New Article - Mining Web Analytics to Measure SEO Success – Even Without Conversion D

[thejenn]

Authored by: Matt Williams

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/art.../0502_rc1.html

A Snippet:

In a perfect scenario, online success is measured by conversions or the number of desired actions taken by visitors to a site – such as a sale, a contact us form, a newsletter sign-up, a white paper download, etc. However, many web analytic programs are not capable of measuring conversions.

[vangogh]

Thanks for the article Jenn. Thought I'd add that it can be good to have more than one statistics package to measure result on your site. I have three (all free) at the moment and they can report vastly different results due to how they accumulate the data.

I also try not to get too caught up in the actual numbers of any and focus more on the growth (hopefully) from one month to the next. I'm less concerned that one set of statistics shows I get 100 visits per day and more concerned that it showed a 25% growth in visit over the previous month.

[Jim Newsome]

Matt makes some really good points, but the key here is that SEM/SEO these days has to be about more than just driving traffic - it has to be about how that traffic converts, and if you're using analytics software that can't analyse conversions then I'm afraid you're way behind the curve.

In particular there are two new and free packages of second-generation web analytics tools that focus on conversion tracking - Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) and ClickTracks Appetizer (http://www.clicktracks.com/products/appetizer/). The GA product is more fully-featured, but both are focused on conversion tracking as the ultimate KPI.

vangogh - you're spot on with your post - trends are far more useful metrics than absolute numbers.

[vangogh]

Jim I comletely agree about how much more important conversions are. People are often so focused solely on the traffic itself, but if you get 1000 visitors who all instantly leave your site you may just as well have had 0 visitors.

One of the best sites I've found with advice on conversions is Future Now, particularly the grotdotcom part of the site. They have some very good articles and a newsletter all devoted to increasing conversions.

[Jim Newsome]

Yes - I know the Grokdotcom newsletter, although I find some of the language a little too far down the business-speak road sometimes. I can also recommend http://www.conversionchronicles.com/, although it's recently come under new ownership (taken over by pirates apparently....)

[vangogh]

Thanks for the link Jim. I hadn't come across that one. I know what you mean about grokdotcom. I have learned a lot from them. I recently signed up for their newsletter and each one usually has me following the trail through several articles.