SEO Prank “How to kill Anthony Shapley”

Posted by David Whitehouse

Apparently this was nothing new, as people had been searching for “Kean Richmond is gay” before I came up with this idea:

Basically I got a load of people to click through to anthonyshapley.co.uk after visiting this page, so that it got into his Analytics:

Anthony Shapley's Analytics

Anthony Shapley's Analytics

Anyone else heard of any other good SEO pranks? I guess Google Suggest is probably a popular one…

Finally! Page 1 for my name

Posted by David Whitehouse

It’s taken me a few months, but finally I am ranking on page 1 for my name, David Whitehouse.

I’m not sure where to go from here for my blog – my sole purpose was to get it ranking for my name – a kind of online centralised store of information so people can see what I’m about.

I’m considering writing a big guide to Google Analytics – as it appears to be something I know a fair amount about.

I’ll also be putting the answer to my AdWords/Analytics problem up soon – I’ve received a nice email from someone who has given me a possible solution, I’m just waiting to try it out at work.

Update – Just thought, rank #1 for my name would be a good target to have.

Getting Search Queries for Google AdWords in Google Analytics – Part 2

Posted by David Whitehouse

Ok so I’ve been doing a bit of research, and I still need to write the script and run a test, but here is the logic I have determined:

If referrer = Google and request_url contains gclid {
utm_keyword = strip_out_search_string(request_url)
}

My only worries is that if you have the Google Adwords Cost Data enabled that despite setting utm_keyword it may overwrite it. This is why I need to do a test. If there are any volunteers, let me know :)

Getting Search Queries for Adwords in Analytics

Posted by David Whitehouse

I think I have come up with a way to determine the search query used to trigger an keyword based ad and then input that data into Analytics.

I’m going to write a plugin for wordpress over the coming weeks – so if you want to see the terms a user searched for, rather than the keyword you bid on in Adwords, in your Google Analytics then watch this space.

The 5 Most Common Google Analytics Mistakes

Posted by David Whitehouse

Ok, so you lazy people out there, I know what your like, you just slap your Google Analytics code on the site and think that its done. Well your wrong, and your messing up valuable data right now! Here are the most common mistakes:

1. Failing to Exclude URL Query Parameters
Nobody ever seems to use this, its great though, it gets rid of all the crap out of the content reports. Every time a page loads with a query string (e.g. http://www.david-whitehouse.org/index.php?SirDickonTwitter=boring), Google Analytics treats it as a separate url to index.php. In order to prevent this, you simply put the variable name (e.g. ‘SirDickonTwitter’) in the handy little box (edit profile, edit main website profile information).

2. Failing to Setup Site Search
Again this is a similar problem to the one above. If you don’t state what your variable name is for the site search then url’s like: http://www.david-whitehouse.org/search.php?q=wanker and http://www.david-whitehouse.org/search.php?q=bagels will both be treated as separate content. Instead you just put ‘q’ in the site search query box and then get it to strip the url of parameters.

3. Goal Conversion Setup
I rarely see this one setup right, people often repeat the final step twice, as they don’t realise Google puts the final one in at the end. Most people don’t even bother setting this up, but the ones who do, tend to do it wrongly.

4. Ecommerce Script Setup
When your setting this up, you have to put your ecommerce code after your tracking code, or it won’t work. Most people just paste it in and adapt it, not realising they need the tracking script before hand and an if statement in their footer to prevent the tracking script showing there.

5. IP Exclusion Filters
If you are going to be working on a site, whether you are the developer/designer or the marketing agency, perhaps even the business owner – you need to be adding your ip address to the exclude filter on the profile (make sure you have an unfiltered profile as a backup though).

Finally I have found some direction

Posted by David Whitehouse

Ok so I’ve been interested in the web for a while, and I love Internet marketing – I read about it all the time, every aspect – from attracting visitors and keeping them, to increasing conversion rates and average order values.

Recently I’ve been reading about copywriting, Google Analytics and customer retention. The last one is one of the most complicated and commonly misunderstood subjects I have ever read about – but once you get it, boy is it interesting. I’ve written an article on it – but I think it’s a bit too off topic to be going on Dave Naylor’s blog (we’ll see, maybe he’ll let me put it up)!

So I’m gonna start concentrating on upping the conversion rates, order values and customer lifetime values. I guess this would be some kind of site optimisation consultant, or something. Anyone know what the name is?