Problems with Average Time On Site/Page:

1. Time on page can’t be measured if a visitor only views one page of your site (i.e. they bounce).  That doesn’t mean that they didn’t spend time reading your content and possibly performing a valuable action such as bookmarking your page or forwarding it to a friend, but the amount of time that they’re on your site cannot be calculated as they didn’t click on another page of your site.
2. Time on page can’t be measured for the last page that a person views on your site so it’s usually counted as zero seconds.  This is true for everyone that visits your site.  That’s right, EVERYONE.  And that last page may be key–it may be where they spent the most time.
3. It’s not often that you have 100% of your visitor’s attention, so their time on your site is often interrupted, interspersed with side tracks to other sites (some of which you encourage by linking out to other sites from your site), phone calls, coffee breaks, or a quick trip to the bathroom.  In fact, I know many people who open a page of interest with no intention of reading it right away and then leave it in an open tab until they have time to get to it (sorry to break it to you, but that person who spent 36 hours pouring over our latest blog post, probably didn’t).  You get the idea.  Any one of these activities will inflate your time on site number!

On top of the inherent flaws in calculating this stat, analytic packages further muddy the waters by making different assumptions about how to handle these situations.  Should a person who was on a page for 36 hours be counted as a 36 hour time on site, 20 minutes, or zero seconds?  It depends on the analytic package you’re using!  Does that visitor who bounced count as zero second or some estimated amount of time?  Again, it depends on the analytic package you’re using.

Further reading:  The following blog post provides a very in-depth explanation of how average time on site is calculated and examples of many scenarios where it provides misleading numbers… http://www.searchenginejournal.com/tick-tock-the-limitations-of-average-time-on-page-and-average-time-on-site-in-google-analytics-experiment/21439/

What does all this mean?  In a nutshell, the average time on site metric is not to be trusted!

What should you track instead?

As a bare-bones measure of engagement, average page views is better as at least it’s accurate and consistent between different analytic packages.  A page view on the last page is counted the same as a page view on a bounced visits, which is counted the same as every other page view, so at least it’s consistently and reliably calculated.

But better yet, if you’re really trying to get a measure of engagement, then tracking micro conversions will give you a better picture of what your site’s visitors are really up to.  Micro conversions are just actions (tracked as events in Google Analytics) that you track within each page of your site, such as the number of people who wrote a product review, commented on your blog, shared your page to Facebook or Twitter, or interacted with your online chat.  With some javascript programming, you can even fire off events when visitors scroll below a certain point on the page (tracking how many visitors view below the fold) or when controls on embedded videos are pressed (allowing you to track how many visitors not only start viewing your videos, but finish them).

Knowing how people are interacting with your site will provide much deeper insight into what’s working and what’s not than average time on site ever could.

“SEO Gold” Package – $299/mo
- 4 – 6 keywords
– On page optimization 
– 3 article submissions
– 100 directory submissions
– Monthly SEO report

But there are all kinds of problems in quoting this way that can result in projects that are doomed to fail. Here’s a short list of reasons why you should never buy an SEO “package”:

Different Niches Have Different Competition Levels

Imagine that you run two websites: one is in the online poker niche, the other for a second hand clothing store. The amount of time and money you’d need to invest to build a strong online presence for your poker site would be substantially higher. Why?

The online poker niche is full of major SEO competitors who have been at it for years. The second hand clothing niche is soft, with few competitors who are leveraging SEO.

SEO packages fail to account for the fact that the niche you operate in makes a massive difference when it comes to what it will take to compete.

Not All Websites are Created Equal

Quoting “on page optimization” as a flat rate without actually seeing your website is a lot like quoting on renovations without knowing anything about the house.

A 1,000 page site has unique challenges; so does a 10 page site. An E-commerce platform has far different SEO requirements than WordPress. What content to write and how to organize it most effectively will change from site to site. There is no “one size fits all” SEO solution.

Quoting Per Keyword/Page Is Outdated & Flawed

Quoting on a keyword or per page basis used to be popular because it was a metric that clients understood and that was easy to report on, but this line of thinking simply doesn’t align with the way the web works.

If you’re hellbent on ranking #1 for “Calgary SEO” you can miss the long-tail opportunities surrounding that phrase. This thinking can also lead to poor SEO practices like over-optimization of title tags and anchor text or even keyword stuffing. Focusing on X number of keyword phrases also ignores other important metrics like conversions (which phrases actually drive sales?).

It is best to approach your SEO campaign holistically; identifying head phrases that are commonly searched and then writing content that utilizes multiple variations of those phrases, tracking as many of these as is relevant. That simply can’t be done when you’re selling rankings for “X” number of keywords.

Effective SEO is Strategic, Not Templated

While it’s nice to put a quantity to what an SEO company is doing for you every month (20 article submissions, etc.), doesn’t it make more sense to do what’s actually necessary for you to succeed?

If your competitors are crushing you with domain authority, all the article submissions in the world won’t help. If they’re getting traffic and rankings through partnerships, why waste time submitting to directories? If you compete for localized keywords, why invest in tactics that won’t improve your local listings rankings?

The problem with packages is that while they promise you work is getting done, they can’t promise you that what’s being done will actually help you succeed in your niche. For that, you need a strategy, not a package.

Custom Strategy? Custom Quote!

The reason we provide a unique, customized quote for every project we work on is because we firmly believe that SEO can never be a packaged, templated solution. Your website, niche and circumstances are all unique to your business and no package can ever properly account for that.

If you want to succeed online for the long term, don’t buy an SEO package! Instead, choose an agency (like us!) that takes the time to get to know your business and develop a strategy before trying to tell you what you ought to be paying for their services.

The problem is – it’s critical that your SEO vendor be involved DURING the site design and build. Why? Plain and simple, web designers & developers are not search engine experts. The decisions your designers/developers make will have a profound impact on your site’s ability to rank in search engines – whether they understand those impacts or not!

SEO should not be considered an “Add-On”. A solid SEO foundation is essential for any business hoping to compete effectively online.

Web designers and developers have very important roles, but here are just a few examples of how an SEO can not only add value to your next redesign or web project, but also prevent a rankings disaster!

1. Web Designers – Does Your Website Look Great To Google Too?

Many designers aren’t aware of how a search engine reads and indexes your site. For example, having a site that is all image based with no HTML text might look great – but to Google, that’s all empty space. Similarly, some visually appealing options like Javascript menus cannot be properly crawled by search engines – so while your site might look great to people, Google won’t be able to determine its structure.

A good SEO can help you strike a balance between function and fashion, helping your developers build a website that wows your visitors and satisfies search engines at the same time.

2. Web Developers – Are They Building The Right Foundation?

When building or redesigning a website, a web developer’s primary focus is getting that site to function as laid out by the designer. But whether you’re building a new site or transitioning to a new design, there are many SEO considerations that can be overlooked!

For example, the URLs of your pages often change during a redesign. However, killing certain pages on your site and creating new ones without proper url redirects can cause your rankings and traffic to plummet. Even small changes to the way your content is organized can have big impacts on your web presence.

Working with your SEO vendor during this transition will prevent you from losing rankings and incurring additional costs to regain them.

3. SEO Moves Fast – Can You Keep Up?

There is a great misconception out there that SEO is a static, unchanging field; that just having the right “metadata” or keywords throughout your site is all it takes to rank well.

But consider this: In February, Google rolled out 40 new updates on to their search engine algorithm. In March, 50 additional updates were announced. Those numbers should put “staying current” in a whole new light – SEO is a field that is constantly changing.

A lot of web designers & developers are not able stay on top of these updates (understandably so) as they are focused on designing  and building the best site for your company. SEO experts stay on top of these updates, evaluating what they mean for your website and ensuring you won’t be impacted negatively.

What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

Recently, a client informed us that they were going to launch a new website. We provided them with very specific directions on how to properly launch the site to ensure a smooth transition, but our recommendations were not implemented due to design and development considerations when the site was relaunched. The impact was immediate and drastic.

Luckily we were able to recover the rankings eventually.  However, it took us 7 months of intensive link building and content revisions to recover the rankings and search traffic. This meant a loss in revenue for the client & added fees to fix the site.

Do It Right The First Time!

Overall, if you are building or designing a new site, be sure to involve your SEO vendor at the beginning of the process to ensure that you don’t incur additional costs later on. And if your current SEO vendor isn’t getting involved or voicing the importance of their involvement in a new site build/design, you should probably revaluate how qualified they are.

If you have any questions regarding your website and how to set yourself up for search engine success, give us a shout! We’d love to show you just how valuable an SEO expert can be to your online presence.

Coca-Cola's Facebook Timeline

But while a (very) small study indicated that brand pages were getting more engagement, it’s hard to know if that engagement was due to significant press mentions or the new layout.

The haters are comprised of those that don’t like change, those that don’t like Facebook in general, and perhaps those that have read a new study by EdgeRank Checker that looked at engagement with brands that had converted their pages to the new layout vs those that hadn’t. The study found that
engagement is actually down across the board, regardless of layout.

In fact, at the time of the study, pages with the old layout had a decrease in engagement/fan of 11.57% whereas those with the new layout had a decrease of 10.12%.

What does this mean for your business?

Personally, I wouldn’t get hung up these types of studies. Everyone is using Timeline for Business now (out of necessity), but the bottom line is that the majority of engagement takes place within a user’s NewsFeed and NOT on your business page. Businesses need to continue to create engaging content that is optimized for the NewsFeed if they want to reach their audience.

Remember, fewer than 2% of fans will return to your business page, and you can only expect your posts to be seen by 17% of your fan base. Creating engaging content that is sharable, liked, or draws comments is STILL the best way to get in front of your fans.

How has the new layout affected your business? Let us know in the comments section what you’re noticing!

1. Scale

All campaigns will grow and change over time for various reasons, including seasonality, budgets, new campaign launches and more. A PPC campaign that hasn’t changed for months, or years, is a sign to have a closer look.  Some questions to think about:

• Are you made aware of significant trends in traffic? If you sell a product that is seasonal and the increased traffic periods have not been identified then you’re definitely missing out on key opportunities. Identifying seasonality and changes in buyer behaviour are critical to making your campaign a success.
• Do you get recommendations from your PPC marketer about opportunities to increase awareness or generate more leads through a budget increase? It’s not always about spending more, but it makes good business sense to allocate additional budget when the ROI is there.

2. Management

There are many elements of paid campaigns that need to be managed daily, weekly, or monthly. Never, ever should campaigns be treated with a “set it and forget it” attitude. Some questions to ask include:

• Are your ads being split tested?  How often is this done? No ad ever has an everlasting shelf life so ads should be regularly tested and evaluated.
• Are keywords added regularly as new opportunities arise?  And more importantly, are negative keywords being regularly added in order to ensure that you’re not bidding on keywords which you either wouldn’t want to be associated with, or simply won’t convert? As a rule of thumb, you should expect to see negative keywords added on at least a weekly basis.
• Are your bids being managed strategically an Ad Group and keyword level?  If all of your bids are the same, you’re wasting money.

3. Advice

Campaigns evolve just like your business does. Often times, we’ll see campaigns move in different directions for a variety of reasons such as changing budgets, ad inventory, or campaign objectives. Recommendations from your PPC manager should be frequent and clearly articulated.

• Is your PPC marketer pro-active in offering suggestions for improvement before you ask for them? If they are, they obviously have your best interests in mind and are paying close attention to what’s happening in your campaign.
• When campaigns don’t perform as well as anticipated, does your PPC marketer offer advice regarding what to do next to rectify or adjust? This is important. Campaign performance can vary greatly over time due to many different variables. It’s how your PPC marketer reacts and responds that makes all the difference.

4. Reporting

Reports should tell you a comprehensive, high-level story backed by supporting data. They should be clear, concise and easy to digest while still giving an in-depth look at the state of your campaign. Here are a few questions to think about:

• Are you getting regularly scheduled reports that are intuitive and informative? Do you have a good understanding of what indicators show that your campaign is performing well, or needs attention?  Ensure that you understand your campaign’s performance so that you can hold your PPC marketer accountable.
• Do you know what your top performing keywords are? Are you aware of which phrases are eating up the bulk of your budget? You ought to find out! Too often businesses wind up spending exorbitant amounts of money on keywords which are too broad and aren’t the most relevant to their product or service.
• Have you been told specifically what work was completed during the last reporting period?  You don’t have settle for their word either – you can easily check the “Change History” in Adwords yourself and see for yourself what they’ve been doing.

 5. Testing

Some marketers don’t like this word because it means more work! But without ongoing testing, you’ll never know if your PPC campaign is really being all that it can be.  Here are some simple expectations you should have in terms of campaign testing:

• Is your PPC manager consistently testing elements of your ads? This is called split testing and it needs to happen often. You should expect to see new ads being tested on a monthly basis.
• What is your PPC manager’s testing methodology?  A/B tests or multivariate?  Generally, you need a high volume campaign in order to do multivariate testing so if your campaign is spending less than $5000/month, your marketer should be sticking to A/B tests.

By following these tips and questions, you should be able to quickly determine if your PPC Marketer is SMART or just going through the motions.  And if in doubt, have a third party perform an audit.  Unearthing the answers to these questions is actually very easy, but often overlooked.

Who’s the next up and coming social network?  It just might be Tumblr, a social blogging platform.  Tumblr has a loyal following and is growing very quickly achieving over 90 million monthly unique visits, an increase of 900% in the past year!  In terms of monthly visits, Tumblr is now ahead of both Google+ and MySpace and very close to LinkedIn (at 110 million monthly unique visits).  Tumblr also provides good opportunities for customer communication, brand exposure, and SEO benefits as described in the infographic below.

- Click image to view full size PDF -

“[...] We launched a change to expand the corpus of results for which we show images in Universal Search. This is especially helpful to give more relevant images on a larger set of searches.”

In a nutshell: More searches are now triggering image-based results. If you’re not leveraging image optimization you’re missing out an opportunity to drive traffic to your site!

Image Optimization? Why Bother?!

Google tends to give favorable positioning to image search results, often placing these high up on the first page of results (usually within the top 5). If you’re in a highly competitive niche where organic rankings are difficult to come by, image search may be a way to grab some visibility.

In addition, many searches are by nature image-orientated. If a searcher types “creative birthday cake”, “red couches” or even “new kitchen utensils”,  chances are they have some interest in seeing pictures of those products. Being present here is a way to generate awareness of your product or service.

For example, if you’re a kitchen renovations company, image search would be a great place to tap into traffic for searches like “kitchen renovation ideas”. If you sell skiing apparel, owning that top placement for “cool ski boots” could work to your advantage. Or, if you’re like me, being the best looking man in the world just got a whole lot sweeter. In fact, that placement alone helped to drive over 500 visitors to my site in February. Not too bad!

Even “drilling rigs” prompts image search results – and while an oil & gas company is unlikely to get any leads from that sort of presence, if your image is posted elsewhere on the web you can build links by asking those who used it to cite your website as the source. (A great tool for doing this is Tineye!)

How Is It Done?

Search engine spiders aren’t like humans – they can’t “see” the content of images (thank goodness, or my “best looking man” campaign never would have panned out!).

That said, there are many ways to give search engines clues as to what your image is about. Ranking images is a lot like ranking your overall website. It’s a combination of your image’s file name, the alt attributes used, the surrounding content, the overall strength of your domain, the quality of your image and a host of other small factors all working together to help Google understand your image content.

It’s Time To Get Visual

Take a moment and do a few quick searches for keywords in your niche. How many bring up image results? Are your pictures visible? If not, now is a great time to start thinking about how you can bring a visual component into your online marketing strategy!

One of Facebook’s key advantages has always been their demographic and interest targeting. Now Facebook has introduced an even more sophisticated means of targeting users called “Broad Category Targeting” that can take your Facebook campaigns to the next level and make reaching your intended audience faster, easier and more effective.

Broad Category Targeting

It was already possible to target individual interests like “Tennis” or “George Clooney” and display ads to people who had explicitly communicated an interest in those things on their profile. However, in order to target a broader group like “Gardeners”, you would have had to manually input individual interests like “Gardens”, “Gardening”, “Flowers” and so on, leaving a lot of room for missed opportunities.

What’s new with Broad Category Targeting is the ability to target broader interest groups such as “Gardeners” with a single click, allowing Facebook to decide what criteria might indicate a particular interest. This makes capturing a larger portion of your audience fast and easy! Here’s a quick screenshot of the new tool in action (click to enlarge):

Among the categories are interesting new options like various life stages (Engaged, Married, Baby Boomers, Expecting Parents), mobile users (Those who log in on IPhones, Blackberries, etc.) and even categories like those who no longer live in their home town! The depth and breadth of the categories is pretty amazing.

Specific Targeting & Messaging

Categories can be leveraged to help you serve up highly specific ads to exceptionally precise markets. For example, imagine you are running a store that sells toys, equipment and products for very young children. Instead of serving up just one ad for “Parents”, the ability to target narrow categories enables you to send specific messages to highly specific audiences.

For example, “expecting parents” could be served baby-related ads for your products suitable for newborns and babies:

While parents with older  toddlers might see a targeted ad aimed at toddlers:

You also have the option to switch back to precise interest targeting and run your campaigns as you always have. Unfortunately, at this time you cannot combine precise interests and the broad category tool, but the option to use either/or will suit the needs of most marketers.

Reach More People – More Quickly!

If you’re already running Facebook ads, now is a great time to give this new targeting feature a try. Compare the audience numbers you’re able to reach when using precise ads and broad category targeting and see which makes more sense for your campaign.

If you’re not using Facebook ads yet, broad category targeting is just another incentive that should encourage you to give the platform a try. If you’re not sure if Facebook is right for your business or you don’t know where to begin, we’d love to chat with you! Our Facebook Advertising Specialists will help you find the right solutions for your business.

The book highlights an undeniable seismic shift in the way consumers purchase everything from paperclips to Porsches. Understanding how to win in the “Zero Moment Of Truth” will make or break the next generation of marketers.

So what is a “Zero Moment Of Truth” anyways?!

A Zero Moment of Truth describes the moment a consumer grabs their computer, laptop or mobile device and researches something they want to buy.

The Zero Moment of Truth was created through the combination of the following three influences:

• Emergence of the Internet itself – The emergence of the internet has given consumers an incredible resource for sharing and learning. It has drastically increased the amount of information and the information sources available to consumers, giving them more buying power than ever before.
• The mobile internet – Smart phones and other mobile devices have created the opportunity to wield the power of the internet anywhere at any time. Consumers can  learn about products (and alternatives!) anywhere from their living room couches during commercial break to the store aisles right before they check out. They can also instantly search for nearby businesses or buy products online right then and there.
• Social networking – A potential customer can tap into online reviews and ratings, solicit opinions over social media or interact with the brand itself to assist in their decision making process. Anyone can be a part of the conversation – friends, family, strangers, celebrities, experts and brand ambassadors.

The times, they are a changin’

The traditional consumer’s path to purchase was thought to be summed up in the following:

1. A Stimulus: Seeing an ad or hearing about a product you might want/need.
2. First Moment of Truth: The influences of price, packaging, service, placement and promotion
3. Second Moment of Truth: Once you’ve purchased, your Experience of whether you like the product/brand

And now, for something completely different…

Considering the major changes spurred by the emergence of the internet, mobile and social technologies, the new paradigm for the consumer purchase path looks more like this:

1. A Stimulus: Seeing an ad or hearing about a product you might want/need.
2. Zero Moment Of Truth – Researching and discovering options with: search engine queries, reviews, ratings, social media, blogs/forums.
3. First Moment of Truth: Price Packaging, Service, Placement, Promotion
4. Second Moment of Truth: Your Experience of whether you like the product/brand

The ZMOT has become a crucial step in the buying cycle where your business stands to either win or lose. New questions must be answered: Are you visible online? What is your online reputation? Who is talking about you and what are they saying? How are you engaging with that online audience?

Owning The Zero Moment of Truth

It’s up to us to join the conversation at this new moment where consumers are making these decisions and provide them with the information that they are looking for. That doesn’t just mean having a website. Whether it’s using SEO tactics to come up organically in search results, encouraging customers to post reviews on your Yelp and Google Places listings, or connecting with your customers through social media, it’s crucial you  consider the ZMOT when drawing up your marketing strategy. The paradigm is shifting and savvy businesses are changing right along with it.

For ideas on how you should be incorporating ZMOT into your marketing tactics, give us a shout at Vovia and we can help you out.

What Is Pinterest?

Think of it as an online bulletin board where users “pin” (organize and share) images that they find interesting and inspiring.  A user is able to create several different boards, each with a different theme.

For example, I could have a board for “Home Decor Ideas” where I pin images of things that I might want to incorporate into an upcoming decorating or renovation project.  Another board might be “Food & Drink” with things like recipes, pictures of unique food items and photos of delicious looking edible delights.

My Pinterest followers can Like, Re-Pin, and comment on anything I’ve pinned.  The site makes sharing incredibly easy and it is an addictive way to discover new products and other content across the web.

What does this mean for business?

When people click on items that have been pinned, they are directed to your website where they can learn more about your products and perhaps even make a purchase. But how much traffic are we really talking about?

The site only has 4.9 million registered users (which is less than many other social networks, but it’s actually still in beta), yet Pinterest refers more traffic than Google+, YouTube,  and LinkedIn combined!  Keep in mind that Google+ has 90 million users and LinkedIn has 130 million members.This represents an incredible opportunity to promote your products and services in innovative, engaging ways.

If your business has a highly visual component, (I’m talking to you fashion, photography, and food!), then you need to start thinking about how you can incorporate Pinterest into your online marketing strategy.

Get Creative!

Pinterest can be as much about giving your brand a personality as it is about sharing your products and services.

Even organizations that have a less visual component to their business are jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon and establishing a successful presence.  General Electric has a board called Badass Machines and Southwest Airline has a board of Favorites. Pinterest is a great opportunity to invite users behind the scenes and add a personal touch to your business.

You’d also be surprised by just what people are pinning! For example, check out the images that appear when you perform a search for dentures.

Getting Involved

The rules of engagement on Pinterest are no different from any other social network – create/pin interesting content that’s easily shareable. Creativity is a great asset and Pinterest leaves the door wide open to be a bit playful with your brand – as long as you keep it professional.

Unlike other social networks that are extremely time-sensitive (think Twitter), Pinterest boards can be built over time, though some frequency in posting is advisable so people have a reason to keep coming back.

Above all, resist the urge to self-promote. Disingenuous communication will always be seen as exactly that.

Take a few moments to check Pinterest out. How do you see your business leveraging this new tool?