If data is the next ‘Intel Inside’ then Google Analytics is the operating manual for websites operators trying to understand how to improve the usefulness and success of their site.  Google Analytics tracks and stores data, collected via JavaScript on the host site, of every visitor. This data includes information on how the user got to the site, and how long they stayed, what browser they used, and where geographically they are located.

From the huge range of features in Google Analytics I will discuss the following two examples to demonstrate how Google Analytics leverages the data it collects to return useful information to the user:

1. Industry BenchmarkingArguably one of the biggest advantages of using Google Analytics over other web analytics tools is the opportunity to gain access to the aggregate data of other websites for comparison.  To gain access to this feature users must opt-in to “share the account data in an anonymous, aggregated format”^[1]. Once enabled, Google Analytics assesses the profiles in your account, categorises them by vertical market and number of visits and aggregates the data for inclusion in the benchmarking project^[2].  Once the inclusion process is complete the user can compare their profiles against data for their own category or choose from a list of others; each category consists of at least 100 websites^[3].  Although the ability to review the data collected about how users are interacting with the site is very useful for reviewing things like the effectiveness of improvements or advertising campaigns, benchmarking also enables you to investigate how your site is doing in comparison to its peers. This will help guide decisions on where energy should be spent to make improvements and where certain negative figures are to be expected.

   Website’s new visits benchmarked against similar industry

   

   Website’s new bounce rate benchmarked against similar industry

   

   Both these diagrams show that the website they are taken from is performing at around the same level as other sites in that industry of a similar size. Without the benefit of being able to compare the results against an aggregate this would be impossible to tell, and instead the web master would be left to guess at how well their site is actually doing.

2. Keywords Overview
   There are two types of traffic that come to a site through search engines; organic(unpaid) and paid. By reviewing the keywords users are entering into search engines, web masters are able to get an overview of the organic traffic that is coming through their site.  Not only are the number of visits received displayed, but also a wealth of other relevant information to help determine not only how much traffic is being generated by the search term but also the likeliness that the visit was of some benefit.  For example, if a keyword has a high ‘average time on site’ associated with it, the visit was probably of more value to the user than a visit resulting from a keyword with a low average time on site.  Keywords with a high average time on site are ultimately more beneficial to a website in comparison to keywords that get a large amount of very short visits, as the long visit hits indicate that the user found what they were looking for from the search and were intrigued enough to further investigate the site.

The data collected for Google Analytics is stored on Google’s own servers. This has the advantage that it is then easily accessible to be used in benchmarking and benefits from the speed and sophistication of their servers that smaller localised implementations may not be able to replicate.  Google also offers this service at no cost with regular updates and ongoing feature improvements.

Another analytics application that offers many of the features of Google Analytics and is free to use is Piwik. Its main difference with Google Analytics is that the data collected about your site is stored on, and accessed through, your own website.

Although Google Analytics clearly states that they do not use any of the data collected for their own purposes unless you expressly allow the information to be shared,^[4][5] there are some issues with not having direct control and access to your own data.  For example if you wished to change to another analytics software, you would have to start from scratch which would result in losing all your history.

Although Google Analytics lets you do a multitude of comparisons on a website’s data it does not allow you to directly compare against other sites.  If a Google Analytics user managed more than one site from the same account there could be advantages to being able to analyze the data from one site against another.  This would be most beneficial where a user has similar sites and one site is not performing as well; being able to display and compare the data together could reveal an insight into where improvement must be made.

Like any CSS Sushi Chef worth his Shio, you should be using a Reset CSS style sheet to bring all your browsers into line before you carve out your tasty styles.

However sometimes when debugging someone elses work which might not have a Reset CSS stylesheet, you might find yourself taking a few stabs in Firebug to see what could be the cause of their CSS woes.

This can be slow guess work looking through the DOM Tree finding the culprits, or you might be trying to find the problem in another browser such as IE-vil.

This little bookmarklet will inject the Yahoo Reset CSS into the page your on. Making any further guesses or adjustments you make less likely to be related to some default margin issues.

Drag this link into your bookmarks -> Yahoo Reset CSS Bookmarklet

javascript:(function (){
    document.body.innerHTML += '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://yui.yahooapis.com/2.7.0/build/reset/reset-min.css">';
})();

apache htaccess online editor and creator

If your like me, then you probably do a lot of copying and pasting htaccess file codes from one project or site to another.
Apache server configuration directives don’t strike me as another command set I yearn to learn off by heart.

I found this fantastic .htaccess editor and creator tool the other day which does a good job of covering the main basic options.
Apache .htaccess Online Creator and Editor Tool
http://www.htaccesseditor.com/en.shtml

Thanks to whom ever sat down and wrote the thing, even the interface is nice and easy to use.

Enjoy.

What is ‘Search Engine Friendly’ web design?

Search engine friendly web design is web design that is planned around known search engine optimization principles. If ranking well in the search engines is important to you then the first step towards this goal should be a search engine friendly web design. Fortunately, search engines like much the same things that users do - great content, clean layouts, easy navigation - so it’s well worth the time it takes to carefully plan your website page by page.

A ‘Search Engine Friendly’ website is one that search engines can easily scan and understand; it allows search engines to easily jump from page to page of the website, read content, determine what keywords are relevant, and then deliver search results accordingly. Although there are other factors that will affect the search engine success of a website (in particular, link popularity) - search engine friendly web design is a very important element of search engine optimisation.

Some of the points below contain some technical details that your web developer should be able to take care of for you.

How to achieve a search engine friendly web design:

1. Well structured and keyword rich content
   As you’ve probably heard time and time again, content is king. There’s nothing more important than content. Just like users, search engines like useful heading tags, bullet points, highlighted words and keyword rich content. Here are some tips to writing good web copy.
2. Make sure all title tags are unique
   Title tags should uniquely identify the content on any given page - title tags give search engines the first clue as to what a page is about. With ecommerce websites, every single product page should have a unique title tag, it can make a big difference to ranking well for individual product names (ask your web developer to have these generated automatically for you based on the product and category names).
3. Avoid keyword cannibalization
   Following on from the 2 points above, when structuring content make sure you target different keyword combinations on each page. Keyword cannilbalization is when the same keywords are targeted on many different pages of a website. This dilutes the value of the keywords on any one page and makes it harder for search engines to decide which page to display in search results.
4. Update often
   It’s worthwhile investing in a CMS (content management system) or asking your web developer to setup a blog for you (WordPress is fantastic, and free!). There are many of benefits to updating your content often, including:
   • Keyword Count
     It boosts your keyword count and the potential for getting found via web searches for an ever increasing number of keyword combinations (long tail searches: search phrases that are typically longer and more specific than normal)
   • Natural way of building links
     Every time you add relevant content to your website you increase the likelihood that other websites will link to yours, thereby increaseing your link popularity. There is nothing more powerful from a search engine optimisation perspective than incoming links, particularly if they come from relevant and/or valuable sources. Why not get involved in some related forums and other social media avenues (facebook, twitter etc) and announce to your audience each time you release new content along with a link straight to it!
   • Search engines will pay regular visits
     The more often you update, the more often search engines will visit your website to check for new and upated content.
5. Clean layouts work best
   The cleaner the coding of your website, the easier it is for search engines to access the website content. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) should be used for design implementation and all scripts should be contained within external files.
6. Easy navigation
   Navigation should be obvious (near the top of the page) and clean (avoid flash menus or javascript for hover effects, use css instead). Search engines (as well as website visitors) need to be able to easily navigate from page to page of your website. If your website has a lot of deeper level pages then make sure you setup a sitemap and link to this from your home page so so that search engines can them.
7. Meaningful directory and file names
   Something like: www.clothes.com/jeans/levis/ is a lot more meaningful to search engines than www.clothes.com/index.php?cat=10&subcat=12. Your keywords should be included in directory and file names wherever possible.
8. Avoid the excessive use of FLASH.
   There are many obstacles to achieving search engine friendliness in Flash websites, so use it sparingly. Flash can be great for creating some eye-catching ads or dynamic flair to your website but should not be heavily used.
9. Avoid embedding text in images
   Search engines can’t read text that appears in an image - so you’re better off displaying your content in real text wherever possible. When it is necessary to embed text in images then ALT tags can be used to describe the content to search engines
10. Link to your domain, not index.html (.asp, .php etc)
    Every-time you display a link to your home page, you should link to your full domain, not the file name. The number of pages linking to your home page (both external and internal) is an imporant element of seo, you don’t want to divide the total number of incoming links to your home page between 2 different links! You can read more about link popularity here.