Analytics

  • Ghost Traffic in Google Analytics

    Ghost Traffic in Google Analytics

    When you look at your Google Analytics, you may see traffic referred from known spam sites. It’s important to filter this kind of traffic out so that you have more accurate data. But you may also see ghost traffic, a new and irritating kind of spambot interference in your data that isn’t actually traffic at…

  • Stress, Data, and Online Marketing

    Stress, Data, and Online Marketing

    A UK study found that 34% of British small business owners apparently suffer stress over online visibility. Mostly, they think that they’re not investing enough in the effort, and they’re probably right, since 41% have never made any efforts to optimize their websites or to improve their online presence at all.

  • Understanding Traffic Sources

    Understanding Traffic Sources

    Where do your website visitors come from? How do they find you? You can find out for sure with the Google Analytics reports in Acquisitions. There’s a lot more detail in there than there used to be, so if you haven’t looked into this for a while, it’s worth another look. Here’s the pie chart…

  • Web Traffic Segments

    Web Traffic Segments

    Last month, the Haden Interactive website had a spell of popularity in Russia. More than 1,000 visitors from Moscow and St. Petersburg clicked through on a post of ours shared on Reddit. We had a 5,570.97% increase in traffic from Moscow and a 11,362.50% increase from St. Petersburg. I like to think of these visitors…

  • Volatile Traffic

    Volatile Traffic

    Web site traffic may not be your most important business KPI, but it’s a basic metric that can tell you a lot about your website’s overall health. It can give you a good indication of how well different marketing strategies are performing. And it’s the source of a lot of additional information that can answer…

  • HiPPos

    HiPPos

    I learned about HiPPos in a Ted talk — not the hippopotamus, of course, but the acronym for “HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion.” The term springs out of the frustration of gathering and analyzing data and coming into a meeting with a strong data-driven recommendation… only to discover that decisions are made by HiPPOs, not by…