by admin | January 29, 2014 | Analytics, Uncategorized
Sampling in Google Analytics occurs when the program takes a subset of data from your website traffic and reports on trends available in that sample set. Website owners and marketers rely on this data to see how well their website is performing, and to analyze any changes that may have happened to the website.
How is Google Analytics Data Sampled?
When you look at a Standard Report, you will see unsampled data. Meaning, if you look at “All Traffic” during any given period of time, you will see the correct numbers as reported by Google. However, once you add a filter, custom report, or segment to this data (organic traffic, blog traffic, pages with more than 1,000 visits, etc.) your data becomes sampled. You will know your data is sampled when you see the yellow box in the upper right hand side by the date.
By default, this sample number is set by Google at 250,000 visits (not pageviews). However, Google does allow you to adjust this number up to 500,000. If you have a large amount of data, keep in mind this can really slow down the processing time.
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by Charles River Interactive | January 20, 2014 | Uncategorized, YouTube Marketing
The proliferation of online video content, combined with improvements in mobile technology and user demand has created a huge opportunity for video marketing. Since human beings are so visual and are used to receiving information from TV, movies, etc. it only makes sense that marketing via and alongside online video content is the next new frontier. And, let’s face it, wouldn’t you rather watch a video on about an exciting new product vs. reading a user manual?
Organic Search and Video Marketing
As with any online marketing, there are best practices to ensure that your online video content is getting the most relevant eyeballs. While video is a fantastic vehicle to encourage user engagement, it’s important to keep in mind that search engines can’t crawl the actual content of a web video. Certain optimizations must be made to have an effective video content strategy and drive organic searchers to videos. These organic search optimizations include proper tagging – both on YouTube and on your website, as well as dedicated landing pages for each video.
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by admin | December 20, 2013 | Industry Trends, Uncategorized
Has your Twitter feed seemed a little different lately? If you’re seeing strange things, don’t worry, you’re not crazy! After several months of testing, Twitter has decided to let advertisers target its users via the use of cookies.
Twitter users have been in control of who they follow (and even who follows them, depending on privacy settings) since launching in 2006. Since 2010, users have been shown Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts throughout their timelines, which are all forms of paid advertising on the social media platform. These promoted forms of media (whether it be Tweet, Trend, or Account) are only to be shown to the user if it is deemed highly interesting/relevant to the individual.
Twitter Announces Tailored Audiences
Users will now be served ads via Twitter’s “Tailored Audiences”. These audiences will give social media advertisers the ability to better target different groups with customized messaging. Audiences may be made up of preexisting customers, as well as potential new ones, and the advertiser is now able to serve the most relevant message to each audience.
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by admin | December 9, 2013 | Organic Search, SEO, Uncategorized
With a majority of web traffic coming from Google, many website owners tend to forget that Bing and Yahoo often round out that list in second and third place. While these numbers don’t (and maybe never will) match the traffic from Google, it’s important to keep in mind what’s on Bing’s radar.
Unlike Google, Bing does not officially announce algorithm updates. However, they do announce new features, such as the deep links directly in the search box, as seen below. This feature is similar to Google sitelinks, however Bing displays these results without even having to click the search button.
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by Charles River Interactive | October 28, 2013 | Organic Search, SEO Industry Trends, SEO Jobs, Uncategorized
By Sam Coren
When I first started networking with other SEOs, I found out that there are quite a few different paths that lead people to this line of work. One reason for this is that there is very little by means of formalized, structured SEO education out there. Although it seems that in the past couple years, judging by all the wonderful Facebook ads I get, that some colleges have begun offering courses in digital strategy including SEO / PPC. However, within the SEO community, we have our hesitations about learning SEO in an academic environment.
Some of my colleagues at Charles River Interactive ventured into SEO consulting after tenures as webmasters, paid search planners, and various in-house marketing positions. We often talk about what types of experience, skills, and mindsets it takes to really succeed in this role. While the different types of experience leading up to someone becoming an SEO vary significantly, there are common traits that all great SEOs seem to have, regardless of where they came from.
So without further ado, here’s what we’ve come up with as the 4 universal “make-or-break” traits that you need to become a great SEO:
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by Charles River Interactive | October 24, 2013 | Organic Search, SEO Blogs, Uncategorized
By Lauren Rockwell
It’s not the end of the world, and it is certainly not the end of SEO. I admit that I was upset when this move to encrypted organic Google search happened. Since I find most of my content ideas from long-tail keyphrases with one visit each, I was annoyed that this ‘privacy’ solution would hinder my ability to extract content ideas from Google Analytics. Then, I got over it. I was able to move past this pretty quickly after going through the latest reporting cycle. In previous posts, CRI has highlighted that SEOs and webmasters still have several tools / methods to show SEO value by analyzing:
- Landing Pages
- User Behavior Statistics
- Webmaster Tools Data (Google & Bing)
- Google AdWords Dimensions (Paid & Organic Report)
The removal of organic keyphrases may even make me a better Organic Search Strategist, because I am digging deeper to find the story beyond entrance keywords and visits. Check out these ways to find content ideas and show SEO value:
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