David Freeman
Data and web analytics should be playing a central part in all digital marketing campaigns, regardless of channel. However, we’ve been basing our decisions on the data provided to us through site analytics packages and for a long time now the industry standard measurement has been last click attribution.
I’ve been a great believer in conversion attribution but recently I’ve been thinking that with the evolution of how we interact with the web, conversion attribution has failed before it’s really even had a chance to shine.
There’s been a huge amount of hype around Google Caffeine since the sandbox was launched and again when Google announced that Caffeine was gradually going to be rolled out. Has there been too much hype for a change that Google have assured us shouldn’t seriously impact rankings?
Until recently I had never really considered optimising a flash website as a great way to get top search engine rankings, but needless to say I was asked to give advice for a website that had to be built in Flash. Now normally I’d always advise clients against Flash and instead go with a HTML alternative as its more search engine friendly.
There has historically been a lack focus, knowledge and tools around conversion attribution, but from a personal perspective I always found analysing this information incredibly useful to assess how each channel is performing. This data can then be utilised to help dramatically improve online marketing performance.
SEO is currently rising in popularity and becoming a huge part of the marketing strategy of businesses large and small due to the amount of traffic that can be driven to your website for a relatively low cost (when compared to other marketing strategies). However if you aren’t doing anything to convert this traffic or to optimise conversion levels then you’re missing out on potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds, millions of pounds or even tens of millions.
For many years a large proportion of SEO’s have relied on paid links to boost their search engine rankings, over the years this has been made easier and easier through paid link brokers and sites offering paid blog posts and reviews. 2008 has really been a turning point for search engine optimisation with Google’s Matt Cutts publicly stating that Google does and has penalised sites for buying links. This was combined by Google placing penalties on a number of high and low profile websites.
I was extremely surprised whilst speaking alongside Luke Regan on “The Role Of Indexing In Mobile SEO” at IIR thought leadership event. Why was I surprised, well because a lot of the other speakers at the event were concentrating on websites designed specifically for mobile phones. You may now be thinking why is this surprising?
