Posts Tagged ‘metrics’
Poll: What % of mobile searches are local?
It’s interesting how when you ask the right question, you get more questions. We ran a poll on mobile phone experience yesterday, and it generated a solid response, which is still going. I asked a few people about other questions they would like to see asked. Cindy Krum, who’s an expert in mobile marketing wants to discuss:
Thanks for the question Cindy - let’s see how the results turn out!
Previous polls:
- Best User Experience with mobile web browsing?
- Is Twitter effective Interruption Marketing?
Bryan Eisenberg & Richard Zwicky at SES Toronto
Bryan Eisenberg, who is the best-selling author of “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing” and many other books and I did a panel together recently at SES Toronto. After the panel, he interviewed me with regards to meaningful metrics. It was a good panel, and interview.
Perhaps the most salient point from both panel and interview is that when a business is trying to understand and evaluate key metrics in online marketing they need to look through the entire value-chain. The challenges of the changing marketplace make it very difficult for marketers to measure all channels equitably and fairly, balancing search, social media, email, newsletters, etc. Bryan highlighted the importance of cross channel metrics, which I was able to substantiate with an example of a client who was struggling to find value in PPC after having only invested in, and measured, one channel. Upon examination, the client discovered that a significant portion of the business’s social and organic search traffic was preceded by visits from the paid channel, and that these multi-touch visits were actually converting and providing measurable results at a higher rate than single visit traffic.
I hope you take the 5 minutes to listen to the interview, and feel free to send me any questions that you have as a consequence.
Does Depth of Referral Affect Quality of Visit?
Yesterday I published data around click through rates from the search results. That data shows that 95% of all search referrals now arrive from page 1 in the search results. The number is higher in paid, and slightly lower in organic search, but 5% for everything not on page 1 doesn’t leave a lot of room for any other positioning.
I thought it would be interesting to start comparing that data against quality of visit, from the perspective of engagement. A longer time on site and / or more pages viewed should give a good indication of engagement. What I found was quite surprising. You would think that a searcher who is going to bother to drill deeper into the search results would be more motivated to find the right information, and thus would stay engaged in a destination site longer. In fact, the opposite is true. As people drill deeper into the results they become less patient.
The information shown demonstrates how there is a relationship between where in the search results people click, and the quality of their visit to your business. In this case longer time on site and more pages viewed would indicate a better quality of visitor. Counter-intuitively, it’s not the people who drill deeper in the search results that are showing the greatest satisfaction when they land on a destination site, it’s the visitors from page one:
| Referrals from Page # | Pages Viewed | Time on Site |
|---|---|---|
| (average) | mm:ss: | |
| 1 | 3.59 | 2:27 |
| 2 | 2.16 | 1:06 |
| 3 | 2.12 | 1:01 |
| 4 | 2.08 | 0:57 |
| 5 | 2.05 | 0:55 |
What this data demonstrates is that visitors from page one in the SERPs are, on average, spending twice as much time and viewing almost twice as many pages on the web sites they visit as visitors who arrive from clicking deeper within the results pages.
Not only is page one more valuable from the perspective of amount of traffic, but also quality. When viewed graphically, the similarity between pages viewed and time on site is stunning, both in relation to time on site v. the referring page number in the search results:
As well as to pages viewed v. the referring page number in the search results:
This less patient user behavior is also reflected in how people search using longer and longer queries. I published data a few weeks ago around how many words are in a typical referring query. What I found was while people might start searching with one word queries, they quickly move to longer, more specific requests. In the next few weeks I’ll expand on that post with some page view and time on site behavioral metrics as well.
As always, Enquisite collects data from a network of web sites distributed globally. The data used in this reports represents web sites distributed globally, and reflects click-through activity data.
Enquisite Reporting Suite Update
(Nov 2009) We are pleased to announce the November update to the Enquisite Performance Suite. This release includes three new enhancements:
- Bounce Rate, Time on Site, and Page View metrics within Enquisite Optimizer
- Transferring Segment Data from Optimizer to Enquisite Campaign
- A 50% speed increase in the core Longtail reporting interface.
Our Enquisite Optimizer product has been enhanced to allow you to see the bounce rate, time on site, and page view metrics for your site as well as any segment of search referral traffic that you create within Optimizer. This has been an outstanding request from publishers and etailers alike.
This screenshot reflects ~10 days worth of data from a web site with ~150k search referrals per day. The segment displayed is showing Google organic search traffic only, where the visitors were searching from within the U.S., and which zip codes they were located in when they visited the business. The map shows the State by State breakdowns (WA is proportionally too high), and the Time on Site / Bounce Rate / PageViews calculation shows us the site average, and the average for just this segment. The system took 5 seconds to calculate the entire dataset, most of which was the time it took me to set the parameters!
This feature was created to provide you with the ability to determine the relevancy and perceived value of the pages on your site. It can help you determine the factors that may compel users who arrive at your site to immediately leave as well as the pages that may entice them to continue to browse. Not only will this help you better structure your site and pages, but it will allow you to understand which pages to focus on in order to best shape the incoming traffic.
Finally, the addition of time on site, page view and bounce rate calculated against both paid or organic search referral segments makes it possible for any search marketer to isolate and identify high value opportunities and optimize campaigns accordingly.
Our Longtail reports is the core of Enquisite Optimizer. We’ve made some code improvements which halve load times, and with a new Database optimization we’re implementing, we expect to reduce load times even more significantly. For all but the largest sites, Optimizer was already blazingly fast for a real-time analysis and insight engine. Now, it’s even faster for everyone!
Finally, we’ve started the process of integrating the segmentation functionality in Optimizer into our Campaign product. This will make it even easier than before to build and manage your search marketing campaigns.
We’ve got a lot more improvements coming in the next few months, and thank-you all for your continued support, suggestions and feedback.
Weekly Search Engine Market Share Update
Last week I published information about how the market shares for the search engines have evolved over the last few months. I’m going to attempt to post updates almost every week, offset randomly by other interesting trends such as browser share numbers. This week, I’ve put together a weekly update, as quite a few people emailed me about the evolving trends.
To highlight the trend, I’ll re-post the data from early September.
search engine market shares for search engine usage based on searchers located in the US
| Yahoo | Bing | Others | September 7 | 78.68% | 11.51% | 6.80% | 4.06% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 14 | 78.35% | 11.13% | 6.50% | 4.02% |
| September 21 | 77.43% | 11.35% | 7.11% | 4.12% |
| September 28 | 77.65% | 10.80% | 7.27% | 4.28% |
| October 4 | 77.78% | 10.66% | 7.23% | 4.25% |
| October 12 | 77.78% | 10.66% | 7.21% | 4.36% |
| October 18 | 77.89% | 10.65% | 7.29% | 4.16% |
Again, this data represents search engine click through activity where the people initiating the searches are located in the U.S. At some point I’ll present information on global search activity.
New Enquisite Feature - Opportunity Analysis Report
Ever wonder if you’re missing out on fantastic opportunities that are lurking within your own web site? Now you can find out. The page 2 optimization strategy I’ve written about in the past is a great way to discover potentially lucrative opportunities, but that strategy focuses on identifying existing opportunities in the search rankings-your pages are out there and recognized by the search engines-you just haven’t made it onto page 1 yet.
The strategy I’m going to talk about today is different. The page two strategy works by identifying the low-hanging fruit that, with a little optimization work, can move new pages onto page 1, an action that typically results in a 4500% increase in traffic. The Opportunity Analysis Report delivers you another way to improve your search referral traffic, and conversions!
Enquisite’s Opportunity Analysis Report is found within the Search Engine Comparison report section. It helps you identify which phrase are driving referrals, actions, and conversions from one or many search engines, but not all. Let me explain. Imagine that you have a keyword phrase that’s driving conversions from both MSN and Yahoo, but not Google. Wouldn’t that be nice to know, at a glance, in 10 seconds or less? Would that have an impact on the search phrases you bid for on Google AdWords? Exactly. The Opportunity Report saves you hours of analysis and decision making by highlighting those phrases that have opportunities on specific search engines, and exporting those phrases to a list that you can easily drop right into your bid management system.
To access this report, simply log in to your Enquisite reports, go to the Comparison tab, and select the “Opportunities” option. Then, choose the search engine (or engines) you want to use as a source, as well as the target search engine-the target will be the engine that isn’t referring traffic (or conversions) for terms that are performing well on other search sources.
And that’s it. We think it’s the most innovative way to do real keyword research on your site. Try it out, and let us know what you think!
Search Engine Referral Rates by Page in SERPs
I’ve been asked a lot of questions over the last 10 years about how deep in the search results do people actually go before they clicked through on a result. In the past I’ve run a few reports on this information, but using only a month or two worth of data.
I just ran another report, but instead of two months, I used a sampling of our data representing ~300MM search referrals pulled from a much longer time period. What I found was the percentage of traffic from page one is actually increasing over time
I didn’t segregate out PPC or image searches, so this data does represent referrals in the aggregate. When we look at the hard numbers behind the data, the growing gap between page 1 and the rest is stunning.
| 2007-04 | 2007-05 | 2007-06 | 2007-07 | 2007-08 | 2007-09 | |
|
Page 1
|
85.50% | 86.03% | 87.18% | 87.79% | 88.07% | 88.40% |
|
Page 2
|
7.61% | 7.52% | 6.90% | 6.52% | 6.47% | 6.44% |
|
Page 3
|
2.84% | 2.71% | 2.48% | 2.35% | 2.28% | 2.21% |
|
Page 4
|
1.30% | 1.19% | 1.09% | 1.04% | 1.00% | 0.92% |
|
Page 5
|
0.82% | 0.75% | 0.69% | 0.66% | 0.64% | 0.58% |
| 2007-10 | 2007-11 | 2007-12 | 2008-01 | 2008-02 | 2008-03 | |
|
Page 1
|
88.42% | 88.47% | 88.81% | 88.90% | 88.78% | 89.71% |
|
Page 2
|
6.47% | 6.44% | 6.23% | 6.19% | 6.39% | 5.93% |
|
Page 3
|
2.20% | 2.16% | 2.05% | 2.06% | 2.04% | 1.85% |
|
Page 4
|
0.92% | 0.91% | 0.89% | 0.88% | 0.87% | 0.78% |
|
Page 5
|
0.57% | 0.57% | 0.55% | 0.55% | 0.54% | 0.46% |
It’s stunningly obvious that Page 1 generates the vast majority of traffic. Everyone knows this intuitively, but this data provides the facts to substantiate it. Page 2 still gets some traffic, but it’s negligible by comparison. While not appearing to hold much value, these placements are not entirely worthless.
Although a Web page which is found on Page 2 or lower on search engine result pages, (SERPs) may not get much traffic, you want to make these pages some of the prime targets in your SEO campaign. Although people aren’t finding these pages as often, they have incredibly high value simply because the search engines are finding and placing them, just a few small steps away from the success of page one.
Consider it from the opposite perspective: 90 percent of search engine users never venture beyond the first page of results. Listings found on page 2 of the SERPs are incredibly valuable, just not quite valuable enough to make it to page 1. These pages are your gems in the rough, and should be thought of as home-runs in waiting. With a little work, they can easily place on the first page, and you can hit it out of the park on an SEO campaign, just by concentrating your efforts in the right places.
Find the pages where you’re achieving page 2 or 3 placements, and focus on optimizing and improving the pages found there. Small adjustments can bump you up onto page 1, and will make your traffic soar. Get more pages moving up in the listings, and the effect on other pages in your Website is cumulative.
Observations from the Receiving End - Surprising Results in Poll Lists
August 4th, 2010 by Richard Zwicky
It’s been quite interesting watching the response to the lists about online marketers that I started published two weeks ago. . There have been over 3,000 voter submissions in the last week. That’s a lot more than I ever expected. Additionally, I’ve received many text messages, voicemails, DM’s, blog comments, and emails with suggestions of who else could be included on the lists; I appreciate all these notes.
Some people also chose to send me their own names for inclusion. One person appears to have submitted their name for inclusion ~50 times! Fortunately for you, I’m not publishing your name, but if you’re reading this, you know who you are. You’re claiming to be an Internet Marketer of some skill: Do you honestly not know that it’s easy to determine if traffic repeatedly originates from the same places or computers?
Other than the notes from a couple of manic individuals repeatedly suggesting themselves, lots of people sent me some great suggestions. I’ve been trying to follow-up on them by reading things by and about these contributors. There are some valuable resources I’m discovering, or re-discovering. Thank-you! Some of the useful suggestions are found in the blog comments of the appropriate posts.
The suggestions I’ve received go to the point of the series. It’s not been about who gets the most votes, but, that said, I will publish lists thereof. The attention seeking has been for all these valuable contributors whom I wanted to recognize via this forum. Some of the people on the lists are already well known, and justifiably so. Others are not well known yet, but they provide great information about different facets of online marketing, and should be a resource that anyone with any level of interest in the space can turn to for insights.
I do appreciate all the attention that these lists have generated, and hope that people will share the results widely – that only goes to accomplish the goal of providing these people recognition.
As for the voting; it’s been really interesting to see whose inputs are heavily valued, despite their not being common industry names. It’s also been extremely interesting to observe which channels have been driving the most traffic via social media, and other sources, as well as observing which channel’s traffic has the best user behavior once they visit the site. I’ll likely have a few posts coming out reporting on user behavior trends. Quite interesting really! For instance, as it stands right now, the day of the social media experts tweets drove the lowest RT and clickthrough activity per post or mention. Perhaps that’ll change before the lists close…
Finally, there have been two individuals who received no votes. (Bet you want to know who, eh?) I was shocked at who they were, and presume it’s because their communities did not overlap as heavily with the search or social marketplace community represented here. Hopefully they’ll learn about these lists before I close them.
In the meantime, if you haven’t checked out the lists of great contributors (or voted), please do so now at:
Search Engine Optimization Professionals
Pay-Per-Click Marketing Experts
Social Media Marketing Specialists
Link Building Masters
Amazing Cross-Channel Online Marketing Contributors
I’ll hopefully start publishing results next week.
Richard / @rzwicky
Tags: link building, linking strategies, links, marketer, marketers, Marketing, metrics, ppc, search, SEM, SEO, SEO Link Building, Social Link Building Marketplace, social marketing
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