Search Behavioral Targeting

Microsoft and Google both have plans for using users past search behavior to provide tailored search results, practice commonly known as Behavioral Targeting. While companies like Revenue Science and Tacoda (now part of AOL) use users web surfing behavior on the internet to determine what users are interested in and server Relevant Ads, search giants are using the past search queries and click though activity to determine users intent and show them relevant search results (organic and paid ads).

As these practices become more prevalent no two users will see the same results on search engine results page for same queries, some of this is already happening. In future even the same user might see her results change from one day to another based on what he/she searched and clicked on between those two days.

An example of how search behavioral targeting might work A user looks for hotels in Bahamas and then search for Scuba Diving lessons the next day, she might see the search results (organic and paid) that combine both the queries to show her Scuba Diving Lessons in Bahamas. Yet another day she decides to search for Jamaica. Guess what? Her organic and paid results might show her Hotels, Airfares (though she never searched for it) for Jamaica and maybe Bahamas or even some other Caribbean destination. She might also get results for local Scuba Diving lessons. So why will the search engine showing all these results when user never explicitly searched for them? Search engine is trying to determine user’s intent based on what user searched for and then show the customized results based on the intent. In this case the user’s intent is clear; she is looking to go somewhere, most likely in Caribbean. Since she is searching from a geo location other than Caribbean, she might need flight and hence airfare might be shown. She has already indicated she needs Hotel and is looking for Scuba diving lessons so her search results are related to those keywords as well. Once the intent is determined search engine can show can show customized results for a particular user. As the user searches more her intent become even clearer and the possibilities of how search results can be customized for this user are endless.

Last July Google started using immediate search queries to show targeted paid search results. Google is now expanding the time frame that it uses to look for search queries. Here is what NYTimes.com reported on Google’s plan:

Nick Fox, a director of product management who looks after ads on Google’s search site, said the company was now testing the use of more search queries in its ad targeting. He did not describe how it was doing that. But Internet experts said that it was most likely using its cookies.
Mr. Fox said that Google’s approach was different from what Yahoo, AOL and others call behavioral targeting. Those companies look at what a user did a few days earlier to show them ads about the same topic today. Google says it believes that search engine advertising is most effective if it relates to what the user has most recently searched for.
“We are trying to understand what the user is trying to do right now,” Mr. Fox said. “In some cases, those queries are ambiguous, so you need a little more context.”
Google’s previous system of looking at a user’s immediate past query was not useful enough, he said. “It is probably not just the previous query that matters,” Mr. Fox said. “You want to know if the user is still doing the same thing. You wouldn’t want to go back a month. You wouldn’t want to go back a day. But you may want to go back two or three queries.”

Microsoft plans to take it one step further and expand the “behavioral targeting” to the organic search results. Here what is what CNET reported:

Specifically, the company believes examining a full sequence of user queries can lead to more useful results. Today, the company only keeps track of the immediately prior search, but often users use search engines to explore subject areas broadly, said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group, at the Search Engine Strategies conference.
“I believe this notion of understanding user intent–being able to analyze (search queries) and come up with search patterns and use them to shape the search experience–is one of the most important areas for us,” Nadella said.

Recently Behavioral Targeting has been under a lot of fire from privacy advocates and lawmakers. It will be interesting to see how privacy police reacts to search behavioral targeting. Though Behavioral Targeting from Revenue Science is anonymous, Search Behavioral Targeting is based on user provided information (search keyword), which can easily be tied to PII information.

I have always advocated an opt-in model for Behavioral Targeting, a system where users give their consent to be tracked and have an easy option to turn the tracking on or off. I believe that Search behavioral targeting makes it even more desirable to have an opt-in model.

Comments? Questions?

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Goal Attribution to Organic Keywords – Google Analytics Tips and Tricks

In April I wrote a blog post to show you why some of your keywords show 0 Visits and 0 page views in your Google Analytics Report. In this post I am going to show the attribution of goal to the search engine keywords, when a user searches multiple keywords on the search engines to visit your site (all within the same session) and converts from one of the keywords.

Note: The past post and this one are both based on the Organics keywords searches and clicks.

I conducted two following two experiments

1. Converted on the Last Keyword
   1. Searched “1 page no register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com/ , viewed one page and existed the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   2. Searched “2 pages no register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com, viewed 2 pages and then exited the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   3. Searched “4 pages register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , registered on the site (converted, Goal 1), viewed total of 4 pages and then exited the site by closing the browser
   4. All of the above was done within 30 minutes and using the same browser session

   Visit and Page View Attribution

   As you can see my visit resulted in 3 keywords, total of 7 page views and 1 visit (visit time out is 30 mins and all of it was done in 30 minutes). As I showed you in the last post, 1 page view is shown and attributed to 1st keyword. The other keywords do not get visits or page views attribution (Figure 1). The total pages are accounted and counted in the keyword report even though 6 pages were not attributed to any particular keyword (Figure 2)

   
   Figure 1 (click on the image to enlarge it)

   
   Figure 2 (click on the image to enlarge it)

   Goal Attribution

   In this scenario, the Goal is attributed to overall search engine keywords but not to any particular keyword.

   
   Figure 3 (click on the image to enlarge it)

2. Converted on the First Keyword
   1. Searched “SeattleIndian 4 pages register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , viewed 4 pages, registered on the site (converted, Goal 1) and then exited the site by typing in Google.com in the browser address bar
   2. Searched “SeattleIndian 3 pages no register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com, viewed 3 pages and then exited the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   3. Searched “SeattleIndian 1 pages no register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , viewed 1 page and then existed the site by closing the browser
   4. All of the above was done within 30 minutes and using the same browser session

   Visit and Page View Attribution

   In this case I converted (Goal 1) when I arrived via the first keyword. When I look at the Site Usage of keywords, the first keywords is credited with 1 visit and 4 pages, the other two keywords did not get any credit of the visit or the pages that were viewed as a result of click on those keywords. So the 3 pages are not attributed to any keyword. This is what I showed in my last post.

   
   Figure 4 (click on the image to enlarge it)

   
   Figure 5 (click on the image to enlarge it)

   Goal Attribution

   In this scenario when the conversion happens from the first keyword, the goal is properly attributed to that keyword.

Conclusion

When a user searches multiple keywords to arrive to the site,

1. The visit is attributed to the first keyword only
2. The page views directly related to the first keyword are attributed to that keyword and other keywords show 0 visit and 0 page views
3. Total page views from all the keywords are counted in the overall keyword report
4. If the conversion happens as a result of the first keyword then it is attributed to that keyword
5. If the conversion happens as a result of any of the keyword other than the first one, then the conversion is not attributed to any of the keywords
6. The conversion from any keyword is counted in the overall keyword report

What’s next? I will be testing how attribution works when a user clicks both Organic (SEO) and Paid PPC (search result) within the same visit.

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Google Trends for Websites

Google has released a new tool called Google Trends for Websites to compete with the likes of Alexa, Compete, Hitwise, Comscore Nielsen Net Ratings. This is exactly what I predicted in my blog post on April, Friday the 13th, 2007. I wrote, “Another effect of the widespread code of Google could be the death of companies like Alexa, Compete, Comscore etc. Google can provide the internet usage data that won’t be based on a sample of those who participate (voluntarily or by installing some kind of application such as a toolbar) but on the Google cookies which will be on almost every single computer connected to the internet.”

I also said, “However, this business might not be so lucrative for them. Why would they want to let others know how people use internet when they can use it to make it Googlenet (formerly known as internet) or GWW – Google Wide Web (formerly know as World Wide Web).” I think this business might not make them money but will help them dominate Word Wide Web and make it Google Wide Web.”

So how does Google Trends for Websites work?

Google Trends for Websites allow you to trend and compare number of daily unique visitors for up to 5 sites.

Below is a screen shot of Google Trends for Websites. I compared Walmart.com with Amazon.com.

Source: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=walmart.com%2C+amazon.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

You can see daily visitors on the graph and a list of

1. regions where visitors originated from
2. Other websites that they have also visited. The list shows a correlation between different sites.
3. search terms they have also searched for. The list shows a correlation between different sites

You can breakdown the data by region and time frame.

It combines data from variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. Remember, a while back Google asked you to opt-into data sharing in Google Analytics, this is one place where your data is being used.

Are all Sites Included in this tool?

No, at this time not all the sites are included in Google Trends for Websites. Here is why certain sites may not be included

• Websites with low traffic volume below certain threshold
• Websites that don’t wish to be indexed by Google and have indicated their preference through a robots.txt exclusion file
• Websites that don’t adhere to Google Quality Guidelines
• Other websites for miscellaneous reasons

Just like other similar service (Compete, Alexa, Comscore etc.), Google Trends numbers won’t match the number you will see with your web analytics tool. However, considering the number of sources that Google can potentially collect and aggregate data from, in future this might provide the best approximation, totally outdoing other competing tools.

What’s next?

1. Integration of Google Trends with Google Analytics, so that you can get competitive information in one place.
2. A service for website owners to collect “Voice of Customer” data – surveys, opinions etc. (Watch out OpinionLab, you are next) This service will enhance Google Services such as Search (page rank algorithm), Google Trends and Google Analytics.

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Google Collecting Data on 3rd Party Sites to Target Ads on Google.com?

Is Google collecting data on the 3rd party sites to target Ads on Google.com? A user called “Discovery” on Search Engine Watch Forums reported that Google showed targeted ads (sponsored search results) on Google.com based on this user’s behavior on 3rd party sites (Fry’s, Circuit City, HP.com and Best Buy).

Here is what “Discovery” wrote:

“As far as I knew Google’s PPC was strictly KW search based, then an odd thing happened yesterday.

Without going to Google I had visited Fry’s, Circuit City, HP.com and Best Buy looking for a PC for a family member. After some research on these sites I decided I wanted to look at some comparison engines. I opened up a new browser window and went to Google, I did a search for “Comparison engines”.

My results were very interesting.

Instead of a generic list of comparison engines touting to find the best prices for all products all the advertisements were related to PCs! Specifically HP PC’s! I had not done a search on Google at any time for PCs, or on their shopping site.

Is Google using behavioral targeting already? I had heard there were announcements that this would happen with the acquisition of DoubleClick, but I have had no notice that it was in practice?

If it is being tested, how does this type of advertising effect the KW advertisements that are competing with it?”

So the question is “Is Google doing Behavioral Targeting on Search results using visitors behavior off the search engine?”

I have written quite few blog posts on this topic and have always believed that Google will get into Behavioral Targeting sooner or later.

It started “in-session” behavioral targeting on the Google search engine, which uses a user previous search query and combines with current query (both in same session) to provide sponsored results on the SERP (search engine results page).

This person noticed that Google was using more than search data to target sponsored results on Google SERP. The kind of behavioral targeting that this person is talking about can only happen if:

1. Companies such as Best Buy, Fry’s, etc share their data with Google and allow Google to tie the users behavioral data collected on their site with other data that Google collects about those users (using a common cookie or some other common identifier).
   For this kind of data sharing to happen, Google (or Doubleclick) code has to be implemented on the pages (or servers) on those sites. I did not find any code, but it is possible that the code is there because if these sites are doing online advertising using Doubleclick then they must be putting the code to measure the success of these online ads. However, I highly doubt that they will let Google (Doubleclick) use the data collected on their site to power Google Search results unless Google is using the data to put their ad in front of users. Think about this. Why would Best Buy allow Google to use its data and allow it to show Circuit City’s or some other competitor ad?
2. Google collects this data via a toolbar or some other application that tracks user across the sites and on search engines.
   This sounds like an option that might have been used to collect data, if Google really did do Behavioral Targeting. I am not sure if the user had a Google Toolbar installed. If the user did have a Google Toolbar, then Google could collect the data (and it does) and can use it anyway (debatable) (as long as they state so in their privacy policy). In this case, Google does not need to seek permission from Best Buy or Circuit City, because user, by installing the toolbar (and accepting the terms), is giving permission to Google to collect the data.

This brings up few more questions.

• Who owns the data? It is up for debate.
• Is it fair to Best Buy or Circuit City or any other site owners? That is a question that needs a bigger discussion.
• Does Google has power and scale to collect data across sites and do targeting? Absolutely.

Comments?

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Should you be paying for the clicks on your brand keywords?

When you do a search on your brand name or your company name, chances are that you will have you company’s site listed as the top organic result. If it is not then you should first learn about Search Engine Optimization before reading this post (email me and I can help you with all your SEO/SEM needs).
It is also very likely that there won’t be any paid listing on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) when you do a search on your own brand name.
If you do buy paid search listing, it is going to appear just above you’re your own organic listing. Is it a good idea to buy the paid listing and pay the money to Search engine for something you could have got for free (next listing after paid is also yours)? And visitor by searching on your brand name has shown their intent of visiting your site.
If you use an agency, I am sure that your agency is already buying your brand keywords and showing you how good your conversion is on your aggregate keyword buy. Well if a consumer is already looking for your brand name then their intent is very clear, they are ready to be converted. A lot of users use brand keyword in search to get to a particular site, they use built in search functionality in their toolbars (Google, yahoo, msn etc) which then takes them to SERP of the toolbar provider. If a user is looking for your site and you know you will be number 1 in the SERP, does it make sense to buy a keyword? Isn’t it unnecessary? Won’t you be wasting your money?
Some might argue that buying that keyword reinforces your brand name and your site in visitors mind and hence you will result in more click-through, visitors, conversion and ROI. But how can you be sure? That’s exactly what I am going to show you in this article.
The first and foremost thing is to understand what value you are getting from your search marketing efforts, paid and organic. Once you understand the complete impact of both types of Search Marketing efforts you will be able to make an informed decision. A decision that will be based on your ultimate business goals e.g. increase site traffic, increase conversion, increase ROI or a combination.
Here is my 5 step process to determine if you should buy Paid Search on your brand name keyword or not.

1. Configure Web Analytics Tool: The first step is to configure your web analytics tool so that it can measure and report on the traffic for your brand keywords in 3 separate segments, paid, non-paid and total,. Below is a screen shot from Google Analytics showing paid, non-paid and total for a particular keyword. (I will not cover how to configure your tool since they all have different configuration. I will be able to help you if you email me).
   

2. Develop Baseline: Develop a baseline for total traffic and conversion for the three segments (paid, organic, and paid and organic for your brand keywords). See how much traffic is generated by each segment and how much of that traffic is converting.
3. Test: This is the crucial step in determining if you should buy your brand name keyword or not. If you are not currently running paid ad then this step is much easier than if you already have the paid search running. If you already have the paid search running, you have to be willing to take a chance to do this test. It might not work out in your favor but unless you try it you will never know.
   1. Paid search already running:
      Stop the paid keyword for your Brand Keywords – Stop the keyword for time enough to generate significant traffic and conversion data.
   2. Paid Search Not Currently Running:
      Start the paid search for your Brand Keywords – Start the paid search campaign for time enough to generate significant traffic and conversion data.

4. Report the numbers: Report the new number with your baseline. Putting them side by side will help in easy comparisons (See the example below)
5. Analyze the data: Let’s take a look at an example which will help you with analysis.

Example:
Let’s look a company, whose brand keywords generates on an average of 150 searches. Let’s assume that conversion rate on these keywords is of 50% , cost per click on paid placements in $0.50 and profit margin on each conversion is $3
A typically time period, when you have both Paid search running, results in the following data

Table 1

You get 100 click throughs, 80 from organic and 20 from paid.
* Total Profit on Paid Efforts = (Profit Margin on Conversion * Conversion resulting from Paid Search) – Total Cost of Paid Search. This calculation only uses CPC cost and does not include agency and other direct or indirect cost. Other costs associated with buying, placing and reporting will further add to total cost.
So far, it all looks good, your paid search efforts are paying off and you continue to keep buying your own Brand name keyword.
Now stop running the paid searches.
Now let’s take a look at numbers when you stop running the paid search. Using the same assumptions as above

1. A conversion rate of 50%
2. Cost Per Click of .50 cents
3. Profit Margin on each conversion is $3

Table 2

* Total Profit on Paid Efforts = (Profit Margin on Conversion * Conversion resulting from Paid Search) – Total Cost of Paid Search. This calculation only uses CPC cost and does not include agency and other direct or indirect cost. Other costs associated with buying, placing and reporting will further add to total cost.

Since there is no paid search listing, all of the 100 clicks (assuming same number of clickthoughs) will go to organic. Say now instead of 100 (that you got when you had paid search running) you only get a toal of 96 and rest of the 4 go to your competitor or somebody else who shows up under your brand name in organic listing.

Now we have all the data we need, let’s put them side by side and compare

Table 3

Paid search placements result in a total of 100 (from paid and organic) while only organic results in 96. Your cost per conversion from paid is $1.00 and you are making $20 in profit from your paid search efforts. It all looks good.
Now, let’s take a look at the results in another way.

Table 4
*Assuming you have basic SEO for your brand keywords.
**Cost Per Extra Conversion = Cost for paid search/(Additional conversions you gained by running paid search)
As you see above you only get 2 more and not 10 conversions by participating in paid search.

You only get 2 more conversion by paid listings and not 10 as paid listing report was showing. You got 48 conversions when you stopped paid listings and 50 when you used paid listing. So effectively you paid $10 for 2 more conversions. That is $5 per conversion not $1.00 as you agency might have reported on your paid search listing report.

So in light of this information, here is your profit and loss statement.

As you see above you have a loss of $4.00 instead of a profit of $20 on your paid search efforts on your Brand keywords.

Note that above example in only for illustrations so you have to look at your own number and test them to see if you are making or losing money. As I showed above this issue is really significant on branded keywords but you should apply the same login to your non-branded keywords too and see if you are losing money or making money by participating in paid search.

Please send me an email if you would like the excel sheet for these calculations so that you don’t have to recreate it. Also email me if you would like a PDF version of this post.

Here is an example where, I think, the company is losing money by buying their own brand keyword.

They should probably file a complaint with Google to not sell their brand name to the ToyRMall (listed on the right hand side sponsored listing) and not but their own brand name keyword. Most of the listings on the first page of SERP point to ToysRUs site anyway.

So are you wasting money? Chime in.

Even though I have written about the brand name keyword, you should do this exercise with your top keywords to make sure you are not losing money.

Note: After I had written this post, I found out that Gary and Gary had also written post on this same topic (Thank you Jaimie Scott, for sending me these links).

Web Analytics, SEO and Online Marketing Posts from 2007

I have compiled a list of some of the web analytics posts that I wrote in 2007. In case you missed them or want to read again, here they are:

Web Analytics

• Understanding time spent of site – I have come across this KPI over and over again. Many of my clients want to report it on frequent basis and some even have this as one of their goals for the site. However, I am surprised to find that not many people (not even a lot of web analysts) understand how this metrics is calculated and what this is actually reporting. This post explains what time spent on site or a page means and how it is calculated.
• Referring Domain Demystified – This two part series explains how referring domains are reported by the web analytics tools.
  1. Referring Domains Demystified – Part II
  2. Referring Domains Demystified

• Bounce Rate Demystified – This post answers three questions about bounce rate
  1. What is bounce rate?
  2. What is the industry standard for bounce rate?
  3. What causes high or low bounce rates?

• Are you doing Web Reporting or Web Analytics? – This post clears the confusion between Web Reporting and Web Analytics.
• Books Recommended by Web Analysts – If you are starting a career in web analytics or are already working in this field but are looking for some good reads then this list is for you. Please note that this is not a list of recommended books by me, these are from the analysts I interviewed (except for Competing on Analytics). I have not even read most of these books yet.

Online Marketing

• Targeting Cart Abandonment By Email – This post provides some steps that you should include into your process for using email incentives when you target users who abandon shopping cart on your site.
• What does Website Optimization mean? – Depending on your role in the organization you might have define Optimization which might not be the same as somebody else in a different role. The people responsible for different pieces of website optimization do not understand the complete picture and are locked in their own definition of website optimization. This article explains what optimization means.
• Do you really need a home page? – Home page has long been the focus of attention of most of the marketers. But should it be? This post shows you how you might be missing on a huge opportunity by focusing on just the home page of the site.
• 10 steps for measuring online advertising success – This post shows my 10 steps process for measuring the online advertising success, nothing fancy, a simple straight forward process that will improve your bottom line.

SEO

• Relying too much on SEO? Think Again. – A lot marketers are getting too obsessed with traffic driven to their sites from Google, Yahoo, Live (MSN), ASK etc without thinking about the consequences of dropping off from search engines rankings. I understand that it is relatively cheaper (notice I did not say Free) than paid inclusions, banner ads, affiliates etc. And ranking high on search engine is something to be happy about and proud of, ranking high on search engines provides you competitive advantage. But Free comes with risks.
• Follow the Search – Search is a powerful (relatively free) way to generate site traffic. However it also results in huge bounce rate, this article talk about a simple way to engage these users and decrease the bounce rate which increasing the conversion.

Relying too much on SEO? Think Again.

I usually don’t write about SEO (since I am not an SEO, here are the posts labeled SEO) but this issue has been bugging me for quite a few days so I thought I will write about my views on this topic and open it for comments and suggestions.
Search Engine optimization has become an important part of the marketing strategy. However, I feel, a lot marketers are getting too obsessed with traffic driven to their sites from Google, Yahoo, Live (MSN), ASK etc without thinking about the consequences of dropping off from search engines rankings. I understand that it is relatively cheaper (notice I did not say Free) than paid inclusions, banner ads, affiliates etc. And ranking high on search engine is something to be happy about and proud of, ranking high on search engines provides you competitive advantage. But Free comes with risks.
Relying too much on search engine driven traffic can also mean trouble soon or later. SEO is a powerful and relatively cheaper way to acquire new customers. The problem is when marketers rely too much on it and take it for granted. A lot of markets I have come across do SEO as one time thing, achieve a position on top page and get a false sense of security. Let me remind you that organic traffic from Search Engines is not guaranteed all the time. Yes you are number 1 or on the number one page today but that does not mean you will be there tomorrow. If 60% of your traffic is driven from search engines and 40% of that is driven from one Search Engine (say Google) what will happen if one day you drop out of 1st ranking or 1st page on that search engine? Below I have highlighted some of the factors that can cause you to lose your top position and hence traffic and revenue.

1. Competitive SEO – You are ranked number 1 today does not mean you will be ranked number 1 tomorrow. As competitors are catching up and working with SEO’s you can very easily be displaced from your top position. Number 1 position on the search engines is not guaranteed. No one can guarantee it. If you think you have a good SEO team so does you competitor. Remember only 10 organic results can show up on the first page and 70% of the search users don’t even look beyond the first search result page.
2. Universal Search – As Google and others try to integrate regular web page search, images and other searches on one search result page, a site could be pushed further down the search results. So if you were number 10 even higher before universal search, possibility is that you could be pushed to the next page after universal search is available on your keywords.
3. New Formats of the search results page – Search engines are experimenting with new formats all the time. Example is ASK.com’s new three column search result page, with so much information on one page it will be hard for users to go beyond first page. If you are on page number two and beyond you will see even lower traffic than you originally saw.
4. Personalized Search – As personalized search becomes more common, a site could rank number 1 on search results of one user but not for the other. There won’t be a universal number 1 position for a keyword in personalized search results page
5. Co-op search engines – Co-op search engines are new form of search engines from Google that allows anybody to form a vertical search engine. The proliferation of these kinds of search engines could cause your sites to completely disappear from the search results.
6. Changes in Algorithm and technology – Search engines are innovating all the time. As search engines experiment with new algorithm you could lose your coveted 1st position over night.
7. New Search Engines – Google did not invent search engine. Today Google is number one who knows who and in what shape will be the number one Search engine tomorrow.
8. Negative SEO – There was an article in Forbes on “Negative SEO”. If your competitor uses such a practice they can temporarily throw you out of the SEO rankings hence causing decline in your traffic.

I hope this gives you an idea on why relying too much on organic search engine traffic could mean trouble. Here are some of things that you can do to ensure you stay on top of the game and do not suffer a lot even if Google (or other search engines) decides to drop you from organic rankings

1. Paid Inclusion (Pay Per Click also known as PPC) – Put PPC in place to counter a sudden drop in search engine ranking – This is your backup plane, have set budget set aside for PPC just in case SEO fails. You get up one day, your web analytics and SEO monitoring shows that you have a drop in traffic because you have lost your top position on a keyword. That’s the time to kick in your PPC at full speed while you try to get back on organic rankings. Note you don’t have much control on organic rankings.
2. Diversifying – Just like your financial adviser will say, do not put all your eggs in one basket, diversify. Diversify your sources of traffic. Having 60% of your traffic driven from one source is like investing 60% of your portfolio in on stock. I am sure a lot of you know how that goes. So make sure you are not too dependent on Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK. You should have a strategy to generate traffic from varying sources such as Banners, Affiliates, Link partners, Search engines, direct traffic, newsletters, emails, offline etc.
3. Branding - This is an important part and often forgotten by the SEO. There have been studies which say it takes a visitor 4-5 visits from search engine before they buy anything, so marketers assume that as a norm. Great!!! But what happens if after two or three visits, by a user to search engine, you competitor shows up as number 1 result on the search engine result page for the keyword that initially drove users to your site? It is very important for your brand to make an impact when the visitors first lands on your site. Even if the visitors go back to search engine next time, they should search for your brand and not a generic term to get to your site. Branded keywords are sort of (not completely though) guaranteed to bring your site at the top of search results. In a future post I will show how I used Google Analytics to track if the site was doing a good job branding to search engines driven traffic or not.

What does Website Optimization mean?

What does word “Optimization” or “Website Optimization” mean to you? I asked this question a while ago on the yahoo web analytics group. The reason I asked this question was because I came across and article on Media post (Google Tries To Redefine Optimization ) where author was questioning the name of the tool that Google was calling “Website Optimizer”. According to the author “Website Optimization” means making sites naturally position well in Google and not a tool for doing multivariate or A/B testing.

I thought I had a clear idea of what an optimization or Website optimization mean but after reading this article I was not sure if everybody has the same definition of Website optimization. Just do a search on Website Optimization on Google and you will see what I mean, you will find that this query yields paid searches from Search Engine Optimization companies, A/B Testing companies and company which allows optimizing load time of your site.

According to Merriam Webster dictionary Optimization is an act, process, or methodology of making something (as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible; specifically : the mathematical procedures (as finding the maximum of a function) involved in this

So in terms of website it translates into an act or process or methodology of making a website as fully perfect, functional or effective as possible. Website optimization is a continuous process of improving a site to achieve business goals while delivering a great user experience. Web Site Optimization include
1. Serving websites faster and uptime of the site
2. Search engine optimization (SEO)
3. Campaign optimization (media optimization, A/B testing, multivariate testing)
4. Landing page optimization (A/B testing, multivariate testing)
5. Conversion rate optimization (A/B testing, multivariate testing)
6. Website design
7. Usability

As you can see all the above aspects are managed by different people (or organizations). Depending on who you ask you will get a different definition of Website Optimization. Their role in the organization influences how they think about optimization which results in different definitions. All the people are correct in their definition however each definition alone is too narrow

The people responsible for different pieces of website optimization do not understand the complete picture and are locked in their own definition of website optimization. The writer of this article (Google Tries To Redefine Optimization) probably had SEO background and hence he had a different definition than a web analyst would have. I can see how then name Website Optimizer can be confusing to a lot of people since it covers only one aspect of website optimization.

As a web analyst you should be aware of (and involved in) all the aspects of website optimization and only then you can develop a continuous process to improve the site. By being involved does not mean you have to actually do it but you have to make sure the web analytics data is driving the decisions. It should also be your responsibility to educate all stakeholders about how best to optimize the site based on the data. You have to act as glue, connecting different aspects of optimization.

Sidebar: Here are the response I got from the yahoo web analytics group users

I intended to write this post a long time back but got caught up in other things and now finally I found sometime so there it is.

Google Web History: Google and Behavioral Targeting – The Beginning

Google launched a new service called
Google Web History This service will allow users to keep an archive of their web browsing history. The service will also allow integrated web and search history to personalize results based on previous search and viewing patterns.
This service requires a Google account and the Google Toolbar, and users will be able to access their histories from any computer with the service enabled.
As I have been talking about Google and Behavioral Targeting, this is one of the steps towards that goal. Google will track everything you do (of course with your consent) and then in near future will show you targeting ads based on this information.
Side Note: The most interesting thing to watch will be the effect on organic search listings. This is the free source of traffic (sort of free) that a lot of sites have become dependent on but with all the personalization they are bound to get hit.
To ease the privacy, this service is not enabled by default. It also requires PageRank feature in Google Toolbar to be manually enabled. Also, there is an easy way to remove items from you history, however not sure if Google will still keep those in their logs to understand a users behavior.
Giving user an option to opt-in instead of opt-out is the right approach to Personalization and Behavioral Targeting. I believe if you show the users the value and benefits for targeting and let them make the choice then you will create loyal customers and won’t have to deal with privacy backlash.
Stay tuned for more data integration news from Google, this is just the beginning.
I just enabled this services so am going to take it for test drive.

Google and Behavioral Targeting Part III – Google Buys Doubleclick

Google buys Doubleclick for record 3.1 Billion.

Remember 1999 – 2000 when Doubleclick tried Behavioral Targeting but had to shut down efforts due to privacy concerns. Since then things have changed. Many Behavioral Targeting networks have sprung up. Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda provided several reasons why BT will work now.

Will Google revive BT capabilities of Doubleclick? As I wrote earlier in my blog posts Google is preparing for the largest BT network (see my previous articles) and this is one of the biggest step deep into that direction and further confirms what I wrote in my article.
See my old posts at
Google and Behavioral Targeting
Google and Behavioral Targeting Part II

Here are quotes from Sergey Bin, Google’s Co-Founder & President, Technology and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google on Doubleclicks’s acquistion. Source: Yahoo
“It has been our vision to make Internet advertising better – less intrusive, more effective, and more useful. Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers,” said Sergey Brin.
“DoubleClick’s technology is widely adopted by leading advertisers, publishers and agencies, and the combination of the two companies will accelerate the adoption of Google’s innovative advances in display advertising,” said Eric Schmidt.
So far Google analytics, Adsense, Google checkout codes were only available on small – medium size websites. With this deal the big brand sites will have Google code on their sites as well (DoubleClick Publishers and Advertisers). Obviously by having a code on virtually every site on the internet Google will have such a wealth of information about individuals (see my previous article) that it will be foolish for them to not use that information to target individuals with ads that match their interest shown by online (soon they will tie in offline with something like GoogleTV, Google Times, Google Radio and so on) behavior.

Another effect of the widespread code of Google could be the death of companies like Alexa, Compete comscore etc. Google can provide the internet usage data that won’t be based on a sample of those who participate (voluntarily or by installing some kind of application such as a toolbar) but on the Google cookies which will be on almost every single computer connected to the internet. However, this business might not be so lucrative for them. Why would they want to let others know how people use internet when they can use it to make it Googlenet (formerly known as internet) or GWW – Google Wide Web (formerly know as World Wide Web).

You are about to enter the world of Targeting.