Search engine position monitoring with QuerySiteStatsGlobal

Monitoring where pages appear in search engine results for search terms and keywords isn’t easy. Due to the complexity of search engines and their ever changing algorithms, each individual can get different results, and even they may not be the same from one day to the next.

Despite that, there are things you can do. One that I’d like to draw your attention to is the Top Search Queries in Google webmasters tools. You’ll need a Google webmasters account and to verify your site, but then your up and running (for free).

You can find the “Top Search Queries” report under the statistics section. If you’ve used it before it’s worth revisiting because in the last month or so Google have added a history feature so you can now track keyword performance over time.

Continue reading Search engine position monitoring with QuerySiteStatsGlobal

Next week Google are running an online seminar as an Introduction to Website Optimizer (New or inexperienced users). Registration is free and open to anyone - and if you’re part of a web team you probably should find out about it, or look at the more advanced seminar later in the week.

If you’ve not started or don’t know much about A/B or multivariate testing, I expect this will be a pretty good place to start. Previously, optimisation testing like this has required a fairly large outlay in terms of a technical solution. Google’s web optimizer has changed that (it’s free if you have an AdWords account). So if you’re not thinking about how you can use these tools, you’re off the pace.

It’s definitely an area that anyone in a webteam should start becoming au fait with, as it touches every role who works on developing websites - marketeers, content managers, developers, designers, IA’s, copywriters, analysts and so forth. Why? Simply put, because it closes the gap between you and your users - you can find out what works for them.

If you like metaphors, you could think of it as another tool in your box, however one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal is probably more appropriate. So scoot on over an sign up (I have).

And if you wanted to know the time difference if you’re in the UK, it’s between 5-6PM Tuesday, October 30.

[PS. For regular reads, apologies for the recent hiatus in posts, everything should be getting back on track now]

These days you’ve got to have a pretty good excuse to justify not implementing Google Analytics on publicly available websites. Especially if you want a happy web team.

Having another analytics package is not sufficient. Neither is implementation unless you have some very strange custom built configuration.

Maybe you can get away with it if you have concerns about Google accessing all that information. However only in special circumstances does this hold true.

Continue reading Web team manager sin #1 - Not using Google Analytics.