Web Analytics

It Starts With Marketing / Web Analytics / Interview

by Barry June 14, 2012

My latest for State of Search is the spelling out of a thought that’s been careening around in my head for a while: that all we do online to make our client sites a success needs a coherent, well thought-out marketing strategy: State of Search: Everything Starts With a Marketing Strategy But what drives the [...]

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Reclaiming (not provided) / Author Rank Hype

by Barry April 24, 2012

For State of Search I explored a way to reclaim some of the keyword data that was lost when Google implemented SSL search. With some clever Google Analytics filters and custom reports it’s fairly easy to correlate (not provided) keywords with known keywords, and thus reclaim some of your lost metrics: State of Search: Yet [...]

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Google Data Accuracy / SEO Dojo Radio / Niche Linkbuilding

by Barry February 22, 2012

In my latest post for Search News Central I dig in to the data Google provides us with via Webmaster Tools and the AdWords Keyword Tool. I find some major discrepancies between data sets, especially where search volume is concerned: Search News Central: Does Google Tools Data Really Add up? Most of us have by now [...]

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Website Tracking / Revolution in Search

by Barry October 13, 2011

For Search News Central I wrote an article outlining several often-overlooked data tracking opportunities that can help website owners make more informed decisions about how to improve their site: Search News Central: Are You Tracking All That Happens on Your Website? Many people seem to think that just installing Google Analytics tracking code on every [...]

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IP Address Geotargeting / State of Search

by Barry August 8, 2011

I wrote a host of short blog posts for State of Search over the past few weeks to cover for the site’s owner Bas van den Beld while he was on vacation. The most substantial of these blog posts is a case study on why geotargeting users based on IP address is a silly affair, [...]

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My Own URL Shortener: Set-Up and January Stats

by Barry February 1, 2011

Late last year I decided to use my quiet time in the holiday season to set up my own URL shortener. I like bit.ly a lot, but the idea of having full control over my own URL shortener as well as a ‘personal brand’ short URL – along the lines of yoa.st – persuaded me [...]

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Google Data / SEO Search

by Barry October 26, 2010

For Search News Central I’ve written a blog post about the trustworthiness of the data Google shares with us. In many of Google’s free tools, such as Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and even Adwords, the data we’re presented with isn’t always reliable. Search News Central: Can We Trust Google’s Data? As part of my work for [...]

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Improving Online Conversions free e-book

by Barry September 8, 2010

If you’re doing any search engine advertising you should be tracking what your ROI is. In other words, you should be monitoring your PPC spend and your income from this spend – i.e. your conversions from PPC. If you’re using Google Adwords, you’re in luck: Google has an array of tools that allow you to [...]

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Facebook Takes Social Media Marketing Seriously

by Barry March 31, 2010

(This article was originally published in the Belfast Telegraph on 30 March 2010. It’s been modified slightly for this blog.) Last week I received a surprising email from Facebook entitled ‘Your Weekly Facebook Page Update’. It contained an overview of all the Facebook pages I am an admin of, with statistics on the number of [...]

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Search Engine Advertising: a Step By Step Guide – Part 3

by Barry February 11, 2009

Part 1 – Choosing your keywords Part 2 – Writing good ads Part 3 – Create landing pages that convert In part 1 of this guide to search engine advertising we discussed how to choose the right keywords to advertise on. In part 2 we showed how to make effective ads. Now in the final [...]

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Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

by Barry November 25, 2008

Search engines are the motors that drive traffic to your website. Getting your site ranked highly in search engines is an important factor of success. The discipline that focuses on this is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. In an effort to help beginning webmasters get underway with SEO Google has published a [...]

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Fix Your Broken Links

by Barry October 21, 2008

Broken links on your website are bad. A broken link is a sign of a poorly maintained website. Having broken links on your site doesn’t instill trust in your potential customers. So you want to ensure your site doesn’t have any links that don’t work. As your website grows it gets harder to keep track [...]

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