Posts Tagged ‘map’
New Enquisite Feature - Map Overlays
Sure, map overlays are nothing new to analytics. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been an analytics package that lets you geographically segment just your search traffic, and view it on a map — until now. I’m delighted to announce that we’ve just added Map Overlays functionality to Enquisite Pro. Let me spend a moment telling you more about why we felt this was so important.
We found that reading the list of cities that are sending you what traffic is interesting and valuable, but let’s face it-seeing that search traffic spread out on a map is much, much cooler. Heck, even I was surprised when I saw Enquisite’s own search referral data laid out on a map!
Using Map Overlays you can visualize traffic globally, by country, state (province / region), or city. We didn’t drill down to zip code, but might in future, if enough people request it. Nonetheless, in the matter of 5 seconds I was able to visualize traffic on a state-by-state basis. I discovered that Missouri sends far more traffic than I would’ve expected and Texas sends fewer referrals than I would have thought. That tells me one thing—we’ve got lots of opportunity for growth within Texas.
But Map Overlays doesn’t just work to show you search referrals by geographic area-We also created it to be able to plot actions and conversions. One thing that’s pretty interesting to do is to plot the search referral traffic to the site on a state-by-state basis, then filter it just to look at particular inquiries, and compare referrals to conversions. Sure helps it easy to make smarter business decisions.
For example—in looking at Enquisite’s data, our international traffic is dominated by the U.S. and Canada, followed by the rest of the world. But when I filter by inquiries, the patterns change-and quite stunningly, mirror our conference appearances. Adding time and city constraints show an even tighter connection–we see visitors from Paris and areas around it after SES Paris last January; from Bavaria, where Search Marketing Expo Munich was held; and so on. Amazing.
Taking advantage of Map Overlays is easy. Open up your Longtail report and where the longtail graph appears, you’ll see a button that says “Map.” Click it, and watch as the longtail graph disappears, and the map comes into view. And if you create a view you’d like to go back to, just build and save those segments, then apply them to any future maps. How’s that for a much more efficient way to work?
We said before that we tackle the problems that help you turn data into action—so how does Map Overlays help you do just that? By giving you visual cues. Looking at rows and columns of data, it’s hard to spot areas that are not sending you traffic, but plot that same data on a map, and at-a-glance you can see where those holes are, and also which areas are unusually active.
So what do you do with this information? 1) Buy geo-targeted ads to test these markets, and 2) Get some links from geographic areas that are underperforming. An often-neglected search engine algorithm value is that of geographic links. For instance, if your site doesn’t have any links from Texas, your site will likely underperform in searches from that marketplace.
Which makes sense. If you don’t have any links from sites or businesses situated in Texas, then the search engines will assume that the subject matter on your site is not of interest to people there. Why would the engines show your site as well-placed or as often as another site with similar content and lots of links from Texas? They won’t. But unless you do the analysis, you’d never know that Texas was underperforming, nor would you know to concentrate at least a handful of link building efforts in Texas. By seeing the information on a map, you’re ready to immediately take action.
You like what you’re seeing here? It’s just a start. If you’re interested in learning more about how Enquisite can help you save time and do even cooler stuff with your campaigns, you should check out one of our sales engineer Joe’s weekly webinars. During the webinars, Joe answers questions, and demonstrates things you’ve likely never seen—and best of all, these educational training sessions are free!
Like I said before, these are some exciting times at Enquisite. We’re glad you’re here to take part in them. As always, please feel free to send me feedback, comments, or questions.