Carol Cox is the founder of Intermedia Solutions and an instructor at Full Sail University.

Links mentioned during the podcast:
Vine
Get Listed

Over the course of the past six months I have become more and more involved with the practice of not just installing website analytics on my clients websites but also teaching my clients the real purpose of analytics.

As I begin to explain the value of website analytics to my clients I have noticed one reoccurring thing: many people have developed powerful misconceptions about the real purpose of monitoring their website traffic. In short, some of my clients have subscribed to some of the more popular myths that surround the art of web analytics.

Lets take a look at a few of the more popular myths and shed some light on the truth about analytics.

Myth #1 – Analytics is All About the Numbers.
Truth – Analytics is really about the story the numbers are telling us.

Yes, the first peek under the hood of your Google Analytics account may overwhelm you with a healthy dose of numerical data but it is important to remember that it is just data and if you dig deeper you will see the story the data is telling you. For example, rather than just simply looking at the number of visits to your website, look at the visitor source, length of visit, content viewed and bounce rate.  By examining more than just visits you will begin to see the story of how your site is really performing. Why is this story valuable? Because it tells you how to tune your site!

Myth #2 – Analytics is All About the Software.
Truth – Analytics is really about giving meaning to the information the software provides.

When choosing analytics software you will find many options available. Some of these options are paid options. Using a paid application doesn’t mean you will get better data results. Google Analytics is completely free and provides all of the results any professional marketer could possibly want!

In short, don’t get hung up on the application of choice. Focus on making sense out of the data.

Myth #3 – Analytics is Left Brain Oriented.
Truth – Analytics is really about being creative.

The numerical data, charts and graphs provided by analytics applications has led many people to believe that studying web traffic is for math geeks. Nothing could be further from the truth. Analytics is really about coming up with creative ways to improve your website performance based on the results of your analytics reports.

For example, set up a conversion goal within your Google Analytics account and track the performance of that particular goal. As you begin to see the results of your goal performance, you will begin to develop some creative methods of enhancing your website in order to improve the performance of your goal.

In summary, it is best to view the art of web analytics with an open mind. With a little time, effort and patience your efforts will reward you well.

While there are many factors such as on-site and off-site optimization that contribute to a healthy and successful search engine optimization campaign, there are also some other very important things to consider when planning your website for SEO success. One such on-site optimization factor is website architecture.

What is website architecture? Website architecture is the way your website is planned, structured and built. This can be a relatively simple process as long as some basic best practices are implemented when planning and constructing your site. Let’s take a look at some key ingredients of a healthy website architecture and some things we can do to ensure that your site is built on a solid foundation.

The first step in creating a healthy website architecture is planning for a great user experience. You have taken the time to create great content for your new site so let’s make sure that this content is never more than a couple of clicks away for your visitors.

Using a simple site-mapping process when planning your website can help ensure that your visitors can reach the information they are seeking quickly and easily. Not only do visitors get frustrated when they have to dig too deep into your site to find what they are looking for but search engines don’t like this very much either. Search engines have a tougher time indexing content that is buried in your site and this will only hurt your site’s rankings. A little bit of extra time spent during the planning stages of your website will ensure that both your visitors and search engines will be able to easily identify and understand the content within your site.

Another very important consideration when planning for a healthy website architecture is internal linking. Providing your visitors with clear and concise text links throughout your site will help them navigate your site more efficiently and also allow search engines to index your content more efficiently as well.

A great example of this technique can usually be found on well-designed about us pages. When planning your about us content, it is typical to mention company history and services provided. When mentioning your services, include links within the text that link directly to the actual services pages where more specific service information can be found. Doing so will provide a better experience for both humans and search engines alike!

In summary, a little bit of extra time planning for a healthy website architecture can produce very beneficial results for your website and your business.

In today’s age of Internet Marketing, there is no doubt that Search Engine Optimization is one of the most powerful and effective methods of driving quality traffic to your website. While SEO can be a powerful tool, we, as marketers, must be responsible when implementing our SEO practices.

No, I am not referring to avoiding Black Hat techniques, we know that Black Hat SEO should be avoided at all cost. What I am referring to specifically is something called over optimization. What exactly is over optimization? Keep reading and I will shed some light on this subject and provide you with some things you can do to avoid over optimizing our own website.

First, let’s talk about some common methods of over optimizing our websites. Some of the more prevalent methods of over optimization are keyword stuffing, using too many internal links and writing unnatural content.

Keyword stuffing is the over use of certain keywords or phrases. An example of keyword stuffing would be using a keyword in the headline, the sub headline and repeatedly in the following body text.

The next technique, too many internal links, is the process of providing too many links from words in the body text to other areas of the site or simply adding a bunch of irrelevant footer links.

The third technique, writing unnatural content occurs when you write content to be placed on your site that just doesn’t fit the goal or purpose of any one particular page of your site. So now that we know what some of these over optimization techniques are, lets talk about some things we can do to avoid using them.

When crafting the content for your website, the first and foremost thing we should do is write our content for humans rather than search engines. Avoid over using a keyword just for the sake of using that particular word. If you would not repeat a certain word or phrase over and over while trying to provide information to a neighbor, then don’t do it while writing your website content either. In short, pretend you are explaining something to an audience and use keywords to help tell your story rather than over embellishing the story.

When creating internal links, provide them where it makes sense. For example, in your about us information, if you briefly touch on some of your services, it is a great practice to provide text links to specific service pages. On the flip side of this approach, be careful not to overuse this technique and add a link in every sentence that will redirect your visitors to another area of the site.

Lastly, create content that blends well with the goals and objectives of your site. Do not include unnecessary or irrelevant content simply because you feel that more is better! By following this simple set of rules or best practice you are far more likely to create compelling content that is written for humans and also provides your site with great SEO qualities as well.