As you may already know, at the outset of each year we put our heads together at Spyder Trap and come up with a list of top digital trends for the year. With the Consumer Electronics Show behind us, the first month of 2015 has already delivered on some fascinating technology and marketing trends. So, what’s next? Read on to discover Spyder Trap’s predictions for the remainder of 2015.

1) MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM GROWTH
When Apple unveiled Apple Pay in October 2014 many retailers, including CVS and Rite Aid, blocked customer usage of the mobile payment system. But the tides are slowly turning. According to McDonald’s, Apply Pay accounted for 50 percent of its mobile payments in November. And in early December, dozens of banks and other retailers signed on to work with Apple Pay. With competitors like Google Wallet and Softcard also gaining speed, 2015 will see large growth in the mobile payment space. Among all of the 2015 digital trends to watch for, this one will be paramount.

2) EMOTIONALLY DRIVEN CONTENT
Forget the catchphrase, “supersize me.” Simply providing more content is not the answer to a company’s marketing problems anymore – it’s personalized content that will take center stage in 2015. Think about it. Consumers are already inundated with obscene amounts of content on a daily basis. But massive amounts of content won’t captivate a consumer unless you make it emotional and tell stories that are authentic and reflect brand values. It’s time to get real, people.

3) CONTEXTUAL RESPONSIVENESS
It’s not enough to reorganize content based off of the size of a device anymore. Responsive sites are no longer cutting-edge; they are quickly becoming industry standard. A newer digital web design trend revolves around contextual responsiveness. Imagine a restaurant site that knows whether you’re looking for the happy hour menu vs. the breakfast menu based off of the time of day you’re online. Or sites that change colors because they know it’s after sunset, and they can improve readability knowing that you’re viewing your screen in artificially lighted environment. Sites could also change content based off of your location. Take for example, Wonderful Colorado‘s site (below), which changes content based on the season and time of day. Fun stuff indeed.

4)  USABILITY INFLUENCES SEARCH
Among this year’s digital trends to watch for, the confluence between usability and search engine marketing will prove one of the most talked about. Why? Last year, Google began testing its use of “not mobile-friendly” icons next to poorly optimized sites. In the past, Google has penalized sites that produce errors for mobile users, therefore de-prioritizing them in mobile search. Not convinced that your site should be optimized for mobile? According to Ovum, one billion people will use mobile as their only form of Internet access in 2015. That means a lazy or difficult online experience could dissuade a consumer from engaging with your brand and keep your website from being seen in search engines.

5) CONTENT QUALITY TRUMPS KEYWORD SATURATION
In the wake of the Panda 4.1 Google Algorithm update, topic targeting has become more important than page-by-page keyword focus targeting for SEO. The quality of content is now more important than keyword saturation. But, how will Google gauge quality? They will look at the amount of sources cited within the content, authorship and in some cases, they will have real people review a site’s material. Panda 4.1 also penalizes sites that lack content, display duplicate content or produce machine-generated content. Domain authority, which is partially based on backlinks, will also be important and sources should be linked to establish quality. Among 2015’s many digital trends, this one may impact businesses that rely on the web more than any other trend.

6) WEARABLES EVERYWHERE
Despite the lack of widespread adoption, the wearables fitness trend isn’t going anywhere. Technology is continually being improved to support it. We saw the success of wearables with the FitBit in 2014, and we’ll see more fitness devices become available this year. Keep an eye out for the Microsoft Band, Apple Watch, Salesforce Wear Developer Pack, and Samsung Gear and Jawbone devices.

7) RESPONSIVE & INTERACTIVE WEB EXPERIENCES
The need for responsive websites that tell interactive stories is nothing new – we get that. Even more so this year, brands are going to have to understand this necessity, or pay the cost. If you want to be seen as unique and offer a friendly user experience, responsiveness and interactivity are core website requirements.

8) BEACONS GALORE
Beacons made a splash as one of the most talked about digital trends in 2014. This year, we will continue to see a rise in applications that rely on beacons (low-cost transmitters that operate via Bluetooth technology). Look for innovations in retail, healthcare and home appliances. Keep an eye on Apple’s iBeacon, Estimote, Gimbal beacon, Swirl networks and PayPal’s beacon.

9) R.I.P. GOOGLE+
We believe Larry Kim says it best when it comes to this one: “In 2015 Google+ will die a slow death. Integrations with existing Google products will be removed or made optional. The most popular components of Google+ like photo sharing and hangouts will be de-bundled and made available separately. G+ engagement will fade over time.”

10) BIG BRANDS BECOME BEHEMOTHS
Four companies have dominated – and will continue to dominate digital trends in the technology sector: Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. We predict these brands, which make up what some are calling the new tech bubble, will become more rounded all encompassing platforms and behemoth companies that make significant investments in 2015. Each is continuing to diversify and play in each other’s space as they buy up competition, drive innovation and grab land. They want to be everything to everyone, and this year the race will really heat up.

The post The Top 10 Digital Trends of 2015 appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

Raven Review: “Reporting from the Clouds”

This announcement from Raven stated that a new reporting engine would soon be released. As far as when it would rollout, there was no date or descriptive details around what the new features of the reporting engine would be.

Just today, Spyder Trap has been given beta access to Raven’s new and improved reporting engine.

Raven’s New Reporting Engine Beta Invite

Thanks John! We’ve been patiently waiting to get in, kick the tires and take it for a spin.

We have been test driving it and have found it to be easy to use, allowing us more time to interpret data and make stronger recommendations (and less time being bogged down by data entry). It also allows for reports to be sent as hyperlinks so that clients can access reports on the web, negating the need for PDF files to be circulated as email attachments. That said, reports in PDF format can still be generated, if the need arises.

Raven’s New Reporting Engine: The Test Drive

As we have been pushing toward migrating away from paper reports (and even away from static PDF files), we have been looking for better tools to deliver our insights to clients. One of the tools in our arsenal, aside from our ability to deliver live, real-time dashboarding, is the new Raven reporting engine.

Raven is the standard for aggregating performance data from disparate sources and creating a valuable snapshot of digital marketing campaign performance. It is invaluable in allowing users the ability to take a holistic look at online marketing efforts. Its reporting features have been the industry standard for monthly and quarterly reporting since their inception.

Raven’s cloud reports are easy to navigate, are “fully responsive” (our findings show there is still some work to be done) have a clean appearance, and allow portability. They’re also great for large screens in the board room, allowing for presentation value that is not present in PDF reports. Spyder Trap offers a variety of reporting solutions for our clients: digital cloud-based reports, PDF/PowerPoint reports, and real-time KPI dashboards.

Raven’s New Reporting Engine’s Updated Features

Raven Tools published the following items noting what to expect with the new reporting engine.

• Mobile ready – Not quite! Many graphs did not load correctly.
• Interactive and beautiful – True!
• Metric options that are flexible – Flexibility within the new reporting engine isn’t even comparable to the old way Raven Tools built reports.
• A report builder that’s WYSIWYG – No change here. Looks like the old WYSIWYG editor. 
• A reporting engine that we can continue to upgrade and improve well into the future – And we are eager to see what happens. This was a strong beta launch!

Raven’s New Reporting Engine: Tips and Tricks for Getting Started

Notable items we experienced working through report setup

• Be aware that the reporting engine ports over to the custom dashboard. You may end up building your first report, only to find, you’re building your new custom dashboard. For those of you with beta access, don’t click on the first button that says “New.”

• Be sure to grant access to the new Raven email account for restricted Webmaster Tools access. It looks like it has changed recently, until you do that, you’ll be having no fun with Webmaster Tools within your new reports.

• Play around to learn about the new biggest changes in widget types prior to jumping on building your snazzy new template. See below, there are four widget types that make the reports much sexier.

• Data within tables is can be sorted. Both the report builder view and published report will allow interactivity with moving data in tables.
• All report components can be customized as far as inclusion or exclusion, simply click in the “customize” in the upper right-hand corner.

Raven’s New Reporting Engine: Sneak Peek at Widgets and Published Reports

Certain Raven reports used to go on.. and on.. and on.. and on..

Before you know it, you’re looking at an 86-page PDF with about .7% of it being relevant to your current effort or monthly report. Notice below, the “KPI Widget” is a major condenser of information.

Site auditor was one of the worse behaving components in reports. Now, even site auditor can play nicely. Let’s say, for example, my effort for the month for a client was fixing duplicate title tags, unnecessary redirects and removing improper schema. This view works quite nicely, especially if last month’s report were to contain the prior number.

Here’s the default bar chart view:

Default Line Graph Widget:

Published reports contain interactivity within Bar Charts and Line Graphs with a nice hover over effect which displays data contained within.

Raven’s New Reporting Engine: Still Lacking in the Following Areas

Hey, it wouldn’t be a review if we didn’t call out some flaws, right!?

• Customization of theme colors. Most likely will rollout after beta testing’s initial phase has completed.
• Better insights into events, ecommerce and AdWords.
• Historical crawl data
• Smart relationships between entities (e.g. establishing patterns based off of indexation patterns)
• Tag Manager, the data layer allows for the collection of virtually any type of data on the site, bringing in the possibility of behavioral analytics, enhanced shopping cart abandonment tracking, and even hover, time-based, or scroll-tracking stats. We love Tag Manager and utilize it within our web analytics workflow.
• Roll up reports. For those who have multiple properties that need to be analyzed and summarized in one report.

Raven’s New Reporting Engine: Review Summary

Unfortunately, until the level of detail needed to provide actionable insights to experienced marketing teams that include data from external sources, deeper level of transaction data, etc., may still find Raven’s new reporting engine is a cosmetically enhanced version of the past, with a better grasp on controlling report bloat. For many businesses, marketers and agencies, it will be a big step in the right direction.

We also report at intervals and depths that serve client needs. Contact us to learn more about our custom reports, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager consultation. Or leave a comment to let us know how you use digital reporting to gain tactical insight in your digital marketing efforts.

The post Raven’s New Reporting Engine Review appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

Here are this week’s picks. Check back for weekly news on all things digital, and by all means tweet us @Spyder_Trap to share what you’re excited about in the world of digital marketing and technology.

1) Waiting for Apple’s Smart Watch? Sony’s is Already Here

Wouldn’t it be great if you could receive notifications and messages discreetly, no matter where you are? Smart watches have been in the buzz for a while, but mainly within the context of Apple’s iWatch (which is expected to be released on September 9th, 2014). Sony already has a second generation, Android-based smart watch available: the SmartWatch 2. Check out the review on TechRadar.

2) Want to See What’s in Store for Chrome? Try Canary

Beta lovers and early adopters should strongly consider downloading and running Chrome Canary. It offers a sneak peak of what’s on the horizon for future stable releases of Google’s popular Chrome browser. Despite some occasional bugs, it can be awesome to run Canary alongside a stable Chrome release. You can have both installed on your machine simultaneously. Download Chrome Canary here.

3) Selective Steve: New Sass Release

If your developer doesn’t know anything about Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets (Sass), then you may need a new developer. Sass is a compiled CSS language that allows for variables, mixins, and functions. A brand new release of the language has just hit the web and we’re already digging in. Find out more about Selective Steve here.

4) Want Some Grunt With Your Sass?

Using cutting edge tools like Sass, Handlebars, or JSHint? Why not automate your compiling with Grunt? Grunt is a JavaScript task runner that allows you to spend less time with the boring, repetitive stuff and more time writing awesome code. Learn more about Grunt here.

5) Google Tag Manager + The Data Layer = Sick Data

Google Tag Manager has been around for a few, but it’s most recent iterations have brought it into maturity. Tag Manager allows you to be nimble in setting up and tracking online marketing campaigns, without having to dig into the source code every time you want to track an event or conversion. The data layer allows for the collection of virtually any type of data on the site, bringing in the possibility of behavioral analytics, enhanced shopping cart abandonment tracking, and even hover, time-based, or scroll-tracking stats. We love Tag Manager and utilize it within our web analytics workflow. Read more about Google Tag Manager here.

The post Weekly Web Picks – Vol. 28 appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

On April 2nd, Google made it official: Universal Analytics is now out of beta. This milestone indicates that Universal Analytics is closer to becoming the gold standard for tracking web and device metrics.

Despite the unavoidable learning curve inherent in adoption, Universal Analytics promises to deliver improved audience insights across a full spectrum of devices. Google hasn’t said exactly when users will be required to switch from traditional analytics packages to Universal Analytics, but we expect this to happen in the coming months.

What can Universal Analytics do for your web properties?

Universal Analytics provides actionable data that can be converted into improved targeting and tactical decision making. Key improvements upon Google’s traditional analytics capabilities include multiple device behavior tracking via unique user IDs, custom dimensions and metrics, and unique tracking codes that allow for data collection from nearly any device.

Multiple device, session & engagement tracking

First, consider the user ID and session unification features: These allow single users to be seamlessly tracked across all of their devices as they interact with digital properties. This helps us discover if and when device overlap is taking place, which devices produce higher conversions as well as how customers and visitors interact with your content across all of their devices.

 More importantly, user IDs eliminate duplicate data. By giving each user a unique ID, they only show up once across all devices you’re tracking – as opposed to multiple times. In traditional analytics packages, users are counted separately with each device you track.

In a world where the average US consumer owns four devices and spends sixty hours a week consuming content across devices, Universal Analytics’ tracking capabilities will become increasingly crucial to success.

Custom dimensions & metrics unique to specific business needs

Current Google Analytics users can track conversions, events, traffic and user activity as well as a slew of other pre-defined metrics. Universal Analytics takes it to the next level by allowing marketers to set custom dimensions and metrics for tracking. As Google points out on their blog, this could include distinguishing members and non-members of an online service and segmenting data based on their behavior AND membership status.

(Image© Marketing Land)

But that’s just the start. Nearly any quantifiable online metric is now trackable and can be segmented in your data. Here are two examples: An online retailer could now segment visitors by transaction amounts compared to age. Or, an online gaming site could track game score versus average time on site, against the age of the player. Again, that’s just the beginning.

This enhanced tracking will provide both a higher level of user detail and an amazing opportunity to serve multiple users needs based on much more specific activity-based data, when compared to traditional analytics.

Unique tracking codes allow data collection from new devices

Universal Analytics also introduce three new versions of the tracking code. One for website, one for mobile app tracking and one for “other” devices (kiosks, offline data, gaming devices). This will allow developers to more easily integrate and track audience activity while outside of mobile, tablet and desktop ecosystems.

Key Takeaways

The biggest challenge with Universal Analytics will be translating new, richer data streams into actionable and sensible online strategies. Keep in mind that with this increased access to user data comes a huge responsibility: We must treat increased access to our customers and audience with caution and respect. Just because we can target and track more, doesn’t necessarily mean we should message, ping and barrage our customers more. If anything, the opposite should be true. Knowing more about our audience will empower us to target, communicate, or sell to them exactly when they want us to.

To learn more about Spyder Trap’s Search Marketing and Analytics expertise, click here.

The post Your Guide To Universal Analytics appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

1) The coolest social tool you’ve never heard of

LinkedIn is a powerful way to expand your professional network, participate in groups both online and in person and optimize your job search. It is the 7th most visited site in the US. While most people are on it, know how to use and actively participate on it, there’s a little feature that was released back in 2011 that you probably didn’t know existed: InMaps. Living under the LinkedIn Labs umbrella, InMaps is a way to visualize your professional network on LinkedIn. You can build your map here.

2) Know thy market

Segmenting your audience is a big deal in online marketing. We have so much more information than we had even 5 years ago about the who, what, where, why, when and how of a visitor’s behavior. More data means more knowledge, but none of it matters if you haven’t nailed down your Marketing Persona. Search Engine Journal has a beginners guide here on creating your marketing persona. Check it out!

3) Naughty algorithms and why they change

Edgerank, Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird: The updates keep rolling in, and ruffling our feathers. Many recent articles have focused on the tactics (e.g. How to get seen, 7 ways to combat). Today, we want to share the reason behind declined reach. More competition + limited attention = declined organic reach. Which translates into a need to boost your content with paid ads. Read the full Techcrunch article here.

4) The story behind Oculus Rift and why it matters.

If you’re up to speed on tech trends, no doubt you’ve heard about Oculus Rift. You’ve also heard that Facebook bought it. What you may not know is the story behind the then 19-year old founder of this revived technology. This device might change how we interact with data, apps and the internet. Time recently published a piece on his story here.

5) The battle between organic vs. paid traffic

Building your website’s audience takes time and money. And the debate between using SEO and PPC as a primary strategy is always heated. Weighing the pros and cons of each method will help inform the right strategy. Here’s a infographic that does just that.

6) Want to know who’s doing it right on Twitter?

Twitter is fascinating, mainly because it’s the most publicly accessible social media platform for businesses. No other tool allows such easy access to brands, businesses, news outlets, celebrities, pro athletes, actors and bands. But, just because the access is easy doesn’t mean doing it right is easy. Check out some of the following; Which are  most engaged brands on Twitter. Many lessons to learn.

The post Weekly Web Picks – Vol 15 appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

Within a matter of two years, every person who had ever valued Google organic traffic had no choice but to deal with what was happening. As search marketers, we receive so many questions about this topic. Let’s explore!

The History of Not Provided

It’s not that the traffic just stopped — not that at all — what happened was organic traffic continued to show up in analytical programs with no reference as to how they found the site on Google search.

In the Beginning

Google announces Secure Search, as a byproduct: (not provided) surfaces.

October 2011

To make search more secure, users logged into Google services will use search with a secure (httpS) connection.

With the change, website owners will no longer get “referrer” data from SSL users. Instead, Google  passes referral data through a custom token called “Not Provided.” Of course, Advertisers are still going to receive keyword referral data as before from the same set of users.

• Official Google announcement published.
• Keyword referral data usage and value becomes a main talking point in industry circles
• Estimated Not Provided: 1%-2%

November 2011

Keyword referral loss becomes a concern for many in the search industry. The initial Google estimate was site owners would see percentage loss in the single digits. Within two weeks though, Google Not Provided jumped up for many to nearly 10%.

• Heavier SSL adoption spreads across more users
• Privacy debate ramps up
• Optify releases study showing the Not Provided number to be much higher than perceived
• Estimated Google Not Provided: 8%-14%

March 2012

Several months after the announcement, the number grew beyond 20%. The backlash was extensive at this point, heated debates were happening all over the place.

• Publishers outside of Search and Tech industries begin voicing concerns
• With millions of users, and an estimated 25% of overall searches, Firefox becomes the first major browser to begin using secure search by default
• Estimated Google Not Provided: 16%-17%

November 2012

A drastic increase in Google Not Provided data happened in September of 2013, when Google announced all searches would go to httpS. BrightEdge released a study showing the average Google Not Provided percentage was around 50% of all keyword referrals. With the announcement, most realize, it’s just a matter of time (most likely a matter of months) until all of Google organic keyword referral data is masked.

• Months earlier, Moz & Distilled disclose they are now seeing 50% not provided
• One month prior, Apple defaults Safari users to secure search for current iOS catching Google off guard.
• Estimated Google Not Provided: 40%
• Keyword Referral Data Goes Dark

Notable Dates:

• Jan 18th, 2013 – Chrome moves to secure search.
• August 28th, 2013: Report reveals not provided averages to be nearly 50%
• September??: Google quietly flips the switch. All search activity is now encrypted, except for ads.

Assessing the Not Provided Damage

When Not Provided first crept into our data set, the actual value of keyword targeting came into question.

Frequent questions surfaced, “Why should we pay you to optimize pages when we can’t even see if that keyword traffic is converting?” and “Why shouldn’t we just buy the keywords with PPC to see if they are of value?”.

Why would Google take something away that businesses came to rely on? Although it’s a very valid question, the purpose of this post is not to get into the politics, just know, soon, other search engines will follow suit and the majority of organic keyword data will be masked. Now it’s time to prepare.

What matters now is.. how do we get those numbers back, what can we do to show value and how can we adapt?

How Can I Get Not Provided Data Back?

You can’t.

Your organic search referrals in Google Analytics are now in a generic search bucket. Many bloggers try to lure us in with fun alliteration like “How to Unlock Not Provided” and “10 Steps to Find Not Provided,” but it’s not so simple.

You can’t “unlock it” and you can’t “find it,” it’s gone. What we can do is press harder to find data that supports organic keyword value.

Sure, Google Webmaster Tools has search query reports and Adwords still provides keyword referral data, both have their faults.

SEO’s simply want to cross-reference keywords with performance metrics.

Workarounds to Google Not Provided Data Loss

As we always do, the search industry thrives in a collaborative environment. So, we also reached out to Will Scott, Josh Braaten and Luke Alley for additional suggestions and workarounds.

1) Adwords Not Provided Options

Luke Alley explores the Paid & Organic Report in Google Adwords.

“I work in PPC, aka 100% provided, and there is a rarely mentioned feature in Adwords called the Paid & Organic Report that provides some insights on organic terms. 

After connecting WMT it allows you to see data when only PPC ads were displayed, when only organic listings were displayed, or if both channels were displayed. While not ideal there is opportunity to gain some insights on organic performance of specific terms. The catch? It’s within Adwords, which means you’re spending money with Google. Also, it just happened to be released in August 2013. Coincidence? Probably not.” ~ Luke Alley, AvalaunchMedia.com

Luke raises another interesting point, you have to pay to play to see what’s going on. Adwords will require ad spend and to replicate organic keywords will cost you money. Moreover, the traffic is not truly the same as your those users on the same query. It’s a valuable way to analyze the quality of search terms, but ad performance is not necessarily going to speak on behalf of your organic rankings sharing the SERP.

2) Google Webmaster Tools 

Will Scott uncovers some pain-points and tips for using search queries within Google Webmaster Tools.

“Google Webmaster Tools is clunky to use; it’s not terribly easy to look at keyword data and metrics using WMT. 

Two of the most disappointing non-features in WMT is you are limited to 90 days of data, so every day that passes you lose valuable reference material. And, date comparison capability is non-existent. There are ways to catalog the Webmaster Tools data. WMT is a great resource, however, to discover how your site is ranking and what people are seeing and clicking on.  

Impressions vs. Click Through Rate has never been available in Analytics. Also, Google Webmaster Tools does give you a much bigger set of keywords for which you might be ranking that you would ever want to track in a traditional rank-tracking tool. In some cases this may include tens of thousands of Queries.

There is tremendous data available in Search Queries, and spending the time to dig it out can be a great use for a business’ engagement online. Valuable information is there for those with patience to pull it and sort it into spreadsheets for discovery.”  Will Scott, CEO,  Search Influence

Recently, data loss from Webmaster Tools has been established , and Dr. Pete (from Moz) has studied the accuracy of the data as well.

3) Landing-Page Query Associations

Look at filters and dashboards to show which landing pages Not Provided hit. Both Kissmetrics and Search Engine Land have covered this strategy in depth. Though, now with 100% Not Provided, you may as well reconstruct the filter. Although these filters may now be out of date, the overall strategy still lends insights into well performing pages. Josh Braaten said it well,

“Measure organic traffic in segments that correspond to specific keyword themes of interest and monitor both the traffic and conversions from those segments,” says Josh Braaten, Director of Inbound Marketing at Collegis Education. “Bonus points go to those who can tie in indirect metrics such as social media engagement and assisted conversions.”

Spot on. At this time, this strategy lends the most credibility to providing insights on organic search value by watching keyword groups ranking for the individual page where conversions are captured.

4) Branded vs. Non-branded Percentages

This metric is often used in the search industry. Utilizing Google Analytics for branded versus non-branded estimations are now extremely inaccurate. Webmaster Tools search queries can be used as a suitable workaround.

Non-branded versus branded was a great way to gauge what kind of footprint any particular site has built up across the web. It also helped understand the offline footprint as well. For example, a site with a large link profile, optimized site and a low branded-to-non-branded ratio would lend questions to offline ad spend and overall brand awarness offline.If able, utilize older data sets in Google Analytics.

5) Utilize Site Search Data 

Often thought of one of the most underutilized data sources, this search box within a site can show what users are searching for on a specific page, overall queries, how  different visitors use the site and more. Both free and paid versions are available for custom search options. As #3 noted, patters of searches from  a landing page may lend enough insights to change focus to accommodate that user group’s initial expectations of the page.

Moving Forward: Watch it Closer & Adapt Process

The feeling of having anything taken away sucks.

Don’t give up.

There is still value in ranking organically, stay focused on valuable keywords. Adhere to best practices, watch page performance closely in Google Analytics and ALWAYS dig deeper when page performance drops due to Google / Organic.

Between Google Webmaster Tools and third party rank tracking, it shouldn’t be difficult to isolate changes. Vendors like Conductor and Search Metrics will monitor their own search indices and connect to Analytics. In fact, Conductor has had a Not Provided product in place since September.

Key Takeawys

Watch Not Provided traffic closer

• Tie Not Provided traffic to individual pages and cross-reference against rankings from Webmaster Tools and third-party rank trackers
• Segment Not Provided traffic by landing page titles

Download GA templates for Not Provided

• Six Not Provided dashboards from NotProvidedKit.com
• Not Provided – Landing Page dashboard from State of Search

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket

• Google Site Search
• Google Keyword Planner
• Bing & Yandex Webmaster Tools
• Google Adwords
• Third party rank trackers (AWR & Positionly)
• SearchMetrics / Conductor / SEMRush
  • Sorry Ahrefs.com!

Conclusion

The damage of 100% Not Provided is substantial. It touched hundreds of thousands of businesses from the self-employed,  to small biz and enterprise in B2B and B2C. Data that businesses relied on to help generate revenue is simply no longer available in the same capacity. Every solution is a workaround rather than a fix.

There is a reason to freak out, especially if your job is riding on proving the CPA from the organic keyword level. For the rest of us, we adapt and rebuild process. Plenty of substitutes are available with adequate data to offer up. Just remember, there is no substitute for your best judgement!

References:

• SSL Search Announcement: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/173733?hl=en
• Conductor Not Provided Study: http://www.conductor.com/blog/2012/03/51-million-visits-analyzed-not-provided-16-of-google-organic-traffic/
• Optify Not Provided Study: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/optify-study-googles-not-provided-rises-almost-40-organic-traffic-b2b-sites-1725242.htm
• BrightEdge Not Provided Report: http://www.brightedge.com/secure-search-report-august-2013
• Comparing Rank-Tracking Methods: Browser vs. Crawler vs. Webmaster Tools: http://moz.com/blog/comparing-ranktracking-methods-browser-vs-crawler-vs-webmaster-tools

Note from the author: we will continue to update this resource as new techniques surface on how to better isolate organic keyword performance. Please help us by sharing any missed strategies below! 

The post The Ultimate Guide to Google’s Keyword ‘(Not Provided)’ appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

Using Google Analytics Custom Dashboards To Analyze Mobile

Custom dashboards in Google Analytics are a great way to quickly segment and focus on specific types of traffic and behaviors on your website.  We created a mobile and local dashboard to share with you to get you started on understanding your mobile web traffic.

Our Google Analytics mobile dashboard looks at:

• All traffic by device
• Total mobile visitors
• Mobile goal completions
• Top mobile content/locations (*you’ll need to change the URL for your site structure)
• Mobile traffic referrals
• Organic mobile keywords (until Not Provided is 100% … soon)

Download The Google Analytics Mobile and Local Dashboard

Craving More GA Dashboards?

If you want to further into customizing your data and dashboards a couple of other Google Analytics dashboard resources are:

• State of Digitals 6 GA Dashboards (Includes Mobile E-commerce)
• LocalU’s Local Search Dashboard

The post Analyzing Mobile Website Traffic With Google Analytics appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

I want to look at three areas that I see as big contributors to your next website and it’s success. I know it took time, convincing and budget to get this redesign green lighted. Now, how can you ensure it’s the change you need?

Looking past the basics of a new design and content management system, I believe the following three areas are additional and important considerations in your website redesign. Failing to include these you might make your redesign efforts ineffective.

1.  Better Data

While the web is buzzing with big data, what I see many organizations falling short with is better data. Companies have had a hard time progressing past just installing Google Analytics and looking at basic (and often meaningless) metrics like pages viewed and referral sources.

Put a focus on tracking outcomes over beginnings. Over-hyping referral sources and keywords only gives you entrance points and intent.  Those help but the ability to understand what types of traffic are accomplishing an outcome your website is more valuable.

Establishing and tracking goals and setting up event tracking and other outcomes on your website is truly “better data.” Goal tracking in Google Analytics is one way to put the focus on the outcome and start understanding what is the right kind of traffic to attract.

Below are a few goals that just about any website can track and measure:

• Completion of a contact form or RFQ form
• Email address acquisition
• Download of a whitepaper
• Access or registration for a webinar, event or video

2. Mobile

You knew it would be one of the three, but yet it’s still maybe not part of your redesign? The biggest factor for most organizations to become mobile friendly with their website is the technical configuration or development.

Every stat across mobile is in a growth or explosion mode. Email is consumed on mobile more than desktop or webmail, “mobile first” internet users are rising. In fact, mobile search is set to eclipse desktop searches in under two years, and the list goes on.

Responsive web design has caught on as the right mobile solution for many, giving you one website that adapts to the device you access it on.  Google and Bing have given RWD their blessing for mobile search structure of a website adding to its benefits.

That said, sometimes your website and user are better off with a parallel mobile site or a dynamic mobile site. Responsive is not the only solution for mobile, but for most the benefits can be the answer they’re looking for.

I’d recommend you force the issue of mobile now.  Especially if your company’s trend has been to redesign every three to five years, waiting that long to have a mobile friendly website might put you light years behind your competition.

3. Content That Matters

While a new web design is shiny and a new CMS can alleviate headaches, not putting quality content as your top priority in your redesign can be costly.

What’s content that matters you ask? Imagine that a bookshelf is the website redesign and the content are books. If you don’t know the size, shape and weight of the books, you can’t build the shelf that will hold them. In the same way, a website redesign should consider content first.

Remember, it’s content that is valuable for your user. Content that answers their questions, builds trust in your offering and guides them to an outcome they desire and understand. In the past, we’ve talked about content built on marketing fluff and how you need to address your website users needs, not the company ego.

A great example of content that matters for me is what REI does with Snowshoeing (and many other products).  Many e-commerce enabled sites focus only on product display and sales.  REI has used content focused on education to help you make a smarter and more trusted purchase.  Their site offers content that helps you get the “why” of the product, the product types, expert advice, techniques and more.

They also use various forms of content to educate as text, graphics, photos and video all contribute to the users education.  If your website was a customer service rep, REI’s is poised to answer valuable questions and educate. Many of their competitors would only answer “Add to Cart” or “View Price in Cart”.

Summary: Maximize Your Website Redesign

Good luck with your website redesign and nailing these three important elements that will make your website even more valuable to your organization. Look past the refresh of your design and pay attention to the more valuable decisions you can make with your redesign project. Of course, we’d love to be part of making it happen, just tell us about your needs.

The post 3 Smart Decisions to Make with Your Next Website Redesign appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

Let’s take a look at a few things you can measure your website against to ensure that you’ve got the right foundation to start on.

1. Clear and Concise Content

First things first, always start with the content evaluation. A flaw in many businesses is worrying too much about the art and visual framework and written content gets push to the side or is focused on last. You may have heard content is king, but if you’re not working off a content strategy then you’re living in a fantasy.

Problem: Too much marketing fluff, not enough real answers

A lot of websites are publishing too much or most often too little content without evaluating the effect of the user experience. If you publish too much content, your site begins to be cluttered and you begin to ask more time of your users to invest in sifting through it all to find the right answer.

On the other hand, not enough content leaves the user feeling like their questions haven’t been answered and they tend to look elsewhere for the right answer. This can send the user off your site into a world where you don’t control the conversation. They are then subject to customer reviews, rants and raves, and competitive analysis.

Solution: Put yourself in your customer’s shoes

Find the balance between providing the right information and too much information, also, keep in mind the context of the user when they are hitting your site. How do you do this? Know your audience. Use analytics, customer interviews, UX strategies and SEO tactics to ensure that quality content is in the right place. Invest in your content!

Remember, it’s representing you and the voice of your company in your absence.

2. Overall Design

It’s important when looking at the design of your site or app that you keep things simple, accessible and usable.

Problem: Visual Clutter

Whenever the designer introduces another border, background, alignment of content, text, imagery, or any other content into the interface the visual cognitive load is increased. This is not to say you can’t bring in visual branding elements that enhance the product, experience and emotions of your visitors, but the important thing to keep in mind is the simplest conversation is usually the most effective. The visual expectations will vary depending on project and client, think cnn.com versus mashable.com.

Solution: Simplify the Conversation

Only communicate the most important content by grouping thoughts, actions and ideas together. When necessary, add visual elements that will facilitate the information architecture.

3. Easy-to-find calls to action

Should we stay above the fold? Do users scroll? What color should the add-to-cart button be? How many form fields is too many? All too often these and other questions like them can hold up projects and keep marketing directors up all night.

Problem: Making decisions based on industry myths

Many times decisions are made about the content and design based upon what you may have heard or assumed the web to be. Think for a minute about some of the “web rules” you may have encountered over time.

Solution: Usability testing

Put your customer’s journey into context. Remember, your customers have a different need and question when they reach your site than say when they visit apple.com or cnn.com. Are there best practices? Of course there are, but to really be successful in increasing your conversion rate usability testing can be a very effective way of ensuring the content and calls-to-action are in the right place.

Other methods such as A/B testing can be an effective way of serving up different content to try out what works best.

4. The homepage is not as important as you think

Search engines, social media, email marketing, video, web ads and blogging have changed the way we enter a website. The search engines have done a great job of indexing our content in way that we no longer land on the homepage the way we used to.

Problem: Wrong directions

I’ve seen it many times over, a company invests in an ad campaign either offline or online and they direct all traffic to their homepage thinking that these users will figure it out once they get there. Only to find that their bounce rate increases greatly because the expectation of that click was not met.

Solution: Map your customer’s journey

Ask yourself a simple question when creating a campaign, “Does the page I am pointing to directly relate to the context of the ad I am creating?” Sometimes your customer doesn’t care about you as a company, they just want the product and to be on their way.

Don’t disrupt the journey of your customer by adding a roadblock of content that is out of context of the action they are anticipating. If your potential customers want to find more, they will do so by their own initiative.

Put these conversion tips to work

Briefly we’ve touched upon a few tips to help you increase your conversion rate. We didn’t have time to get into great detail, but it’s a good start for you to begin asking some of these questions, whether it be for your existing site, your next campaign or website redesign.

Remember, your website should never be considered complete, it’s a living, breathing tool that you should always iterate.

The post Increase Your Conversion Rate With These 4 Steps appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.

Our predictions for 2012 had some gems, like one of developers nailing a gaming and tablet integration. (I’m stealing your Crystal ball Joe Barhorst!) Many outlined predictions in mobile and apps last year and 2013 are no different.

2013 Predictions

Development – We will continue to see more and more schema-free (nosql) data stores, new and innovative ways of mining said data sources and even more of a focus on an API-driven development in which RESTful web services continue to play a huge role. Front-end technologies (namely JavaScript libraries) are continuing to advance at a rapid rate so expect far more client-side interaction in 2013 as well.
Nicholas Kreidberg, Developer

Analytics – Everyone has data, but few know how to interpret it into actionable ideas that push them and their client in a new direction. We’ll see more agencies tout their data and analytics skills or partners; more data-specific shops will appear overnight and be acquired just as quickly.
Nate Knox, Search Marketer

Social Media –  Photo-sharing becomes hotly contested with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and Google all making huge strides late in 2012. This will lead to a lot of new features and changes in 2013 as each service looks to gain more users and traffic.
Steve Retka, Social Media Coordinator

Social Media - Advertising on Facebook, Twitter, etc. finally got a proper name in 2012 with Native Advertising. I expect that advancements in targeting advertising and sponsored messages through these channels will become significant this year and ad spending will grow.
Jeff Gerst, Account Supervisor

Search Marketing –  Marketing departments start seeing the advantage to content marketing and having all forms of content to be the “front door” to their business. Blogging and whitepapers will still have value, but image and video creation, layered with optimization, is what will rank and gain attention in the crowd of search results.
My Prediction – Aaron Weiche, VP

Business – As the US comes out of a recession, I predict a large number of start-ups fueled by the increase in entrepreneurs. With large acquisitions and IPO’s, there has been a bubble of geeks with good ideas who have gained the liquidity to chase their dreams. The technology sector is also swelling with new tech that came out recently and hasn’t yet been turned in to marketable products.
Perry Govier, Innovation Lead

Design – I’m predicting more experimental layouts and interfaces now that we are getting past the desktop standard (1024 x 768). You’re going to be seeing a lot more experimental design standards that are focused around touch interaction.
Shaymein Ewer, Creative Designer

Technology - Cloud convergence and integration will see strong growth. With the adoption and adaptation of cloud services, devices (mobile and otherwise) will begin moving away from local storage and start relying on the cloud for regular storage, back-ups and document sharing. This capability leads to a new breed of lightweight devices that relies less on internal storage and is packed with a ridiculous amount of processing power pushing the limits of what can be done on the web.
Travis Smith, Project Manager

Technology – I think we will see a longer hardware lifespan as costs increase and companies have more invested in a single product.
Travis Manick, Developer

Technology - App and hardware integration will continue to evolve past current devices. 2013 will be the year we’ll see a big push in devices that will monitor our activities, sleep, weight, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. These devices will talk with our cell phones and will allow us to better monitor our successes, failures, health, etc. API’s will allow devices to open data to multiple apps.
Cory Vandenberghe, Social Media Manager

Technology - The connected living room (smart TV, media center, integrated mobile devices) will become more mainstream, but it won’t work as well as it should.  Incomplete licensing deals between content creators, content distributors and device manufacturers will continue to plague us throughout the year; people will continue to be frustrated when they can’t use the HBOGo app on their Samsung Smart TV if they are an Xfinity subscriber, for example.
Demian Brink, VP of Client Service

Mobile – With the growing popularity of local/mobile search and social activity, I expect to see businesses use geo-location services more predominantly in 2013.
Daniel Hollerung, Search Marketing Manager

Mobile – Mobile wallet like Google Wallet and mobile banking will see significant growth with mainstream acceptance.
Barb Vanags, VP of Finance

Mobile – Mobile will begin to be the first thought when a business owners wants a new website – followed by the desktop version.  This will continue the push for developers and designers to become experts as HTML5, CSS3 and Responsive.
Travis Neiderhiser, Development Team Manager

Mobile – More companies will look at mobile technology as a necessary utility to do business, across all departments, not just marketing. Custom mobile applications will serve as a foundation for supporting job functions in sales, project management customer service and operations.
Jeff Nolan, Account Executive

Mobile – Mobile commerce takes hold. Using mobile devices, it will be even easier to satisfy the desire to shop. Made popular by cutting edge grocery stores in Asia, these interactive virtual shops will start to show up everywhere and you can snap a QR/bar code and instantly purchase items through an e-commerce mobile site. And to make it even more exciting, there will be “pop-up” shops with exclusive limited-time products.
Rebecca Toth, Director of Account Services

Apps - A shift from Native apps to Web apps is here. I predict that within the next year mobile phones will pass up PC’s for use of the Internet. With this, I think we’re going to see a major shift in companies creating Native Apps and will expect to do more with their Web Apps or mobile websites. With more advances in HTML 5 & other technologies we’ll be able to design for more complex & creative interfaces.
Jeff Wagner, Creative Director

Apps – More people than ever before will become technology-motivated as mobile and tablet apps and devices continue to appify even the smallest of every day tasks. Don’t be alarmed when you find your grandma cooking a meal with step-by-step tablet instructions or that notoriously computer-illiterate family member shopping for groceries by influence of an app awarding them ‘points’ because they shopped a specific food category.
Joe Barhorst, Developer

Apps – App numbers and popularity will undoubtedly increase this year, but I think “companion apps” (apps created by manufacturers to accompany/support their products) will start to become more of the norm and a larger point of differentiation for tech saavy consumers when they’re deciding which brand to buy.
Nick Bryant, Director of Client Strategy

What’s Your Digital Future?

Do you have a prediction to add to ours for 2013 in marketing and technology? Share yours in our comments!

The post 2013 Marketing & Technology Predictions appeared first on Spyder Trap Digital Marketing Blog.