January 2010


20 Jan 2010 01:47 am

scatterHow do you measure success of a online webinar?

I recently did a webinar for the Search Engine Strategies conference (I am doing the opening conference keynote at SES London and SES New York) and my Market Motive co-faculty member Greg Jarboe sent me this KPI via email:

"Your webcast was a big success. Your KPI questions per attendee was off the chart!"

I don't know why I had not thought of this wonderful KPI. So much better than # of attendees.

As always though context is king.

It could be a good thing ("you were great, engaged the audience") or a not such a good thing ("no one understood a thing you were saying, hence so many questions"). Only upon reading the actual questions could I figure out which case it was (mercifully case #1 for me!).

End of a minor web analytics lesson on going beyond obvious metrics and never, ever, never forgetting context.

Back to our story. . . an hour is too short a time to answer all the questions (even in a webinar just focused on attendee questions). So here is a small selection from the 80 questions I could not answer in the wide ranging webinar.

We will cover measuring success of SEO efforts on one web page, how to do search engine optimization for b2b websites, how to rank for highly saturated industries / categories / keywords, and which competitive intelligence tools do I use for search program optimization (and targeting display ads using search data!).

I hope you all find the answers to be of value.

#1. How do you measure SEO performance on a page level? I'd like to know how well my seo efforts for a particular pages have performed.

Every measurement question should start by taking one step back and thinking of goals.

In this case here are some obvious ones:

Uno: You want to get a lot more traffic to the page from search engines.

Dos: You want that traffic to come on the optimal set of keywords (why simply bounce traffic?).

Tres: For both of those things to happen, you want the page to be indexed by the search engines and finally. . .

Cuatro: You want to earn a bonus for yourself so you want the page to make money (e-commerce sites) or add economic value (non-ecommerce websites) for your company/website.

Now it is not hard to figure out how to measure performance! [Before you do any kind of measurement please consider going through the above exercise. It is simple, effective and works like a charm - not to mention allows to get going faster.]

Before you analyze do one small thing. Log into the Advanced Segmentation tool in your web analytics tool. Create a segment for Organic Search traffic. Sources -> Contain -> Google, Bing, Yahoo! etc. Save. Another way to cheat at this is to simply use Medium Matches Exactly Organic.

organic search segment

If your web analytics tool requires you to call the vendor to set up advanced segments or re-tag your site to get segments then switch. There are too many choices in the market.

Now log into whatever web analytics tool you use and drill down to the specific page you are interested in ("Top Pages Report" / "Content Title Report" etc). Apply the Organic Search segment to that report (in Google Analytics segments are on the top right, in other tools please refer to user manual).

More traffic, not that hard. Stretch the time period to six months (or some large date range – remember SEO takes time). What do you see? Nice and gradual up and to the right trends. Do your happy dance! Something's working. Now look down at the table under the graph that shows traffic sources. If you did your segment correctly you'll see just the search engines and how much each is contributing to your overall traffic. Does the distribution match your goals?

Ready for the next step? Click on Referring Keywords and now you are looking just at the keywords bringing traffic to this page. Do the keywords match the intent of the page? Do they contain keywords you were specifically targeting? No? Why not? On the other hand what are the surprises? Is the customer intent contained in the keywords telling you how to change / improve the page? Do it!

Indexing. . . I am a big fan of Google's Webmaster Tools because of the wealth of data available, if you are not using this free resource (no matter if you are a SEO or not). Bing's Webmaster Tools have also evolved a ton, please claim your account right away and dive in. [I have not had much fun with Yahoo!'s web master resources.] In either tool you are looking for how well your site is indexed (report: Your site on the web -> Top search queries -> Impressions), how well your pages are indexed and, my absolute favorite, which keywords your search results are showing up. You are checking to see if:

1. the pages you are targeting are being indexed frequently and

bing webmaster tools report

2. if your site is showing up for the keywords you were targeting.

google webmaster tools search impressions

You want validation that you are showing up for the set of keywords you are optimizing for (above) and that your pages are being recorded as being optimized for the right keywords (above the above :).

Success. . . I humbly believe that the biggest mistake most of us doing SEO make is that we are far too obsessed with ranking and meta this and that and how to work back algorithms etc etc. We should focus more on what was the business impact of our SEO efforts.

google analytics per visit goal value

So in this context go back to your page report (from step 1 where you applied the organic segment) and look at the $Index [which is: (goal value + e-commerce revenue) / unique views of the page you are analyzing]. That is a crude measure how how efficient your page is being at converting. Of course look at our favorite metric bounce rate by keyword (that tells you if you can get people to give you one solitary click, the most primitive measure of SEO success).

If you truly want to kick it up a notch as a SEO please please please go to the Goal and Ecommerce / Conversions reports and apply your organic segment, stretch the time period, and report (aggressively) how well your SEO efforts are delivering value to the business.

organic search goal conversion rates

Do it at a overall level, do it by country, do it by search engine, do it by specific keywords you were targeting. . . . and take two minutes to straighten your clothes because a new level of love and praise are about to be dumped on you by your company / client!

[Does the above seem like a lot of work even if it is straight forward? It is. I know we look for short cuts. There is no such thing in real life. But if you are willing to put in a little bit of sweat equity then you'll stand miles apart from your SEO competitors. Not a bad trade off, right?]

.

#2. Is there a fundamental difference in SEO strategies for business-to-business sites vs consumer focused ones?

[It is worth pointing out I am not a hard core SEO, that would be Todd Malicoat, I just play one one TV! Think of below as my personal lessons from the front-line of doing this work to the extent my humble skills allow.]

The basic techniques you use to do search engine optimization between b2b and b2c do not change all that much.

1. Make sure your site is crawlable by the search robot. Leverage the webmaster tools and the ability to upload your site map and exclude dynamic url parameters and more things like that. On your site make sure you really think through heavy use of flash (not that you should not, just think it through) and javascript encoded links (robots don't execute javascript) and other such things.

okay ok pin 12. Make sure your site architecture is well thought out. Directories. Clean url's. Links to your category and product (deep individual) pages. Top (/left / right) navigation is logical. More things like that.

3. Make sure you live and breathe the mantra: content is king. In the end you live and die by the content on your website. Content as in words. Relevant words that tell a story about what the page is all about and the promise you are making to the visitors on that page. Content as in images, with well defined alt tags. Content as in relevant videos that are named well, linked correctly and well tagged.

4. Make sure you realize getting lots of links from lots of websites by asking people to link to you and specifying what keywords they should use in the hypertext is not a magic bullet. Asking people to randomly link to you (I am looking at you major paid web analytics tool that had their "SEO Analyst" email me recently) is as lame as it sounds, and it does not work as well as you think. Earning in-context relevant links works best. IMHO.

Ok All that is the same, no matter if you are a b2b, b2c, b2a (business to aliens, yes they do exist!). Do all that first to make sure you are not coming to play the super bowl naked.

Here are a few things that are different with b2b. . . . .

* Some very effective SEO strategies like allowing users to add reviews and comments and extend the scope of the page do not work as well with b2b as it is a differ net type of engagement and experience with your customers. Well don't give up. You have many many white papers, though leadership papers, webinars, Big B2B Association publications where you contributed and more locked up in pdf or, much worse, behind a forced "give me your login" / "create a account" page. I am going to give you a false email, why not just give me the content, AND let the search engine index it efficiently after all you want people to consume the content.

Did I say already content is king?

* One of the most common issues with b2b websites is that they often have a very specific understanding of their space when it comes to how their potential customers search for information. This results in not speaking the same language (say keywords) as their customers. When I work with b2b websites I spend a lot of time in the AdWords Keywords Tool, Insights for Search, Compete etc analyzing keywords and search behavior in my category. This knowledge goes back into re-doing content, urls etc.

This is of course a good method for b2c as well, but it is significantly more important for b2b.

* Start a conversation. There will likely be a lot fewer individuals talking about you / your industry, a lot fewer tweeting and expressing their love (or hate). I get it. But conversation on your site and away from your site is key (obvious fact). Why not host a user forum on your website for current and future customers to come together and share their thoughts / ideas / complaints / rave about your competitors (scared?)? Why not seek out the few people who do talk about the industry on twitter and engage with them? Why not start a YouTube channel with a series of how-to videos? Why not, : ), start a blog? Not just to highlight your own pomposity and press releases but to really share and lift your industry (not just your company)? Why not become the destination for industry professional?

conversation

So few people in the b2b space bother to start conversations, why not use that to your advantage? Even if you can hook 100 people is that not more than worth it?

Three small things that I would prioritize higher when I work with b2b sites.

What do you do differently when it comes to your b2b clients?

.

#3. When trying to help your rank in search engines. . . when you are in a saturated industry like health or travel insurance – how does the approach change or differ?

Two words: Long Tail!

When you say saturated most people mean that for the "top" keywords they are interested in there is too much competition. For example: "hotels in las vegas", "cheap health insurance" etc.

When there are a lot of players in the field it can be difficult to show up for the "head terms", especially if there are some strong players in the field. In these cases I have had a very positive experience focusing not on the head terms (terms for which there is a lot of traffic) but rather focusing on the long tail (usually key phrases that individually have little traffic but collectively these key phrases can deliver a ton of traffic).

the search long tail

So, if relevant for your business, try to rank for "california health insurance plans" or "california individual health plans" etc. Key phrases (not just words) that each have much less competition (and will likely deliver more relevant audiences).

You can use various keyword tools out there to identify these key phrases and then adapt your SEO strategy (pages, content, urls, etc) to focus on them. One way I use is to just type in competitor urls into AdWords Keyword Tool and then research what is working for them and adapt my strategy.

Targeting the long tail with SEO can be a bunch of work, hence I have recommended in the past that one effective and cheap way is to use paid search to monetize the long tail. But I can tell you from experience that it works. For example for this blog the top 10 (head) keywords bring in something like 5k visits and the long tail (around 25k keywords) bring close to 34k visits. All organic (I am not rich enough to afford paid search!).

One more bonus tip: Leverage "universal search".

Videos, pictures, downloads, offers, buttons, maps, uploaded menus, coupons, and on and on and on.

When you search for many terms relevant to me you'll see videos pop up, my book (uploaded into Google book search) show up with preview thumbnails, some of my flickr images and my twitter account and so on and so forth. For many of these searches I don't rank #1. But man do those listings (when triggered by the search engine's algorithms) stand out and grab the Searcher's attention. Often for competitor or big paid web analytics tool queries where I have a snowball's chance in a hot place of standing out.

It is ironic that most big companies (with so many assets to leverage) are pretty bad at this. So you win! :)

Also Google (I work there) Local Business Center is really good: http://www.google.com/local/add If you are a small business then this is one more important arrow to have in your quiver!

.

#4. Can you look at your competitors sites in the analysis tools you have discussed?

Yes.

But first. . . . it is important to realize that you need to have two skills before you look at competitive intelligence tools:

1. The ability, ironically, to look beyond the numbers that are provided to you by these tools (because they will never be exact).

2. The ability to be see what is there and the flexibility to look elsewhere if what you want it not there. I spend time understanding how each tool capture's data and use the best tool to get the best answer (because no tool is God's gift to you).

If you meet the above two requirements. . . . .

I love using competitive intelligence tools because they give me a perspective and context that is simply missing from Omniture or WebTrends or CoreMetrics or the clickstream tools.

In the search context here are some of my favorite tools and what I use them for.

Insights for Search:

I adore I4S because it is perhaps the most comprehensive "database of intentions" thanks to providing us all with access to worldwide Google organic search data.

google insights for search 1

Use it to understand the latest trends in your category. For example: "How is interest in the computer security category (All Categories -> Computers & Electronics -> Computer Security) and what are the top 100 search terms and the fastest rising brand names / products / searches in that category?"

Use it to identify opportunities. "What states do people search for credit cards the most? What states do people search for Visa credit cards?" Oh look the states with really high credit card searches don't have really high visa card searches, maybe we should do some offline advertising!

Use it to time your campaigns. "When should I have started SEO and PPC campaigns for Italy Tours 2010?" In April 2009!! That's when people first started looking for them. Now go plan for 2011.

Helpful article: How to use Google Insights for Search.

Ad Planner:

This wonderful tool is really built to help you do better display advertising. You log in and you have the delightful ability to do demographic (male, female, age, education, income etc) and psychographic (baby boomers, extreme sports fan, household decision makers, luxury goods consumers, moms etc) segmentation. You can hone in precisely which websites most likely contain your desired audiences. Show them relevant ads and get clicks!

But in the search context there are two things that you use this tool for.

Type in any website you want, expedia.com in my case, and checkout the site and search affinity data:

google ad planner site search affinity expedia.com
[If you don't see the image above, turn off your ad blocker.]

"The affinity score estimates how many times more likely you are to reach an audience who visits a specific site or searches for specific keywords versus an audience on the internet overall." Source.

Sweet 'eh?

Second, click on the tab that says Search by Audience and then the Keywords Searched button and now you have an ability to use search behavior to identify audience pools.

To use the examples of my beloved Indianapolis Colts (go Colts!!!). . . . I have an ability to type in a bunch of related keywords (the tool suggests most used ones) and find out which websites are most likely to be visited by people who search for these keywords:

google ad planner indianapolis colts audience segmentation 1
[If you don't see the image above, turn off your ad blocker.]

At the top are keywords I typed. On the bottom are most commonly searched keywords, I can choose these if I want.

I hit ok and then sort by Comp Index, to ensure I sort the data by the highest audience concentration (audience that searches for all things Colts in this case).

I can use this search and web data to identify where audience I am most interested in exists. I can use it to find out the keyword data for those sites. I can use this to identify sizes (visitors, page views etc) of those websites.

Nice right? Actionable too!

Helpful article: How to use Google Ad Planner.

Compete.Com:

Compete is a paid tool (and it only contains US data). I really love using it because of the wealth of search data it can provide, at an affordable prices.

[I have had a complimentary Pro account for the longest time thanks to the nice people from Compete, that might bias my opinion. Other than that I have no other affiliation with Compete.]

In context of Search I use the data for. . .

1. Identifying what are the top referring keywords for any site that I am interested in:

compete search analytics report

Above data for www.clickequations.com (the paid search analytics company I am on the advisory board of). Of course when you log in with a paid account you would see rest of the data like paid and natural search split for each keyword and time and what not.

Craig will not be happy that he ranks only #12 on the keyword list! :)

I can either use this data to go after keywords that are not currently referring traffic to ClickEquations (more for me!!) or I now know what keywords I need to target to take ClickEquations down in my quest for world domination! Ha!

See how focused you can be with data?

2. Identifying share of search for a keyword:

compete share of search pears

In this case I would like to own the pear fruit market, though at the moment I only own two trees. So I go into Compete to find who my current competition is (above exact match data for query "pears"). I can get lots of details about volume, paid and organic share, what percent of traffic comes to a site from that keyword, etc etc.

Now that I have a benchmark I can go about my super awesome kick butt SEO efforts and one way I know I am winning is to check this report in a month or two (or three weeks after whenever I think I am done). If I show up here I know I am having a impact.

These are just three of the many tools I use. There are a whole lot out there that sometimes give you similar data to the above three, or often give you a lot more. Just remember that there is a lot you can learn from what is going on in your ecosystem and at your competitors.

Ok now your turn.

Got a couple tips you want to share with us about how best to do SEO for B2B sites? How would you measure success of SEO efforts spent on a page on your website? Would you use any of the four ideas I have suggested? Care to comment on how to do SEO for crowded industries or for keyword categories where one or two players seem to dominate? What is your favorite search competitive intelligence tool?

Please share your tips / best practices / comments / critique.

Thank you.

06 Jan 2010 02:13 am

revolveThe new year is such a wonderful time. Wonderful smells in the air. The world is full of hope. Unachievable things seem achievable and are being polished into shiny resolutions. World peace seems within grasp.

As we spring to action full of passion I wanted to share with you all a short list of things that will expand your little world of online marketing & web analytics.

We all have a tendency of getting caught in a rut, using the same tool to do the same things and spew forth the same data. Change is hard, even if we know that we should be executing a multiplicity strategy to win in the web analytics 2.0 world.

Before all the excitement of the new year wears out, here are five simple things I would love for you to try so that your company will have a glorious truly data driven 2010!

#1: Don't suck.

Seems obvious. And yet in our quest for ever more hard problems to solve we forget that the number one goal of every website is not to suck. Especially at the really simple and basic things.

At a recent conference there were three keynotes.

One was extolling the wonderfulness of their multi channel campaign tracking. When I went to their website it was a 100% flash website with a constrained small size where it took too much looking to click on anything and then too much scrolling to read anything and unclear calls to actions (if any). That's sucking. No amount of great multi channel tracking will save this company, they suck at the basics.

The second was about predictive analytics and how using massive integrations between online and offline databases they had accomplished some really cool reporting of data (and make no doubt the IT work done over 18 months to accomplish this was cool). Their home page is a mess. 24% of the content covers what any visitor might want, rest is the company shouting at you (in many annoying ways). That's sucking.

stinks

The third was about how to create data driven cultures and how this person had created a impressively big cross functional team across multiple countries and standardized on Omniture after a lot of work over two and half years. I did a search on some of their products and they did not have page one search listings (on Google or Bing) for what should be their head terms. (That's sucking.) They did have PPC ads, which I click on the ad for specific product they land me on generic nonsense pages. That's sucking.

I share these stories to illustrate vividly how we in the web analytics world get lost in our data and Omniture and Google Analytics and reporting and lose sight of the the basics and the customer experience.

It is important to realize that if you suck nothing else matters. Not your api driven integrated massively multi channel attribution analyzed campaign lifetime databases. That is not going to save you or your company.

Before you attempt the hard make sure that you do all the standard stuff to ensure your company has a fighting chance to win.

Here are some tips to inspire you:

  • I LOVE looking at the bounce rates for the top 20 landing / entry pages to the site. Find the losers, fix 'em. These guys are so bad they could not even get one click from the visitors.

  • Sit down with the owner of the top ten pages to the site and look at them. I mean really look at them and ask this question: "What the heck are we trying to do with each page?" Make sure there is a clear answer (and a match between Customer Intent and Webpage Purpose).

  • Check the load time of your important pages. Use something simple like: www.WebSiteOptimization.com Or whatever complicated tool you have.

  • Sign up for your websites campaigns using your personal email address. See how the emails look. Relevant? Personal? Click on the links, what to you see on the landing pages? Fix!

  • Create a funnel for your cart / checkout / lead submission process. Find the biggest abandonment page. Fix it.

  • Ask your Finance department where most money is being spent on the web. PPC? Affiliate? Display? What? Take a week to segment that data and find out how to save 10% of the cost.

  • Count the number of links on your main pages. I mean count them. There are 98 links on a travel site I am looking at right now, on the page for a hotel in Chicago. 98! This is a top site.

    What are the analytics people doing if they are not helping the product page owner figure out how to kill atleast 50% of those links on a product specific page. There should be one link: Search for Hotel or Make Reservation! Do this for your site.

  • Fix the 25 things Dr. Pete lists in this delightful checklist: 25-point Website Usability Checklist.

There are so many ideas. I hope that before you go for massive web analytics glory that your use your wonderful powers first to make sure your site and customer acquisition strategy does not suck.

PS: Bonus tip: Make sure you visit your website once a week, atleast.

#2 Learn basic statistics.

The days of tools and reports simply puking data out are rapidly reducing. No longer can tools or "analysts" just puke 15 metrics on a report and hope to survive.

Web Analytics tools are starting to become smart (see: Analytics Becomes Intelligent). Data is starting to truly get numerous.

For all of the above reasons it is becoming ever more important that you are know atleast Statistics 101. You don't have to be armed with the knowledge of how to create various models or be able to jump into SAS and get naked with it. But you are going to have to know what a mean and a median and r squared and standard deviations and Z scores and confidence intervals and all that lovely stuff is.

If you have not been exposed to statistics perhaps you can take a class at a local community college or university. Many employers will pay for ongoing job relevant education.

Alternatively get one of the simpler books on the topic and immerse yourself in self education. Regardless of if you are a novice or an expert I think one of the best books to start with is The Cartoon Guide To Statistics ($13). A cartoon book? Yes. It is quite good.

the cartoon guide to statistics

Once you know statistics 101 you'll find that you'll think of data analysis differently and you'll get better at finding that proverbial needle of insight in the haystack of data. Knowledge of statistics is a key arrow to add to your analytical skills quiver.

Hello statistical significance!

#3 Try one (or two) new usability / VOC tool/'s.

My passion for the customer is, as they say, legendary!

Part of it is the humility I have developed at the powerlessness of clickstream data to answer all the needed questions. Part of it is that there are just so many darn good options out there to listen to our customers.

So this year why not try one of the newer more powerful and yet cheap usability analysis tools?

stethoscope

 

Here are some tools that are pretty cool and unique:

  • Five Second Test. I absolutely love the idea of collecting "first impressions" from current customers, employees or just randomly selected people. Within thirty seconds you can take a screenshot of your lovely home page or landing page, upload it and for free get feedback from real people.

  • 4Q / Kampyle / UserVoice. Each of these tools does something completely different, and yet each allows people to type things that you can read and be wow'ed or saddened by. Why not try one of these tools this year and truly get in touch with your customers and a real and meaningful way?

  • UserTesting.com. You are not a small enough company, or a big enough one for that matter, to do usability testing. This is usability testing for ultra cheap, $29 per person. Set out the tasks, identify your audience, test happens, you watch the video and read comments, you cry, you fix things, you become rich.

    Also checkout Feedback Army.

  • WebSort / OptimalSort. The information architecture on most website is terrible and the reason is that company employees create it for themselves. A great option to hear from the customers was to do card sorting studies. Problem? Expense! Not any more baby. Both these tools are quite affordable, all online and in a fraction of the time it would take to do a offline card sorting study you can get the key data you need. Sweet.

You don't have to do all of the above. But you do have to listen to your customers.

In 2010 Consider trying just two tools listed above that you have not used so far. I promise you that you'll want to give me a big hug the next time you see me.

#4 Try one new competitive intelligence tool.

I practically have a illicit love affair with competitive intelligence. And I am not embarrassed!

If I ever come to see your company, or you see me presenting publicly, then you have seen me present data about your company / industry and then proceed to say nice / not nice things. There is just so much gold out there to be discovered.

Here are some tools for you to try, ideas for analysis you could do:

  • Compete.com / Trends for Websites. I love the depth of data now available in both tools for free (even if you use just the free part of Compete). Index your overall performance against your competitors.

    Where do people go after they leave your site? What are the top five referrers for your competitor? What are the top sites that get traffic for the word love? All free from Compete.

    People who visit my site, what other sites do they visit? What are the things they search for? What's the difference between US traffic and India? All free from Trends for Websites.

  • Google's Search-based Keyword Tool. If you have never explored the long tail for your website (if you are a medium to large site) using SbKT you might be committing a crime. If you have never taken a list of keywords AND the landing pages recommended by SbKT where you have zero impression share and given it to your SEO team then you should feel bad. There is so much here.

    [Learn how to use SbKT here: Monetize The Long Tail of Search.]

  • Google Ad Planner. Some display / banner ads stink because they are just terribly produced and blink and annoy you with sound and do insane things when you move your mouse over them inadvertently. Most display ads stink because they are not relevant / well targeted. Make sure that is not your ads. Use the Ad Planner to hone into the exact sites where you can find your audiences.

    What sites are visited by: Men who are in the market for engagement rings. Women who are interested in the NFL. Young adults who are looking to buy net books. Affluent 100k+ folks or comic book buffs or brides to be.

    Now go buy advertising on those sites (from any ad network) and earn a higher ROI on your campaigns.

    [Learn more about Ad Planner: Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Ad Planner]

These four tools should keep you busy for a long time. Don't go at it all at once. Ask your boss's boss what his next 90 day priorities are, find the tool above that might have the insights, go on a honeymoon with it.

#5 Identify two new micro-conversions and goal values for each.

The road to web analytics glory (and a promotion for you) runs through the Micro Conversions path.

I am absolutely convinced that we don't get the love that we deserve from our company leaders because (even if we get beyond data puking) we rarely quantify the impact of all of work that the website is doing.

macroconversionrate and microconversionrate demystified

During Q1 make it your personal quest to identify two new micro conversions for your website (many ideas in the preceding blog post).

Now make sure, and this is absolutely key, you take one more step and quantify the economic value of each micro conversion (instructions and ideas: pages 159 to 162 in my new book Web Analytics 2.0).

goal conversions and goal value

That economic value will help you arrive at the number on the right, $83,848. That number will finally help you understand the complete value your website is adding to your business (only $21,454 is from the Macro Conversion). That number will allow you to measure your campaigns with a level of accountability that will be supremely awesome.

If you do nothing else on this list (I hope it does not come to that), please make sure you do this item. It is that important (especially if you are a non-ecommerce b2b government peaceful protest photo sharing website).

For the true Analysis Ninjas let me share one bonus item, one thing that will put even them above the top. . . .

Bonus: #6 Measure one thing that is "intangible".

The hardest thing to do in online analytics is to measure the intangible. How did people feel about the website experience? What was the positive brand lift? Did the unaided brand recall improve 60 days after the campaign (online or offline)? And more such questions.

Each is really hard to answer, one must think differently.

Here is a post with seven different strategies: Brand Measurement: Analytics & Metrics for Branding Campaigns.

As an Analysis Ninja go all out on three of them this year and take your business to the next level of measurement and insights.

Good luck ya'll!

Ok now your turn.

Care to share examples of sucking that you have killed on your websites? Got a creative use of statistics in your web metrics practice? Which is your favorite online customer listening strategy? Have you had success with quantifying goal values for your micro conversions?

What is your company's online, or online analytics, new year resolution?

Please share your thoughts via comments, thanks much!