So today I figured I’d share a handful of resources for SEO newbies.  These are all pretty straightforward, highly actionable, and written in non-SEO speak for the most part.  Hopefully you’ll find some valuable elements here to bookmark:

15 minute SEO.  This has been around for a long while, and for the most part, it’s pretty accurate.  I love starting people with this when they’re just getting started because it really only takes 15 minutes and it does a pretty good job of covering a lot of ground of SEO basics.

Hobo’s DIY SEO Guide.  At one point I actually thought long and hard about creating my own SEO guide, and then I read Shaun’s at Hobo SEO and I realized he had it pretty well covered.  How do you know their kung fu is good?  Matt Cutts gave their new SEO book a Sphinn…high praise indeed.

The Internet Marketing Handbook.  I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE SEOMoz, and if you ever get me going on their tools I’ll probably talk your ear off.  Even if you don’t have a membership, there’s an IMMENSE amount of information to be had in this guide, and you can pick and choose which path you’d like to follow to learn more.  Not only that, but there are also a handful of awesome tools you can use as well.

Over lunch the other day, my current favorite person in the world (our intern Brad) had to listen to me mulling over some options for my next blog.  I wasn’t all that happy with any of the things that had popped into my head, and he tossed out one that he had used earlier that day for a client of ours - existing resources.

Existing resources?  What do I mean by that?  Well, in a sense, I mean see what you have buried in your corporate closet.

Every business or organization has advertising materials, pictures, white papers, presentations, and more that have built up over the years and all of these things can be used for links in some way, shape, form or fashion.

• Have images?  Create a profile on a photo sharing site - add your images and make sure you add your link.
• Have some white papers?  Find sites that publish white papers for your industry or niche, and make sure you add a link.
• Do regular powerpoint presentations?  There are sites where you can create a profile, upload and share these as well.

In short, if it’s in digital format, there are probably places to share them.  Doing a quick inventory of what types of marketing materials and informative pieces you have lying around can be a quick and easy way to produce some links.