SEO TIPS

By: Gabriel Gervelis

Understanding the Google Analytics dashboard

Google Analytics is a free program offered by Google that allows you to answer two main questions.

1) How are visitors coming to your website?
2) What are visitors doing once they are on your website?

Once you’ve installed the free Google Analytics program within the code of your website, if you don’t know how to use the program, there is no added value. Understanding the language of Google Analytics will empower you to get the most out of your SEO campaign.

The first thing you see after logging into Google Analytics is the dashboard. Understanding the terms used on the dashboard is key to understanding Google Analytics.

The Basic Google Analytics Glossary

Visits
The number of visitors entering your website. Keep in mind that visits are recorded by IP address, so this figure is not unique.

Page Views
The number of web pages within your web site have been viewed. This is the total amount of page views from all visitors within a given amount of time.

Pages/Visits
The number of pages the average visit generates. This is an average number.

Bounce Rate
How many visitors bounced off of your website. A bounce is a visitor that enters your website from any entry page, the exits the website with out visiting pages deeper within the site, or clicking on any links. For Example: a visitor that enters your website from a search engine, spends 35 seconds on that page, then exits with out clicking on any links is considered a bounce.

Avg. Time on Site
How long the average visitor stays on your website. You may want users to have a long time on site or short time on site depending on your goals.

% New Visits
How many of your total visitors are new visitors versus how many of your total visitors are repeat visitors.

Other Google Analytics Resources:

Mahalo Beta
This post shows how to install the free program, and other basic functions of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Blog
This is the official Google Analytics blog, if you can’t find the information you are looking for here, you can’t find it at all!

Good luck with your SEO ventures!

By: Gabriel Gervelis

We thought it would be appropriate to touch the top 5 things to look for in an SEO campaign, 5 basic features that every legitimate SEO campaign should include. An upcoming post will feature 5 things to stay away from that an SEO campaign can include.

1. Keyword Research
Who cares if you’re #1 on Google if no one is searching for that keyword?

Keyword research is one of the single most important elements to an SEO campaign. IMPORTANT: Make sure the SEO Company that you chose provides search counts for keywords they want to target in the campaign. Also, make sure you have final approval on what keywords the campaign will target. View this post for more details about keyword research.

2. Meta Tag Optimization
Meta tag optimization is another important factor that every SEO campaign should include. Currently, there is much debate is certain meta tags hold weight with ranking in the SERPS or if they hold no weight at all. Every page within your website needs to have the basic meta tags optimized to match the page content. Title tags, description tags, keyword tags, robots follow tags, and other meta tags apply to this theory. Always make sure that your SEO campaign includes meta tag optimization. View this post for more information about meta tags.

3. Header Tag Optimization
High rankings in the SERPS cannot be achieved by utilizing just one or two SEO Techniques. SEO campaigns should include multiple SEO techniques. One of these SEO techniques is the optimization of a web pages header tag. Header tags can are formatted h1, h2, h3, etc. You can see how the header tags and meta tags are optimized creates a direct relation to the quality of keyword research.

4. Content Optimization
The header tag is part of the content of the optimized web page, however the entire content of the web page needs to be optimized. Bold content, italic content, content that is underlined, and simply optimized content are key to any SEO campaign.

5. Link Building
The above 4 SEO techniques are on-page optimization techniques. This last technique is an off-page technique. It is weak SEO practice to use all on-page efforts and nothing off-page. Link building can include:

• blog posts
• directory submissions
• link exchanges
• link baiting (covered later in this blog)

Now you have 5 questions to ask if you receive a call from an SEO Company claiming they can put you on top of the SERPS for some miracle amount, or if you’re currently looking to hire an SEO company or in house SEO optimizer. There is much more to the SEO game. However, here at Seo Tips we want to attack things one post at a time!

SEOTIPS.ORG is a service from Clocktower Media designed to inform and educate business owners/decision makers on the concepts of SEO in order to justify cost, and to provide an education and understanding of SEO.

Good luck with your SEO campaign and be seen!