Google analytics seminar follow up

Last Thursday saw the resumption of the Adido online marketing and web design seminar talks in Bournemouth, to give advice to our attendees on how to get the most from Google analytics. The talk covered the main areas of Google analytics that businesses struggle to get to grips with. During the talk several questions were asked that I'll answer in a bit more detail here.

What is the difference between 'absolute new visits' and 'new visitors'?
The answer I gave on this isn't 100% correct. Personally I think the labels used here are a bit misleading. An 'absolute new visit' refers to someone who has never, ever been onto the website before in the past (or at least isn't known to have come on the website before, a subtle but important difference). A 'new visitor' is someone who has been on the website before but is counted in the date range selected. So, for example, someone could have been on the website in the previous month, but if you date range is the current month and the visitor has been on the site three times in this month, they will be a 'new visitor' only once, but will not be 'absolute new visit'.

Clear? Hopefully, but if you still don't understand what I'm on about, then why not read the official Google line absolute new Vs New visitors.

Although Google analytics shows me the keywords people type in,what about the words that they don't type in?

A common problem facing companies who want to market their website more effectively is knowing which phrases to select for their SEO campaigns. This is often best left to experienced web design companies (like us :) to carry out proper keyword research but for those just starting out, then this can be achieved using a variety of free keyword tools, like Wordtracker.

These tools are really great at helping you identify new phrases to target which you may not have thought about or considered. However, don't underestimate your web analytics or stats packages as they will tell you which words people have already typed in. This can't be underestimated, as people have already taken the effort to type in something into that search box and visit your website. Of course, it's hugely important to track this against conversions, but if you can see that people visit your website on these phrases, they may be easy 'wins' to get them pushed a bit more up the rankings to increase visability for little effort.


Other questions were asked which I am unable to recall, but with other online marketing and website talks in the pipeline in the coming weeks, I'll endeavour to take note and answer more here...