How to Use Google Analytics Site Search Reports

How to Use Google Analytics Site Search Reports

If your website has a search bar, you need to ensure you’re making the most of this valuable report in Google Analytics. It’s quick to set up and can soon be giving you all sorts of insights and ideas that you may never have had without it.

The Site Search report is found under Behavior and is focused on recording how people interact with the search functionality on your website. This is actually even more valuable since organic keywords started appearing as “(not provided)”, as this report shows what people have actually typed, even if it is on your site instead of into Google – it’s likely that there are overlaps!

Setting Up Site Search Reports

To set this report up, navigate to the Admin, then the View Settings for your chosen profile and scroll down to the Site Search Settings section. Here you just click the button to turn it on and then type or paste in the query that your website uses in search parameters. For example, searching on this site gives you a results URL that looks like this:

http://searchenginewatch.com/search?q=analytics

In this example, the “q” is the search parameter, so this is what would go in the field here:

You will find a tick box under this option which gives you the choice to strip parameters out of the URL. If that was ticked for Search Engine Watch all search results URLs would show in the content reports under /search, whereas without ticking it each search will generate a URL with the query included, which will break out the results and not allow you to see the data for search results pages in one row in the content report.

There are benefits to both methods, so it will depend on your reporting and website setup as to which choice will work best for you.

To get an even more detailed breakdown of data in the reports you can also specify categories, if that applies to your website. Here you pop in each category parameter and you will have a report available to group activity together within these.

Site Search Reports

The Overview report, much like any other, gives you a summary of the data relevant to that report. In this case it gives you a clear percentage of how many visits on your website included the use of the search functionality as well as how the interaction played out following the search.

Usage

This report has two rows of data, one for visits with site search and one for visits which did not include the use of the search functionality. This allows you to directly compare the success rate of people using search against those who don’t to work out whether the conversion rates are very different, whether new visitors are more likely to be using the search box, or how much revenue you have generated by people using this option.

All standard metrics are available and the Site Usage, Goals, and E-Commerce reports are easily accessible above the graph so you can drill into the most relevant report for your site.

Search Terms:

This is where it gets very interesting! The words and phrases that your visitors have used in your search box are recorded here so that you can work out what people are looking for on your website. Each query used is shown alongside search usage metrics but Goal and E-Commerce reports are also available.

There are many uses for this report. Some examples include:

• How many pages it took for people to find what they wanted
• How many visitors gave up and left the website
• Which keywords did not have good enough results so users had to refine their terms
• How persistent visitors were with their query, by how many pages of results they looked through
• Most common queries
• Trends and identifying new searches which can help you identify products to stock or content to write about
• Identifying common misspellings or other ways to phrase something
• Which areas of the site people choose to search for over navigating through a menu for
• Which queries lead to users being engaged with the website
• Queries that have good conversion rates

As mentioned above, this data can also be broken down by category, so if you have set this up, click the link above the data table for “Site Search Category” and you will be able to see this data.

Pages

The Pages report in this area is all about which pages of the website the user was on when they made the search. If you see (entrance) under this report, your visitors are entering the website on a search results page, which may be caused by marketing activity or natural search results using search URLs.

Sometimes the Pages report can be useful for working out which pages are the ones on which visitors give up on using the navigation and switch to a different method of using the website.

Clicking the “Destination Page” link above the data takes you to a report showing where users went on the website following a search.

Useful Tips

If you have the opportunity to do so, I encourage you to set this tracking up for your website. It’s your prerogative to know what’s going on within your website and what it is that people want or cannot find.

Here are some extra ideas to take away for this area in Google Analytics:

• International Comparisons: It is interesting to see the take-up of search functionality on websites around the world. The percentage of visits with search can vary dramatically from country to country, so do ensure you focus on the most suitable website navigation methods for your users.
• Language Use Globally: Also on the topic of international data, when you have a website specific to another country or language, you will benefit from keeping a close eye on the language used in search queries, as this can help you identify hard-to-translate items that people cannot find or terms that you can use an English version for as it may be more widely used than a local language.
• Internal Campaign Tracking: An out-of-the-box idea for tracking internal banners by Justin Cutroni is to tag them with parameters that you can analyze in search reports instead of resorting to using campaign tracking tags on internal links, which is not recommended. 

Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Using Google Analytics with Site Search

There is a wealth of information in Google Analytics, helping website owners gain a deeper understanding of who’s visiting their site and how often; what they click on and their navigation path; and what pages or links lead to particular outcomes like downloads or purchases. Google Analytics shows how effective site search is in generating clickthroughs and conversions, shopping cart abandonment rates and more.

However, without knowing how to interpret the data and what it’s telling you, you’re not getting the whole picture. For example, you might put too much attention on raw totals, when it makes more sense to look for trends or compare different segments of data. Or, you might inadvertently exclude traffic that you should keep measuring.

The engineers I work with have developed a useful list of common mistakes that website owners make when using Google Analytics and site search, along with guidance for better understanding of what’s happening on your site.

Mistake #1: Trusting that your site search statistics are correct. 

By default, Google Analytics tracks every page against the URL of the page loaded. Assuming that your search page has the URL “http://sub.domain.com/search?w=keyword” Google Analytics tracks the page as “/search?w=keyword.”

When setting up site search reporting, you specify the query parameter that defines a search page view. In the above case, the query parameter value would be “w.” This means that any URL on your site that contains the query parameter “w=xyz” will be tagged as a site search page view.

The problem here is that this query parameter may exist on non-site search pages. It’s not always easy to see that these pages exist. There could be non-site search pages that have this query parameter in the URL – which means site search reports may not be accurate, and you will not get a clear picture of how site search is performing.

The solution is to use advanced segments instead, since they’ll allow you to be more specific about the site search segmentation and will give you the platform to be more precise about identifying visits with a site search page view. For example, you can say something like: “Include pages that begin with /search” or “Include pages that contain the query parameter w.”

It’s also a good idea to avoid using site search URLs in your navigation and/or PPC campaigns. Get a different URL structure for the same page setup, such as http://sub.domain.com/ppc/keyword or http://sub.domain.com/nav/brand/nike/0.

Mistake #2: Focusing on the totals. Google Analytics will always under report results, given that it is focused on JavaScript tracking. Therefore, results don’t take into account that there is a small percentage of site visitors who will click away before allowing the page to load long enough for the tracking code to fire. There are also site visitors who will have JavaScript and/or cookies disabled.

Thus, you shouldn’t be too concerned with exact results. Instead, focus on trends and comparing different segments of data (e.g. visits with site search versus visits without site search) or time periods (e.g. visits with search in June compared to July).

Mistake #3: Forgetting about AJAX. The AJAX programming language has become ubiquitous on the web in recent years, since it allows site visitors to load content without reloading an entire web page. You’ll often see AJAX used for search results so that users can quickly access more results without waiting for new pages to load.

Before the widespread use of AJAX, if a user wanted to click on a new page of results or perhaps select different refinements, the page would have to be loaded again and the Google Analytics code would have tracked it as another page view. But with AJAX, these interactions on your site are no longer tracked. It has become common to use virtual page views or event tracking depending on what you are trying to track.

Source: searchenginewatch.com/
moz.com

What is Digital (online) Marketing? How it matters?

What is Digital (online) Marketing? How it matters?

In Marketing your goals of your business is satisfying your customers and keep them. In this process you also create customers and get your feedback internally for your product/service or process improvements.

Digital marketing is the word now online users and company owners are mostly using nowadays. It is the process to delivered over a digital channel, especially the internet as medium of your business process and goal.

Digital marketing is the en route to create strong online presence of your business, company, product or services and a fan page. There are 77.6% of small business owners,  entrepreneurs, freelancers and corporate using social media in their digital marketing strategy.

Digital marketing strategies:

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO or search engine optimization is the process to reach customers in a organic way by making manual work such as on page and off page submissions. This means your business will be shown in Search engine result pages, when someone search your business with particular keywords or products / services. There are lot of search engine optimization agency doing the best work for their customers.

2. Search engine marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing is a process, using paid and unpaid services to promote the business. By using paid advertisements businesses that will appear on search engine results pages. When buyers or sellers looking for certain products or services, which gives the advertiser the opportunity to visit their ads by appearing alongside search results for those search particular queries.

Strategies are SEO and PPC.

3. Content marketing

Ii is a marketing process by creating and sharing relevant and high quality content basis on accurate audience. And eventually this will drive customers and will make strong relationship to take a profitable action.

This content might be as blog posts, articles, white papers, webinars, e-magazines, case studies, research papers/reports, infographics, email newsletters, videos, and e-books.

4. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

It is the process, using social media platforms to promote and sell your products/services.

Best Social media platforms to advertise on social channels are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. By using this you can choose your potential audience and make number of reach and leads according to your budget.

5. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) or Google Advertising

PPC or Pay per Click or Google advertising is the advertisement service by Google. Using this ads you can get no. of visitors or leads according to your target or Budget.

6. Email marketing

Email marketing is the more competitive at same time very effective and direct form of digital marketing strategy.

There are 82% of B2B and B2C businesses use email marketing today. Before you create an email campaign, you need to understand the psychology of your potential customers.

By email marketing, For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 on an average, and Over 34% of people worldwide use email.

It is the way to keep your customers informed about new sales or promotions you are running, and updated on your brand,  product and services, and offer coupons to encourage customers.

Conclusion of Digital marketing

There are lot of tools available for digital marketing for faster results. But mostly manual work or submission give the better and quality results. Before contacting for digital marketing or any strategies under these please consult the best consultant and make your budget.

Source: https://way2websoftblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/what-is-digital-online-marketing-how-it-matters/

How Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Affects SEO – Why it’s Important and How to Implement it

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is out and has been speculated to have two benefits for SEO. One is it will have a “Fast” label designation on search engine results pages, and the other is that it will be a ranking factor. As to how much of a factor, that is yet to be seen. I’ll take you through what AMP is and how you can use it to benefit your site’s mobile visitors.

What is AMP?

Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open-source coding standard for publishers. The aim for AMP is for publishers to be able to load their sites quickly on mobile since mobile responsive could be clunky and slow because desktop resources are heavy and plenty. If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, most of the elements of a desktop website is unnecessary for a mobile site.
Until recently, AMP was just for User Experience. Now, Google has backed it up – and is encouraging websites to follow suit. Much like how they heralded Schema.org and laid-low Dublin Core for Metadata.

Why is AMP Important?

Ever tried to load your site on mobile? Are you happy with the load speed? I know I’m not. Heck loading my site in desktop is taking long and I have a respectable amount of speed for my internet connection – but mobile? All I have is usually a clunky data plan with the mobile providers here in the Philippines.
Simply put, browsing on mobile while you’re on-the-go will mean that your internet speed is not always fast. So it’s best to optimize the experience of mobile browsing for all users (at least that’s what Google wants to happen) by standardizing a mobile version of your site with AMP. I’ll show you how to do it below.

Who will Benefit the Most from AMP?

I don’t believe that you’ll want to make your services or product landing pages into AMP. It would be stripped down of its first-impressions. That would defeat the purpose of your original design. So I don’t believe that everyone will be adopting AMP.
Thinking about our SEO Services site and how it would look like with AMP is just unimaginable. I think I’ll leave it as it is, thank you.
The sites that will benefit the most from AMP are publishing sites. Sites that produce content. So how you’ll apply this to your client is not by making their entire site into AMP. That might affect conversions negatively. Rather, you can transition your client’s blog section or news and updates section into AMP.

Actual Sites that Prefer Loading AMP

Try opening an article from Twitter from the native mobile app. you’ll notice that Twitter has its own browser now – and it’s not really loading sites fast enough. But if a site is using AMP then it loads fast even with Twitter’s native browser.

What’s the Difference Between AMP and Non-AMP Mobile Browsing?

One of the starkest differences is that AMP pages does not have a lot of stuff for a more complex user experience. Everything is stripped-down.

1. AMP forces you to use a streamlined version of CSS.
2. Javascript is not allowed at all – in fact, I’m still trying to figure out how to make share buttons appear on my AMP pages.
3. You are forced to use an off-the-shelf Javascript library that AMP provides you with – which forces your images to lazy load.

That’s it. Basically when you integrate AMP to standardize your mobile responsive pages, you are putting speed and readability as top priority over anything else – even over shareablility.

How can I Make AMP Work for my WordPress Site?

Here’s where things get interesting because you can actually integrate AMP in about 5 minutes for your WordPress site. Simply follow these steps:
1) Install the AMP WordPress plugin by Automattic
2) Activate the plugin – what it will do is append /amp on all your pages but what it won’t do is redirect mobile visitors to your /amp pages
3) So the next step is to edit your .htaccess file – you could use an FTP program to do this. I personally use Filezilla.
4) (Optional) Just in case you want to check if your AMP pages are working across the board: In your .htaccess file, paste this code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/amp$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (android|blackberry|googlebot\-mobile|iemobile|iphone|ipod|\#opera\ mobile|palmos|webos) [NC]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)([\/]*)$ https://example.com/$1/amp [L,R=302]
Note that you have to change example.com to your site’s domain name. I explicitly made the redirect into a 302 because we don’t want all the to link equity to be passed on to your /amp pages since it’s merely an accelerated mobile page version.
5) Lastly, you will want to edit the CSS to make your Accelerated Mobile Pages look and feel more like your site. You can edit the CSS using FTP by going to your wp-content -> plugins -> amp -> template.php
You could see that SEO Hacker’s Accelerated Mobile Pages still look and feel like our desktop page design – without all the fluff.

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What is web hosting? How it Works??

What is web hosting? How it Works??

Web Hosting

Web hosting is a service that permits business and people to feed a web site or website onto the web. A web host, or web hosting service provider, may be a business that has the technologies and services required for the web site or webpage to be viewed within the net. Websites are stored, on special computers known as servers.

How Web Hosting Works

Before we tend to start is that you simply will get everything you would like from only one trafficker (domain, DNS, and hosting) that may be a convenient thanks to dig done. For our example we’ll assume you’re doing it all singly tho’, as it’ll facilitate illustrate however all of the items work along.

Domain Names

Getting a domain name is very easy if you know the domain registrar like way2websoft.

Every computer on the Internet has a unique number. It’s called an IP address. It’s like a phone number for each computer. That’s oversimplified, but it works for our purposes. A domain name is like an alias for that IP address…a more memorable way of identifying a computer on the Internet.

Every system on the web encompasses a distinctive range. It’s referred to as IP address. It’s sort of a sign for every computer. However it works for our functions. A website name is like associate for that IPs… a lot of memory manner of distinguishing a system on the web.

Nameservers (or DNS)

Setting up nameservers or DNS for domain name.

DNS is commonly used acronym which means Domain Name System or Domain Name Servers.

Hosting

Actually website is collection of files. HTML files, CSS files (stylesheets), pictures and photos, etc. All of those files ought to be in an exceedingly folder on a system that’s connected to the web. That computer is typically referred to “server” as a result of it serves our web site files once visitors come. After you pay a corporation to place your files on their net server, you’re shopping for hosting. They’re hosting your web site on their servers. That’s called Web Hosting.

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Five Creative Uses for Google Alerts

Google Alerts is one of Google's hidden gems. It's a really powerful tool to keep track of trends, interesting topics, or anything really new that appears on the web. If you're not using it already, here are a few creative ways to get started with it.

Google Alerts may not be one of Google's most popular services, but it's definitely one of the most useful. When the service gave us a scare earlier this month, many worried it was on the chopping block next to Google Reader. I put out the call on Twitter to see if anyone actually used it, and was surprised by some of the ways many of you put it to good use. Alerts is back now and working better than ever, so Google was probably just monkeying around under the hood. If you're not using it though, now is a great time to start. Here are some clever ways to put it to work.

Perform Automated Vanity Searches and Find Out Who's Talking About You

One of the best uses for Google Alerts is to keep track of how often people are talking about you on the web and what they're saying. One common refrain I heard when I talked to people about how they used Google Alerts was that they used them to find out what people were saying about the company they worked for, their non-profit, their startup, or about them personally (or their blog). One startup founder I spoke to even said it's a great way to get a service that PR companies charge for entirely for free.

Whether you're trying to find out whether people are gossiping about you personally or you want to know what people are saying about your company, Google Alerts makes performing automatic vanity searches a snap. All you have to do is type in your name or your company's name in the search query field. Tell Alerts whether you want all results or just the high quality ones, when you want them delivered, and how you want them sent to you (you can have them sent via email or have Alerts generate an RSS feed for you to subscribe to. If you're really obsessive, you have all results delivered to you as they happen, but depending on your popularity, you may want some mail filters set up in advance.

Stay Up to Date On News from Far Away

If you're an expat living far from home, or just someone who's moved away from their hometown but still wants to know what's going on in your old neighborhood, Google Alerts can help you with that too. Just modify the search terms for the name of your hometown, your home country, or if you want really specific results, your zip code. Like any Google search, you can add as many search terms as you like to narrow the results, and put long names in quotes to get exact matches.

One of my friends living in New York uses Alerts to stay on top of the news where he grew up (and where his family still lives) so he can get crime alerts for his parents' neighborhood, and he finds out whenever someone he went to school with makes the news—for good or ill—before it's plastered all over Facebook.

Follow a Trending Story, or Get a Snapshot of Events On Your Own Time

Right now, many of us are absorbed with the investigation into the bombings in Boston. Others of us are following the ongoing conflict in Syria. However, watching the news all day or being inundated with a never-ending stream of reports—some of them inaccurate and bound for retraction—is just too much to deal with. Google Alerts lets you take control of the news stream and get up to speed on a specific topic when you're ready. Tweak the search terms for the issue you're following, and change the "How Often" to once a day for a simple digest. Once a week may be too much for a story that's actively developing, but once a day is fine for those of us who don't have the time to stay glued to the latest news reports.

Prefer to drink from the fire hose? "As-It-Happens" is always an option, and Google Alerts will feed you new news stories and search results of all types as soon as they index them. It's not as fast as social media like Twitter or Facebook, but it's pretty quick. To stick to reports from news agencies, make sure to change the "Result Type" from "Everything" to "News" or "Blogs." You may also want to change "How Many" to "Only the Best Results" to weed out the cruft. One friend on Twitter noted that he uses Google Alerts to deliver a kind of "morning snapshot" of events that occured overnight, which I thought was pretty creative.
If your news-gathering has less to do with current events and has more to do with entertainment, tech news, or you have a specific public figure, politician, actor, or personality you want to follow (without being creepy), Google Alerts is perfect for that as well. You can even set up a Google Alert for new videos released by your favorite comedian or YouTube channel, get them delivered via RSS, and watch them as they come out without having to check their channel manually. Of course, you can also use it to harvest as much information as possible about your favorite celebrity's public statements and appearances, but come on, don't make it weird.

Search for Coupon Codes, Discounts, and Promotions

Google Alerts is great for information gathering, but it's also a great bargain hunting tool. You can set an alert for coupon codes or discounts to your favorite retailer, and then sit back and let the bargains come to you. Not all of them will be of particularly high quality and you'll still have to sift through the results to find something useful. Even so, you'll hear about new coupon codes as soon as they hit the web, and you'll get first dibs on using them.

This is especially useful if you're trying to grab a discount code that's only valid for a few hundred uses, or if you want a 10% off code for your favorite web hosting company or domain registrar. Just set the search term for the type of discount you want (taking care not to be too specific), set the result quality as broad as possible, and let Google do the work for you.

Go Job Hunting

If you're unemployed or just looking for a better gig, you can use all the help you can get. Google Alerts lets you search for job openings and have results delivered right to your inbox so you can jump on them and apply immediately. Sure, you can scour job boards, but the benefit of using Google Alerts is that you can target your alerts specifically to the companies you're interested in working for. You can even tailor them directly to the types of jobs you're looking for—and since every job site and public company website is indexed by Google, you'll probably be the first person to hear that the listing has been posted.

There's a great guide to doing this over at The Undercover Recruiter if you're thinking about giving it a try. After all, your job search will see more success if you target specific positions and specific companies with targeted resumes and cover letters that are relevant to the opportunity you want. Google Alerts lets you stalk your future gig with minimal effort, then strike first when the time is right.

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Guide: How to Register Trademark For Your Brand in India

How many cups of coffee and scribbles on a paper did it take for you to zero-in on your brand name? A dozen, right? Would you let some Tom, Dick or Harry walk away with that name and identity? Hell no! So to your rescue is trademark registration!

As an e-commerce platform helping small as well as big brands start their own online stores, we at Zepo, frequently come across entrepreneurs asking us about how to register their brands as trademarks. Which is why, today, within the course of this blog post, we’ll take you through on how to protect your brand’s reputation, by way of registering your brand as a trade-mark.

Before we start, what exactly does trade-marking a brand name mean?
Trademark registration of a brand name means nothing but brand name registration. It basically means, “this brand name is ours! And if you dare to use it to sell your products, we can sue you!”
In India, you can trademark any of the following or even a combination of these things:
Letter, Number, Word, Phrase, Logo, Graphic, Smell, Sound Mark or a Combination of Colors
So, what is the procedure of registering a trademark?

Step 1: Search for a “crazy-enough” brand name
You get the point, don’t you? Come up with a whacky and quirky brand name, because all the generic ones are any which way taken. Before zeroing in on one name, you might want to do a quick search to make sure that no one else is already using the name. And your best bet would be to use invented or coined words, in a combination with generic words.

Step 2: Making the trademark application
Now that your name is finalized upon, fill in the trademark application i.e. Form- TM 1. The application costs INR 3500 and is a one time fee.
Along with the application, you will need to submit a couple of supporting documents:
1. A Business registration concern: Depending on what type of a registered business you have, say sole proprietorship, etc. you will need to submit an identity proof of the directors of the company and an address proof.
2. An image of your brand logo in a standard size of 9 x 5 cms
3. If applicable, proof of claim of the proposed mark being used before in another country.

Step 3: Filling the brand name registration application
There are 2 ways to file the registration – manual filing or e-filling.
In case of manual filing, you will need to personally walk down and submit the application for registration to any one of the offices of the Registrar of Trade Marks located in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad. After which you receive the acknowledgement of the application and the receipt, usually within 15-20 days of the filing.
But in e-filing system, the acknowledgement of the application is issued immediately.
And after you receive the acknowledgement, you can start using the (TM) symbol next to the brand name!

Step 4: Examining the brand name registration application
After receiving the application, the Registrar checks whether the brand name complies with the law and does not conflict or dispute with other existing registered or pending brands. That’s why we said, quirky brand name, people!

Step 5: Publication in the Indian Trade Mark Journals
After examination, the logo or brand name is published in the Indian Trade Mark Journal. If no one raises an opposition within 3 months i.e. 90 days or in some cases 120 days, from the date of publication, the brand name proceeds to acceptance.

Step 6: Issuance of the trademark registration certificate
If no one raises any opposition, within the stipulated 90 days period, the Registrar accepts the trademark application! Woohoo! And issues a Certificate of Registration under the seal of Trademark Registry.

You may now be allowed to use the registered trademark symbol (®) next to your brand name, once the certificate has been issued.

The whole process of registration of a brand name usually takes anything between 15-18 months. The trademark once accepted, is valid for a period of 10 years from the date of issuance of the Certificate of Registration. After the end of 10 years, the trademark will need to be renewed.

There there! We can understand if this sounds a little too over-whelming. In which case, just call up a lawyer. The lawyer will be able to help you wade through all this legal jargon.

Although the process of registering a trademark is lengthy and a little heavy on the pocket, it is definitely worth the investment of legally protecting your brand.

However, if you are just starting out, investing in a trademark may not be absolutely essential. What matters most is creating awesome products and putting in all the time and effort into building your brand, from ground up. But, there still is another cheaper alternative to lend you lawful protection against being copied – an unregistered trademark. Do ask your lawyer about it!

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