Category Archives: google analytics

Google Analytics: Wellington and Christchurch Workshops

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Google-AnalyticsI’m presenting two Google Analytics training workshops on behalf of the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP) over the next couple of weeks. The first one is in Wellington and then I’ll be heading down to Christchurch for the other.

Under the banner Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions, these half-day workshops will show you step-by-step how to set up Google Analytics and what key metrics to track in order to measure the success and improve the performance of your web site. Included will be real-life case studies, practical examples and sample reports that you can immediately adapt to suit your own analytics needs.

Don’t think you’re in for a boring day of number crunching either. For proof that Analytics can be fun, check out this video produced by the Google Analytics team. It takes the frustrations we’ve all experienced with online checkouts and shows how they might play out in real life:

At the end of the workshop, attendees will be able to:

  • Set up a Google Analytics account.
  • Implement Google Analytics tracking code into their site.
  • Determine which are the most important web site metrics to track.
  • Track visitor pathways that lead to conversions.
  • See how their web site visitors are interacting with their site.
  • See what keywords are providing the most traffic to their site.
  • See what web sites are providing the most traffic to their site.
  • See what pages on their site are the most popular.
  • Track various marketing campaigns in Google Analytics e.g. AdWords, SEO, email campaigns.
  • Determine the best performance indicators for their web site.
  • Interpret analytics data and make web site decisions based on that data.
  • Create meaningful web site analytics reports for customers and stakeholders.

Below are the details and booking links for Wellington and Christchurch events. Please share with anyone in your network who you think might benefit from attending:

Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions – Wellington
Date: Tuesday 18 August 2015
Time: 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Venue: Terrace Conference Centre
Terrace 5
Levels 2 – 4
St John House
114 The Terrace
Wellington

Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions – Christchurch
Date: Monday 14 September 2015
Time: 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Venue: Airport Gateway Motor Lodge
45 Roydvale Ave
Burnside
Christchurch

Similar events for Auckland will be announced shortly. Workshops for Hamilton and Dunedin are not currently booked, but can be arranged upon demand by clicking the On Demand link on the pages above.

 

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2015 Digital Marketing Workshops Announced

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IITP-logoAs most of you know, I run a series of face-to-face training workshops in conjunction with the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP) across various locations in New Zealand.

The current topics include:

  • Introduction to Search Engine Optimization (full day)
  • Social Media Marketing for Business (full day)
  • Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions (half day)

The IITP have recently published their 2015 Workshop Schedule, so if you are based in New Zealand and want to book a place at one of these events, now’s your chance. I’ve got 14 workshops scheduled so far, but more are in the pipeline, so it’s going to be a busy year!

I’m aware that a number of you missed out on a workshop last year due to logistical reasons. Keep in mind that if your location or preferred date isn’t listed, you can contact the IITP directly via the “Available other times On Demand or In House” link listed under each workshop and request an event to suit you.

If you would prefer a tailored training session and/or have a large group of staff wanting to take the same course, the IITP can also arrange in-house workshops to suit your particular requirements.  These training sessions allow staff to focus on specific internal web site issues without revealing intellectual property or commercially-sensitive information to other attendees.

We are also testing demand for running a Gaining More Conversions from Google AdWords style workshop. If this is something of interest to you, please let me know in the comments so we can add it to this year’s line-up.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of you at one or more of these workshops in 2015.

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Google Analytics: Workshops in Auckland, Wellington

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google-keyI’ve been running training workshops in conjunction with the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP) here in New Zealand now for over 2 years and really enjoy it.

The next round of workshops coming up are on the subject of: Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions.

These half-day workshops will show you step-by-step how to set up Google Analytics and what key metrics to track in order to measure the success and improve the performance of your web site. Included will be real-life case studies, practical examples and sample reports that you can immediately adapt to suit your own requirements.

Whether you’re an IT staffer, marketer, coder, manager or business owner, making sense of your web traffic and conversion rate is hugely important to understanding if your online business is thriving or floundering.

At the end of the course attendees will be able to:

  • Set up a Google Analytics account
  • Implement Google Analytics tracking code into their site
  • Determine which are the most important web site metrics to track
  • Track visitor pathways that lead to conversions
  • See how their web site visitors are interacting with their site
  • See what keywords are providing the most traffic to their site
  • See what web sites are providing the most traffic to their site
  • See what pages on their site are the most popular
  • Track various marketing campaigns in Google Analytics e.g. AdWords, SEO, email campaigns
  • Determine the best performance indicators for their web site
  • Interpret analytics data and make web site decisions based on that data
  • Create meaningful web site analytics reports for customers and stakeholders

Below are the details and booking links for Auckland and Wellington events, so please share with anyone you know who might benefit from attending:

Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions – Auckland
Date: 13 November 2014
Time: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: CBD Office Level 4, 17 Albert Street, Auckland

Using Google Analytics to Increase Website Traffic and Conversions – Wellington
Date: 10 November 2014
Time: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: NZICA Level 7, Tower Building, 50 Customhouse Quay, Wellington

Hope to see you there!

 

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Fast Five in Search – Week 40, 2014

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fast-five

 

Lots of very interesting tech and search news this week. A couple of game changers for those of us using search channels to market products and services.

Here’s this week’s Fast Five:

1) Google AdWords Offers Ad Creatives at Scale for PPC by Jessica Lee at Search Engine Watch. This month, Google launched the ability for AdWords advertisers to create ads using custom parameters that you want inserted into your ads. Using a spreadsheet you pre-fill, the feature allows AdWords to retrieve product information that is most relevant to what each customer is searching for and dynamically insert it into your ad text.

2) New Panda Update Rolling Out, Google Takes Another Stand Against Thin Content by Matt Southern of Search Engine Journal. Earlier this week, an analyst at Google UK let slip that a new Panda update was in the process of being rolled out to the Google algorithm. Matt has the scoop on what you can expect from this update.

3) The Yahoo Directory – Once the Internet’s Most Important Search Engine – Is to Close by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land. This news came as a bit of a shock. As someone whose job (for years) consisted of submitting client sites to the Yahoo Directory, it was an *end of an era* moment to hear the Directory would be closing down. I’m with Danny on this one – Yahoo has cruelly glossed over the closure of the Directory that started the entire company AKA “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”. So long Yahoo Directory.

4) Want to Improve Your Blog’s Conversion Rates? 11 Tests to Try by Pamela Vaughan of HubSpot. In this post, Pamela shares some logical testing formulas for improving your blog’s conversion rate. Suggested items for testing include Click Through Rate, content balance, calls to action and publishing rate.

and finally…

5) 14 Conversion Rate Optimization Tools Every Expert Needs by Steven Macdonald of Search Engine Journal. This one does exactly what it says on the label. Steven has provided a handy list of tools for testing your conversion rate, conveniently categorized by topics such as Analytics, Research and Testing. Be sure to bookmark this one.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless.

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Fast Five in Search – Week 18, 2014

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fast-five

 

If you’re a search marketer, or even a marketer in general, time to have a deep dive into your site analytics may be a luxury you don’t have. That’s why I’m often asked what are the most important site metrics that marketers should look at.

That’s where dashboards can make your day. Google Analytics dashboards are pre-created templates of custom metrics that are then shared. The data isn’t shared, just the template, so they can be shared across different Analytics accounts and different profiles.

So this week’s Fast Five features 5 of my favorite Analytics dashboards. You simply need to click on each link and you will be prompted to add the dashboard to your analytics account. Feel free to share!

Here’s this week’s Fast Five:

1) SEO Standard Dashboard – I can’t remember who originally shared this dashboard with me, but I use it pretty much every week. The metrics in this dashboard configuration include most of the important SEO ones you need to check. Top organic landing pages, top organic keywords, highest converting organic keywords etc.

2) Social Media Dashboard by Justin Cutroni. This dashboard was created by a Google staffer and works just like it says on the pack. It includes all the social media related site metrics you’ll ever need to look at and some that you won’t, including traffic from social sources, most socially shared content, value of socially engaged.

3) Revenue Dashboard – Again, I don’t know who shared this one with me, but thank you. It includes metrics such as visits and revenue, top keywords by revenue and top referrers by revenue.

4) Ecommerce Dashboard by Blast Analytics. This one includes the standard revenue metrics such as conversion rate and total product revenue, but also ecommerce-specific metrics like average order value and number of transactions.

and finally…

5) Occam’s Razor Awesomeness by analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik. This one’s not for the faint-hearted. Named for Kaushik’s blog, this dashboard incorporates all of his favorite custom segments and custom reports – nearly 20 views in total, plus a custom digital dashboard.

Happy dashboarding!

*Image courtesy of Threadless.

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