Jumat, 27 Juni 2008

Come See The Big Three

Faithful Analytics blog readers, I don't want to bore or alienate any of you—a diverse and geographically disperse group of intelligentsia—but today's blog post draws on something close to my heart: a professional basketball team called the Boston Celtics. Stay with me, just for a few more sentences. All will become clear ...

About a week ago, the Celtics won the National Basketball Association championship over their biggest rival, the Lakers (sorry, Lakers fans). As I say when something like this happens, "Whoo-hooot!!!"

Ahem. Anyway, the reason the Celts won is that this season their management united three of the best players in the NBA: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen. These players strove for years to win the title on separate teams, playing with less talented players, and finally, when they joined forces, everything fell into place.

How does this trifecta relate to web analytics, online marketing, and website management, the topics closest to our heart? Well, we've also got a big three for you, dear reader. And they're taking the stage July 8 in a one-hour webinar, presented by our team, called, "The Google Trifecta."

Who are our big three? You might be able to guess: one of them is Google Analytics, so you can start getting your "Whoo-hooot!" ready. Rounding it out are Webmaster Tools and Website Optimizer, two other free Google tools for website-owners. The first helps you improve your site's visibility in Google search results, and the second helps increase your conversion rate once visitors arrive on your site.

Individually each tool is powerful; combined, they offer you a holistic, detailed understanding of your website: how you're faring on Google, how your visitors land on and navigate to your site, and which combination of content most effectively gets them to convert. If you're already using one tool, you can use your same login for the others. And unlike the Celtics, you don't have to trade any co-workers or pay any money.

In this vein, we posted a couple of months ago about how you can identify your high-value, low-performing pages with Google Analytics, then test and optimize them with Website Optimizer to improve your conversion rates.

Here's the webinar info:

TITLE: The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer
DATE: Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
TIME: 9:00 - 10:00 am PT (Pacific Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend (free)

In the webinar, team members will introduce each product for newcomers, highlight recent product developments, and discuss the benefits of using all three products together. And when you register, we'll also invite you to submit any questions you'd like the presenters to answer.

In case you didn't know about Google Webmaster Central, take a look. It's a one-page resource linking to many of the tools Google offers to help you build and maintain an effective site, including Google Analytics, Website Optimizer, and Webmaster Tools, the trifecta, the big three, the three amigos, the rule of three. Hope to see you at the webinar!

Kamis, 19 Juni 2008

One year after the redesign

Anyone remember the previous Google Analytics interface? Here's a screenshot of the dashboard:


And another of a report with cross-segmentation clicked on:


Just over a year ago, after extensive user interviews, surveys and live usability studies, we completed a substantial redesign project and released a completely new Google Analytics interface.

And voilĂ :


The redesign addressed an important shift in the analytics industry's customer base. Not only are more businesses using web analytics than ever before, but an increasingly large number of business generalists (non-web analytics specialists) in these companies are using web analytics to drive decision making. We redesigned Google Analytics to help these legions of new users ask insightful questions of their data and get actionable answers.

Instead of adding reports with specialized information, the new Google Analytics places data in context making it easier to discover information relationships via navigation and data visualizations. We created a custom dashboard and introduced sparklines. We developed new graphing tools and added a new type of date slider that allows you to view spikes and dips in traffic as you set date ranges. And one of the most popular new features is one of the simplest: the ability to e-mail reports and schedule these e-mails so that information can be easily shared with key stakeholders (as well as curious counterparts).

When we announced this new version, we committed to continue adding new features in a steady stream of updates. I believe we've made good on that commitment, but you can be the judge. Below are my highlights from the last 12 months:

1. Internal site search: We've always shown you which keywords people search to find your site. Now, internal site search tracking shows you how people search once they're already on your site. See the keywords and search-refinement keywords people use, and the pages from which they begin and end their searches. And, find out how search on your site affects site usage, conversion rates, and e-commerce activity. Here's a shot of the insights you can get with site search data (click to enlarge):


2. Industry Benchmarking: With Benchmarking, you can compare your site data with site data from a variety of industry verticals. And the accompanying data-sharing settings let you control whether and how Google services interact with your data to enable and disable these features. Here's a screenshot (click to enlarge):


3. New visualizations and analysis features: You can now view many reports by hour or day and graph data by day, week, or month. You can also graph two metrics against each other over time—we call it multi-line graphing. So, for example, you can compare the number of visitors vs. bounce rates for a certain week, or see whether visitors who come to a website through AdWords spend more or less time on your site than visitors overall. In this screenshot, we've chosen to look at visitors trending in weekly units as opposed to daily. This makes it easier to spot trends when looking at longer time periods. And we're looking at visits compared to conversions:


4. New ga.js tracking code: Our new pagetag allows for a more flexibility and customization. Its just as easy to install as the old code, but allows more sophisticated users to track e-commerce transactions in a more readable way and take advantage of advanced tracking features. We've also added the Google Analytics codesite to help developers take advantage of documented customizations.

5. Correlations with offline marketing with Google Audio Ads and TV Ads integrations: Audio Ads and TV Ads customers can now track whether their Google radio and TV campaigns sent additional traffic to their website based on when and where the ads run.

6. Website Optimizer: Google's free multivariate website-testing tool is out of beta and available to everyone. And now you can even log in with your Google Analytics account.

7. Urchin Software: If you have content behind a security firewall or on an intranet or internal network that prevents you from using Google Analytics, you might want to consider Urchin 6. You can also track your website with Urchin and Google Analytics together.

8. Support and Help Centers in eight additional languages: We've added Thai, Filipino, Indonesian, Czech, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), Turkish, and Polish. This brings the number of Google Analytics supported languages to 25.

9. Authorized Consultants (GAACs): This is the year of the Authorized Consultant. We've added six new GAACs in the past few months, bringing our worldwide total to 51. We have also added Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant and Urchin Software Authorized Consultant networks.

10. You: We have a sophisticated, engaged and vibrant user base from whom we're learning daily. We're so excited about the future: it's palpable at Google, and it all comes from you and our ecosystem of users, bloggers, consultants, and developers. We have many more new developments underway that I believe you'll enjoy so I hope you continue to stay engaged with this blog, our Google Group and our codesite.

Kamis, 12 Juni 2008

Final Exams

Web 4 Exam concludes today.

Web 1 Exam

Web 2 Exam:

You are the editor of the Missouri Times. It is November 7, 1860. Your state is the only state that the Northern Democrats won. Your state has played a strong role in the slavery debate through the Missouri compromise and that information is important to your readers (and is perhaps why they voted for Douglas).
Prepare a breaking news website that reflects the results of the election.

You are the editor of the Capulet Times. You have just heard that Tybalt may have died in a big fight and Romeo is missing. Where is Juliet? Your newspaper is owned by the Capulet family.
Prepare a breaking news website that reflects this news.

You are the webmaster for the Madrid Times. It is July 2, 1898. You have to be as objective as possible, but you know the King of Spain reads your paper and has huge influence.
Prepare a breaking news website that reflects the events of July 1.

You are the editor for the Chicago Tribune. It is August 27, 1968 and the Democratic Convention is experiencing more and more protests. Many of your reporters sympathize with the protesters and you support the free speech of the protesters. However, many of your readers think the police are correct to “restore order”.
Prepare a breaking news website that reports the growing protests at the convention.

Selasa, 10 Juni 2008

Exams

Web 1 exam is released. Your vocabulary section will be posted during the exam period.

Web 2 exam has begun. I will post your "Breaking News" during the exam period.

Web 4 exam will finish today for many of you. Be sure it is saved to the Udrive.

Students may attend a different class period (except Per1) for their exam as long as I have an available computer.

Kamis, 05 Juni 2008

Finishing Up

Web 1 should be closing grades and studying for their vocabulary part of the exam. I will release the exam on Tuesday. The vocabulary part of the exam must be taken during the exam period.

Web 2 will be closing grades this week. I will release the exam on Monday.

Web 4 will begin their exam today.

Students may attend a different class period (except Per1) for their exam as long as I have an available computer.

Rabu, 04 Juni 2008

Wednesday

Today I expect to leave after 6th period for the track state championship, rain permitting.

Today will be a grade catch-up day for everyone.

1. Finish current project (blog evaluations or counting assignment).
2. Check grades.
3. Finish work.
4. Clean up WDrive. Keep assignments. Delete junk or duplicate files. Organize folders.

If you have extra time watch a TED talk or read the NYTimes about yesterday's historic events.

Senin, 02 Juni 2008

Technology Fair Winners

The winners are:

Memorial Day Graphics Contest:
1st: Clariza Saldi
2nd: Maryann MacFadden
3rd: Henry Tse
Honorable Mention: Karren Saldi
Honorable Mention: Krysta Molfese

Zero Impact House Design Contest:
“Can you build me a zero-impact house?”
1st: Dustin Zrelak
2nd: Danielle Deluca
3rd: Austen Roman

Breast Cancer Awareness Design Contest:
“How can young women fight breast cancer?”
1st: Laura Pisano
2nd: Brittany Brassell
3rd: Lauren Almonte
Honorable Mention: Dustin Ingalls

Lincoln Re-election Design Contest:
“Design Lincoln’s 1864 campaign website using 2008 technology”
1st: Maryann MacFadden
2nd: Brian Colwell
3rd: CJ Ringenback
Honorable Mention: Devin Zawadski

Tech Fair

The Technology Fair is tonight at SHS from 5-7pm. I would love it if some of you came to demonstrate what we do (extra credit). Let me know if you can do it (please do!).

I will post the winners of the three contests tonight.

I will be working today on grading projects and preparing for the fair tonight. Please give me a chance to do that (shh!).

Web4: The thinkquest winners have been posted. They are very impressive. I received the feedback from the judges and will return that to you today.

Today in class:

Web 2 and Web 4:
Work on the evaluation of the project. We spent four weeks on this project so be sure to take time to reflect properly on your work. If you do this right it should take you two days.

Web 1:
Prepare a website that would teach a toddler how to count to ten. This will be challenging. How will you approach this problem? What tools will you use (Flash, Fireworks, Voki, Scratch, Audacity, Moviemaker)?

  • How do toddlers learn best? Can they use the mouse?
  • What colors do they like?
  • How will you recognize different learners and diversity?
  • How will you incorporate sound (hint: you have to have sound!)?

Have some fun with this. This is your final assignment before we start our final exam. I am looking for clean code that works!!