So you want to know how much time a visitor spent on your site, or the average amount of time spent by a segment of visitors. OK, not much of a problem. But now you want to know how much time was spent on a page. Still not hard IF your page is a page. If your site is in Flash however, you have a stickier issue.
Now you already know how much I love Flash (sarcasm), and here’s yet another reason I’m not a fan of Flash sites that aren’t coded properly. A Timer Tick basically counts the elapsed time that occurs while viewing a Flash “page”. You can set it up to increment for whatever interval you want (say 10 seconds). The problem is this “increment” isn’t captured in a Time on Page metric. It’s captured as a click.
Continue Reading The Mad Analyst: Two tracking tools that make me twitch →
You installed Google Analytics on your site anywhere from 2 months to 3 years ago, thinking that you were pretty awesome for being so forward thinking and staying on top of the latest technology. Now you get awesome charts and pretty map overlays telling you how many visits your site has and where they are coming from. Life is good! Or is it?
Chances are, you are doing Analytics WRONG.
Don’t worry, I would estimate that 95% of people who signed up and installed Google Analytics are not using it to gain insights into what is really working both on and off their site.
Continue Reading $1,500 Google Analytics Action Plan… FREE! →
In Why Most Local Search Resellers Fail Their SMB Clients, I reacted to a recent study that revealed 90% of SMB’s quit their search marketing programs after 6 months. It turns out that the reason why people quit these programs is because they do absolutely nothing to help the company generate new business!
700 clicks per month for $1500 — Where do I sign up????
Caveat Emptor: Clicks don’t mean a thing! They aren’t phone calls, don’t generate sales, or pay the rent. Most importantly, if these clicks are “bad clicks” — meaning coming from people not actually looking for your particular service — your ROI won’t justify the expense. Bad clicks waste your company’s time, and cost you potential revenue by throwing off your signal to noise ratio. If you become accustomed to only seeing bad clicks/leads, then you may become jaded toward the good ones.
What do I mean by “bad clicks“? Here’s a real world example:
Continue Reading Local Search for Small Business – Part 2 – Clicks vs. Leads →
Author’s note: I started writing this article in reaction to a recent study published, and I ended up writing so much that I needed to break it into two posts! You are currently viewing part 1, and part 2 will be released first thing Monday morning.
The other day, a report came out from Borrell and Associates saying that most small businesses (SMB) that try local online search advertising almost universally give it up after 6 months. More specifically:
In addition to our live Twittering the #OMS event in Minneapolis, several Three Deep team members recapped the top 3- 5 things they learned on Tuesday at the Online Marketing Summit. Below are our observations. To view presentations and education materials presented at the June 2nd, 2009 conference in Minneapolis at the Depot, please visit the OMS learning site.
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Jeff S
I felt a little like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting at this conference when he gets into a war of words at the “Haaavhaaad Baaaah” with a man who has far more formal education than he does. It turns out that for all of the formal education held by the Harvard man, he could have gotten the same amount of education for $1.50 in late charges at the local library. How do you like them apples?
Continue Reading Minneapolis Online Marketing Summit – Three Deep Reflections →
Got a SEO question from my cousin Paul last week that I feel represents a fairly common question coming from SMB owners about how to get their site found on Google. Republishing the question and response (with identifying details removed), since this is sound SEO advice that applies to just about any small business owner in any niche who is trying to increase their exposure within their locality.
Question:
Hi Jeff,
I have a business partner that set up a website and he is unclear how to get more ” meta tags ” for his site.
Continue Reading SEO For Small Business Q&A – Where to Start? →
Yesterday 8 members of Three Deep attended the Online Marketing Summit in Minneapolis, and several team members decided to live “tweet” the event. This was first for many of us, and the results were some great interactions with fellow online marketers, occasionally witty commentary, and a great foray for Three Deep into the Twitterverse. Tweets are included in chronological order for readability.
threedeep: See you all at the Online Marketing Summit in Minneapolis Tomorrow! Let us know if you’d like to meet up with Three Deep.
I really like how Google teaches users how to use the new features through a simple video with narration; it’s so much easier than reading a manual, and takes far less time to view. In the span of 90 seconds, I am already an expert on the new tool, know where to look to find it, and know what’s capable. That would have taken 15-30 minutes without the video, and I probably wouldn’t understand the features nearly as well.
As the Google Analytics product continues to be upgraded, and as long as they keep on producing these videos, we will do our best to keep you informed with these updates!
threedeep: 
3DEmailMarCom: 
