OrangeSoda Internet Marketing Blog

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Like SEO, web analytics is not as clearcut as many would like. Unfortunately, there is no standard that all web analytic companies follow. And here’s the even worse news: without a “standard” there can never be reconciliation of web analytic data.

Why not?

Because every program defines a visitor, a bounce, and a click, differently. So when it comes to web analytics this holds true: “The trend is king when analyzing web analytics data.”

There are general guidelines that may help make sure you’re comparing data from two different site tracking information. Here are some important questions to ask.

1. Are both analytics tracking codes implemented correctly on every page of the sites?
2. Are the reporting date ranges the same?
3. Is the same page of the website being reported?
4. Is the bounce rate an isolated metric? Are there also massive differences in the number of visitors to the site, or other statistics?

And the final kicker…

How does the web analytics program define a bounce?

What is the difference in the definition of a bounce for each program? One program might define a bounce as someone leaving after 5 seconds, another 10 seconds, etc. This could result in a big difference. And there are many other variables that can create large discrepancies, in fact, some programs allow the web developer to define their own parameters of a “bounce.” Because of these reasons and the fact that this information is usually propriety, it is not possible to reconcile data from different analytic programs.

If we look at the trend then the differences don’t have to be a problem, but can be complementary. However, those that like to deal with absolutes, this is a hard pill to swallow. It certainly doesn’t make our clients happy and some threaten to cancel unless we can reconcile web stats. It’s not something we’re going to take on but we can guide our clients through to try to make sense of the information.

The bottom line?

SEO and PPC is an art form that are always chasing a moving target.

This post was written by Clint Eagar who previously worked for web analytics company Omniture. I asked him to write it after some complaints about numbers on our tracking not matching the client’s tracking system.

OrangeSoda got an honorable mention on Lee Odden’s SEO blogs of the week. Odden has a great reputation and is well-respected and recognized in the SEO community. We appreciate (almost) making the list - and will try to blog more regularly!

Top Rank Blog recently had a post about hiring an SEO firm vs. hiring a consultant. Lee Odden makes the point that when you hire an SEO firm you get a much broader range of skills than you can get from one person.

He says:

“my own experience is that when an online marketing client that involves a SEO component is brought on, it’s through the coordinated efforts of multiple people, disciplines and expertise that result in a successful program.”

I agree with Lee, especially for larger clients. At OrangeSoda we assign account managers who handle communication with the client. There is also someone who plans and implements the work. Then there are specialists that handle different parts of the campaign, which are scheduled throughout the month.

OrangeSoda hires specialists that handle different parts of an SEO campaign:

• Writers who compose and submit articles and blog posts with SEO in mind
• Link builders
• Online PR specialists
• Blog specialists
• Social media specialists
• Web analytics so you can track your campaign keyword performance on multiple search engines
• SEO/Online Marketing Strategy specialists
• PPC specialists who manage campaigns in Google, Yahoo, and MSN in one interface
• Keyword research/creation specialists
• Tools and people who run competitive and web site analysis
• Web Site Content Optimization specialists

We also have developers who are constantly working to improve our reporting and tools. We have account reps who handle most of the communication with clients (I hate to say it but the people doing the actual work aren’t always the best at communicating results). We also have accounting and billing departments, sales team, and customer service reps.

As a consultant I billed and invoiced clients myself. I answered client’s questions and reported results. If I was answering questions or working on my business that was time when I couldn’t actually do the work. If I hired someone to help, I had to manage them.

The most important thing to me is that with an agency you have continuity - and usually more accountability because one person isn’t solely responsible for your campaign.

I’ll never forget an experience I had last year. I was working with a client who went to jail for three months. There was no warning and no way to contact him. I thought he was more than a 1 or 2 man shop, but I learned the hard way that he was running most of the show. If your consultant is sick, flaky, or heaven forbid - jailed, you have little recompense. With an agency there are simply more people working for you and more accountability built in.

An SEO agency is ideal for clients who have a large and/or complex web site. I have seen exceptions though - I’ll call them a higher touch client. These clients ask for more customization and interaction than most. They wants to be very intimately involved in their campaign. This type of client may be happier hiring a consultant who focuses on only a few clients at a time.

Another advantage of hiring an SEO agency, is that it’s often much easier than getting things done in-house. Sometimes politics and tunnel vision prevent work from being done - or the team lacks the expertise. An agency has the advantage of working on many different types of web sites and has the capacity to hire a large team with various specialties.

Your Feedback
If you have you worked with both a consultant and an agency, what did you find to be the advantages or  disadvantages of each? Leave a comment - and please make sure to give an idea of the size of your company.

This post was written by Dan who is on our search engine optimization SEO team.

For every 10 people writing about SEO one person might actually be doing it. Here’s some practical advice on working with your SEO to get the most out of your SEO campaign.

Set expectations upfront

Do you expect most of the work to be onsite or do you want SEOs to leave your site alone and focus on link building? That’s the kind of stuff that’s important to know up front. Normally it should be a combination of the two which leads me to my next point.

Be sure there is a clear channel for onsite changes

Here’s how it works, we send you over an onsite change and the client makes the changes. Normally we have an expectation of how long something like that should take. The longer it takes the more we have to divert spend that would go towards onsite optimizations to link building.

At the onset of the engagement the SEO working on the account normally sends over a site analysis with some information on the types of things we’d like to change. You may be working with a web devloper and if there are limitations on what kinds of changes can be made we should be made aware of it up front. If the site uses non-standard ways of doing things we should be aware right off the bat.

Recognize that you’re paying for someone else to know SEO

You may have heard about SEO and even attended a conference on it but you probably don’t know nearly as much as you think about SEO. Clients often come with pre-convieved notions about what should be done but often the ideas are outdated and no longer effective. If we don’t seem to think something is important it’s probably because it isn’t. Here’s an example: clients want to know where they should “hide text” to stuff keywords in. This just in from 1995, you shouldn’t! Keyword stuffing might have worked 10 years ago but these days that stuff will get you banned.

That goes for everything. Sometimes a client might get upset that they don’t have a certain link but maybe that resource isn’t good anymore but people are still talking about it like it is. We put a lot of time and effort into being on top of the game and understanding how search engines are currently looking at the internet. What used to work may not work now, even if it’s popular. Trust us on this one.

Understand how to measure success

Generally for SEO our only metric is ranking. Traffic can go up and down for lots of reasons, conversions can go up and down for lots of reasons. If you’re paying for SEO then you can expect your rankings to go up! It may take 6 months to start seeing that but it’s how we measure success.

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what we do to get results, all that matters is that we got them. Of course we adhere to Google’s SEO guidelines and we keep our work whitehat (adhering to Google’s standards). I highly recommend that link btw.

At some point there has to be trust

By all means we want to satisfy every customer enquiry and explain every piece of information to full satisfaction but in the end there needs to be a level of trust for us to be effective. Like the stock market there will be ups and downs in your rankings in the short term, but overall we want the general trend to go up over time.

Here’s an example of a complaint I heard recently: a client was mad about concerned over some “blackhat” links that they had “uncovered.” With a closer look the “blackhat” links were just from a scraper pulling content off a legitimate site. A) That’s not a problem B) We didn’t do anything wrong.

Here’s the point: we know what we’re doing. No one knows Google’s algorithm but we have a lot of experience getting rankings and long lasting results. We are passionate about our work and hope we want to see your SEO success as much as you do. Following these guidelines will help ensure your SEO campaign goes smoothly.

As an SEO I often cringe when clients use extensive Flash on their web sites. Many times whoever is in charge of the web site (VP level or higher often) believe using Flash will make them seem more cutting edge and savvy. However, Flash can often hamper your efforts for be found online, and if your web site is found, chances are greater that people will quickly click off your site within seconds.

I worked at a web design shop in the 90s and most of our sites were built entirely in Flash and they were slick then. There are still pros and cons to using Flash. Today Google clarified how they index Flash pages.

Benefits of Using Flash on Your Web Site

• Flash can convert better because it can provide a better user experience and can give more control over the look and feel of a site.
• Many CMS (content management systems) utilize Flash. While clients can more easily manage their web sites through a CMS they may lose some ability to customize their site. Flash may be built in by default.
• Photographers, designers, and other professionals can display their work more elegantly with Flash.
• Ads created in Flash are often more effective.

Drawbacks of Using Flash on Your Web Site

• Flash hasn’t been searchable by search engines. Search engines read text not images and that can hurt your search engine rankings. Also, you may just get listed for your home page and not for other content on your site. This means lost opportunity to get rankings on each page of your site.
• Flash can increase how long it takes for your site to load (load time). This can affect bounce rates - people leave the site rather than wait for the Flash file to finish loading. Even if the Flash file is cached, you may lose first time visitors.
• Flash is entertaining or interesting the first time you go to a site. After that it can get tired. It can also be overly busy and take up valuable site real estate “above the fold.” Here is an example of a site that uses Flash and is quite busy. To me, one of the worst offenders I’ve seen recently is Noodles & Company (but I like their food). Note how long you have to wait and search in order to find a restaurant near you.
• If you use JavaScript to load your Flash file, you may not be found by Google. From their blog: “Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed.”

Google Indexes Certain Elements Contained on Flash Web Sites

Google is improving their ability to index Flash web sites so they’ll come up in search results. Google is developing a new algorithm for indexing the words in Flash files. This includes indexing menus, buttons and banners made in Flash. It also applies to entire sites made in Flash. It doesn’t mean that Yahoo or MSN will index these elements, but since Google gets the majority of traffic, this is a good start.

Unfortunately though Google’s algorithm cannot doesn’t index images or video and you are limited in how you can apply search engine optimization principles.

“If your Flash files only include images, we will not recognize or index any text that may appear in those images. Similarly, we do not generate any anchor text for Flash buttons which target some URL, but which have no associated text.  Also note that we do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements.”

In most cases I’d still steer clear of Flash except in limited applications. However, OrangeSoda does work with companies who have Flash on much of their site and some, especially larger companies, can still rank well even with Flash-heavy sites. The Google Webmaster’s blog has a helpful Q&A to further satisfy your curiosity.