The latest blog posts from Be Better Online

2011-08-17: 19 (free) tools to manage online reputation

Any company or organization and even individual person, whether they use Internet or not, can suffer from bad online publicity. Publicity that likely lead to dire consequences.

As 87% (Svenskarna och Internet 2010, IIS) of all Internet users choose to search for information about specific products or services and even potential partners online, it is of utmost importance to monitor, analyse, and act on occurring problems in search results and social media. Negative criticism can be the beginning of a downward spiral if not treated on time.

To find negative comments on Facebook, angry blog posts or web sites misinformed about your brand and product is important for your future business and life.

But how is it possible to follow up on misleading information on the Internet? The Internet is huge and to manually monitor all the channels is not sustainable.

In this post, we are willing to inform you about 19 free tools (we will mention other expensed professional options in another post), which will help you when managing reputation and coverage online.

Tools to monitor Twitter

Twitter Search is Twitter’s own tool that allows you to search for specific keywords in their information flow.

Monitter gives you real time monitoring of up to three keywords for free. Perfect for a product launch.

TweetBeep sends hourly reports of what is being said about you, your company, website, products and other keywords, chosen by you.

Trendistic allows you to search for a specific keyword and provides you graphs which will tell you numbers of mention of keywords and also who has been talking about it.

Social Oomph is similar to TweetBeep since you can add keywords to screen as well as it will provide many other (expensed) features which will simplify many Twitter related activities.

Tools to monitor Facebook

Socialmention allows you to search Facebook and people who still have open sections.

Whostalkin also allows you to search Facebook and people who have open sections.

Tools to monitor blogs

Google Blog Search is a search service that allows you to search millions of blogs worldwide.

Bloggsök is a Swedish search engine that allows you to search all blogs affiliated to Bloggportalen. It is probably not all Swedish blogs as it is voluntary to join.

BlogPulse, has 166,885,314 million indexed blogs, including Swedish blogs. You can search blogs as well as receive information about popular blogs mentioned globally as per today. A lot of other relevant statistics in different graphs are also available.

Technorati is, next to Google Blog Search, one of the major search engines for blogs. Only English blogs are searchable, however.

Tools to monitor forums

BoardReader is a tool which allows you to search all major forums around the world, including Swedish forums.

BoardTracker is, just like the BoardReader, a tool that allows you to search forums all over the world.

Other Tools

SocialMention is mentioned once more, due to you can opt out and add many other sources, such as blogs, news, Twitter, and other channels, beyond Facebook.

Whostalkin is not only Facebook focused; it also searches through other sources, including Twitter, blogs and news channels.

Google Alerts is in my opinion probably the best tool on this list. You can add keywords you want to monitor and you can also choose type of media, including websites, news, videos and blogs that you want to cover. You receive an e-mail when new references appear.

Google Me on the Web is similar to Google Alerts, though it is based on the information you publish in your Google profile. So if for example name and e-mail are mentioned you will be notified.

Yahoo Alerts is Yahoo’s equivalent of Google Alerts.

Google Trends uses graphs to provide approximate picture of which terms are searched for. You can also compare your company against competitors, to understand who is most mentioned.

Google News allows you to look at many of the world’s news channels.

PSspy is a Swedish service through which you add keywords to a watcher. You will receive regular e-mails when these keywords are mentioned in news and blogs to some extent.

Do you use any of these tools? Have we missed any tools that you think should be mentioned? Do not hesitate to comment!

Vänliga hälsningar,
Mikael Uusitalo
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
Skype: bebetteronline
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-08-17: Google launches Page Speed Service

In April 2010 Google announced that the speed of your web site has an effect on your search result placement. In a logical response to this Google has as a second step launched a new service called Page Speed Service.

The service can easily be explained as per following; Google will collect your web site and present it to your visitors, working as an intermediary.

Google has promised an improvement in load times between 25% and 60% through so called Google “web performance best practices”. These best practices include image compression, caching, gzipping and other techniques used to streamline a web site.

Would you like to try out the service you will have to await the full-scale launch or notify Google that you are interested. As per today the service is not accessible for everyone. However, would you already now like to try out this service, you have the option to test the activity here.

This is not the first service Google has launched to improve your web site speed. Previously tools which diagnose and speed up your website have been available; such as Google Page Speed Browser Extension, Page Speed Online API and recently the Apache mod_pagespeed Web server. With Google Webmaster Tools you can also estimate how load time of your website has evolved over time.

The service has many similarities to the many CDN services (Content Delivery Network) which are available today; out of which Akamai and Amazon Cloudfront are two of the major players. Now people question how these will be affected by the newcomer on the market. Incidentally, Akamai dropped nearly 20% of its market capitalization at Google’s launch.

Vänliga hälsningar,
Mikael Uusitalo
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
Skype: bebetteronline
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-08-17: Microsoft SEO Toolkit – on-page analysis on Steroids

Friday may have arrived and it may be a bridge day; that does not mean we take time off from our blog. Our aim today is to praise a Microsoft tool; probably the most underrated SEO tool out there, namely the SEO Toolkit.

To be able to use this great tool you need a Windows computer running IIS (Internet Information Services), as this SEO Toolkit is an addition to IIS. You Mac-users (unless you are running Windows) can of course consider replacing your operating system or use a VPS server.

Install SEO Toolkit

1. As a start; install Microsoft Web Platform Installer 3.0 – it will facilitate the installation of IIS.

2. Install SEO Toolkit. Once you have it installed it should appear in IIS automatically; although I reserve myself from any mistakes, because after all it is Microsoft we are working with. Search the start menu for “enable or disable Windows features”, which will show a box with all Windows features that are enabled on your computer. Ensure that the folder World Wide Web Services is checked (Internet Information Services must also be checked, but it probably is already) – then press OK.

3. Start the SEO Toolkit – you will find it under: Programs -> IIS 7.0 Extensions> Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit 1.0

What now? What is possible with SEO Toolkit?

With SEO Toolkit, it is easy to walk through your web site to find “errors” that occur on the web site. To start the walk-through, simply press “Create new analysis” and follow instructions on the screen.

By default, there are several errors that are automatically pinpointed. For example, creating an analysis for bebetteronline.se will result in the following errors:

58 sites have no meta description

5 pages have too long title tag

5 pages have too short meta description

4 pages have a link to an URL that returns “error” sites

Two sides do not have a h1 heading

There are more of interest to be found during our analysis. For example, we see which web sites that have the greatest numbers of internal inbound links to itself, which sites that take most time to upload, which images that miss an alt description – as you can imagine, most of your web site information is shown here.

As with Google Analytics, we can create our own “reports” – called Query in SEO Toolkit. By creating our own Query, we can simplify some steps when working with On-Page Optimization. You can easily create a Query to find pages on your site with for example links with anchor texts such as “here”, “click here” etc. We can also create reports to find out which pages our keywords occur in the title tag.

I am going to follow up with more information on SEO toolkit and how to create customized reports; this in a post in the future. But first I would like to know; what exactly would you like to find out by using SEO Toolkit? Try it out for yourself, play around with the SEO Toolkit, and please leave a comment if you have any concerns.

Was this content satisfactory? If so, push it on pusha.se!

Vänliga hälsningar,
Victor Kaugesaar
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-08-17: Secure your search result ranking – literally speaking

I have now been personally hit twice by malicious hackers; this with short intervals. These hackers have with diverse motives and approaches attacked several web sites in my portfolio. The attacks have had the common intention to implement hidden pages of different types into my work. Some use these pages for pure phishing attacks and use them as “link farms” who use link power of a domain.

This has thus affected me even though I myself, in my innocence, consider me to work actively with security as far as my knowledge of the subject goes. If I, who consider the importance of security, suffer from an attack I realize there will be others who are not so security considerate and can be severely affected. Hence this post.

The question is if you are prepared when your web site becomes the victim of an attack? Maybe your web site, at the time of reading this, is hijacked and used for improper purposes. Are you prepared to take the cost when your web site can not be open to visitors? Chances are probably no.

This is why we in this blog post would like to share tips and tricks that can help you identify if your site is already under attack and how you can protect yourself in the future.

The first question is – how can this be critical for my chances to rank high in search results?

A single image can answer that question.

[Picture]

If you encounter this image when you visit your web site you can be sure (provided that someone has not made a big mistake) that you have suffered from some type of attack. Today, this warning is built into all browsers and will stop your visitors from entering your web site. Note that although you do not get this warning, you can still be under attack and this warning comes up when it is already too late.

But what about the search results?

In addition to this warning, it is a fact that your web site can be penalized in the search results, which means your web site can be ruled out until you solve the problem with your site. This does not only apply to your homepage, it can also apply to other pages and at worst, even your entire domain. Once it happens, you are required to submit a request to Google for them to manually check your web site for problems; this can take many weeks to get sorted.

But how can I identify web site problems?

The answer is to use and implement Google Webmaster Tools. Google Webmaster Tools provide a functionality that will notify you would Google detect any problems with your site. As seen below, my web site is now clean, but the fact is that if there are problems you can find them here. You will also receive an e-mail would problems arise.

[Picture]

But how can I protect myself?

The first and most important step to an enjoyable night’s sleep is to choose to start working pro-actively to protect your website.

The following 10 tips act like a second step towards a safer site.

Update continuously

No matter what program you use to run your online business and website you should always update your system continuously and as soon as there are new updates. 9 times out of 10, you have closed any security leakages which are critical if you do. If doing this, you have come far in your security work. This of course applies to any types of additional applications you choose to install.

Change password continuously

Many may think that this point is tough. But it works. If someone has improperly gained access to your password, you can solve this by changing password and this will determine if this will occur again or not in a few days.

Use different Passwords

Use different passwords (and preferably also user names) on all services and systems. Using the same password in all places gives your attacker multiple choices when attacking you. Also remember to use sufficiently difficult passwords.

Use Security Plug ins

Today there are many types of plug ins and applications that can help you monitor and review critical security features. Along WordPress comes WP Security Scan which will help you to secure among others passwords and databases.

Validate Forms

Forms that handle data in an inaccurate way is commonly used by many ill-intentioned hackers. Always, whether you code your site yourself, let someone else do it, or use applications, ensure that proper validation of your data occurs. If there is a field for entering phone numbers, ensure only numbers can be written in the field. To filter out invalid characters properly will protect you from many unpleasant surprises.

Check terms and rights

Are you in control of who has rights to read and write catalogues and files on your site? Be careful to always check which rights new files and directories have to make sure no unauthorized can read and write them in the wrong way.

Verify your .htaccess

Always check that your .htaccess files are in place and are designed properly. They control how users access specific directories at your web host.

Back up daily

Would a really malicious person be ill-intentioned enough to take away all of your site, I can promise you that you will sleep well would you have a backup available somewhere else. It does not have to be difficult. Either you buy the service through your web host or use applications. For WordPress there is the BackupBuddy that lets you make backups at multiple external sources.

Use reliable additions / applications

Have you found an application such as WordPress on a odd-looking website, then turn around as soon as you can. Always use applications that you know have existed for a while, are frequently updated, preferably with an established base of customers and is found in the WordPress official collection of supplements. Similar approaches apply to all types of systems capable of adding and supporting your site.

Dare to ask

Is something unclear? Dare to ask, either here through this post or to the developer of your site. A site that is parked, can cost big money for every minute. This is why it is important to be prepared and work pro-actively.

When it comes to security, there are as many approaches as there are people, and within people developers and web administrators. How do you work with security? Have I missed some important advice that saved you from disaster before?

Vänliga hälsningar,
Mikael Uusitalo
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
Skype: bebetteronline
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-08-17: An introduction to conversion rates

Whether you sell various products, or have another purpose for your visitors who enter your web site, the conversion rate (U.S. conversion rate) is a very important indicator. Important to the extent you often must return to it and actively work to improve aspects that can affect your conversion. If you do not know if and how your web site converts it may lead to forsaken revenues and inefficient traffic investment.

Simply stated, your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your web site that actions a predetermined goal. Do you have an online store the aim is obviously for your visitors to make a purchase. Do you provide services the goal might be for your visitors to register or provide their contact information.

If there is an actual visitor related goal on your web site you can measure your conversion rate. Once you know your main goal with your website it is easy to calculate your conversion rate.

Conversion rate = number of accomplished goals / number of visitors

An example:

You have 100 visitors to your site where you sell clothes pegs. 3 of them buy a set of pegs.

3 sets sold clothes pegs / 100 visitors = 3%

Your site converts 3% of visitors into buyers. How many more sets of clothes pegs do you sell if your conversion rate is 15%?

More advantages

To actively work with conversion and conversionrates does not mean that only your goals will be accomplished, but also other effects will join.

Lower media costs

Sponsored search results, banner advertising and competition in organic search results have recently become increasingly expensive when more and more people understand the inherent potential impact of these media. The importance of taking advantage of existing traffic has become far more important and conversion rates and conversion optimization can assist in solving this problem.

Clearer website

Conversion and conversion optimization focus on many areas of your site, which will influence usability and content. Both points are crucial to how your visitors perceive your site. A website that converts well is also a website which is easy to understand and use.

Cut customer acquisition costs

Once you have control over your costs and you know for certain how well your site and various types of traffic convert you can decide how much to pay for each customer acquisition. With control each new customer is an investor to join your customer base, regardless of traffic type.

Decision Support

With today’s advanced analytical tools conversion rates will give you invaluable insight into what kind of traffic and traffic sources that will work for you. It allows you to control when, where and how you want to be seen to maximize your earnings.

As you can see, there are many advantages when you achieve full control over your conversion rate, so continually work to improve it. Are you working with conversion rates and conversion optimization?

Vänliga hälsningar,
Mikael Uusitalo
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
Skype: bebetteronline
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-07-04: Web Editing – How to Write Better Content

Many people think that SEO is all about technical code structures, sitemaps and link power. However, the content of a website is just as important as the techincal aspects. The web editor and content manager is vital and their job is to update, rewrite and add to the content almost daily in order to create effective SEO.

Web Editors do not need to be concerned with the latest online technologies or have an indepth knowledge of website technicalities. When it comes to filling up your pages with content it is important to write in a convincing, informative and engaging way. Just adding more and more information and over doing the use of your keywords can hinder your searchability.

What, you may ask, makes a good web editor? We have put together the Be Better Online  Top 10 List of Tips to guide you through the world of SEO web content and help you to to become an effective web editor.

# 1 Analyze your visitors

If, for example, you have a blog concerned about TV and you want to write a text about how great Swedish Television is then you should start by deciding which keywords will be most relevant for you to use in this particular article.

If you are unsure, the best place to start is the Google Keyword Tool. Google Keyword lists the approximate number of searches done on specific keywords, each month.

It appears in this screen shot that alot more people search the term ‘SVT’ as opposed to Swedish Television , and yet they still have the same importance.

Decide which keywords are relevant to you by identifying what your visitors are looking for and remember, the right keywords determine how many visitors successfully find you when they search.

# 2 Use the right title

As a web editor you have the power to affect how Google perceives your site content and if you choose the right  title you could improve how Google ranks your site. The amount of clicks your site receives is directly related to the suitability of your title.

Your title describes the content of your page and must include your chosen keywords. Your title should spark your readers’ curiosity and entice them to click. Also, try to place the relevant keywords as early in your title as possible.

Bad title:

Sweden’s best TV

Good title:

SVT: The world’s best entertainment – almost free

The first title is lacking in content whereas the second title includes the keyword early and there is more descriptive text to attract readers.

# 3 Insert Keywords Early

When it comes to writing your optimised text it is important to include your keyword in the first sentence and paragraph. Create a text that communicates your subject and add in your keyword as you go along where it fits naturally into the text.

In our example, you’ll see that the keywords appear early in the text:

“SVT, the swedish state television, is something of a unique case in the global media world. Even if it finansed by tax money, it is without political or commercial interests”

# 4 Make use of older material

Contextual links in your text are the best kind of links you can use internally on your site. Once you have the opportunity, you should always link to similar articles on your site.

You mention Hamilton is currently head of SVT in your article on SVT’s excellence so you could link to an article about Eva Hamilton, provided that it exists.

# 5 Describe your pictures

Including photos on your website is the perfect way to break up long text that could otherwise overwhelm the reader. It is important to remember that it is always quicker and easier to see what a subject is from the pictures.

It is important to always use ALT-tag pictures. By using a descriptive ALT tag, you are helping search engines identify the picture and its context in the text.

# 6 Be Current

Make it a habit of being up to date with what is happening in the world around you. What are people talking about? This way you can stay ahead of the competition and choose keywords that are relevant. This way if you choose emerging keywords that are set to become more popluar you will have early easy access to traffic.

# 7 Quality

Quality is an oh-so-obvious, yet often neglected pointer to remember when it comes to SEO.

Low quality content may not be read and could lead to poor traffic. If you constantly monitor and develop your website content, you will ensure you get the best quality to maximise your  search potential. It is better to dedicate the time to write one or two longer texts of high quality than to quickly publish several short and badly written texts of low quality.

# 8 Continuity

Too many sites have old, dated text that doesn’t interest visitors and won’t get the attention of Google.

How often you update your web pages will have a direct effect on how your website ranks in search results so continuity is important for how you are perceived by your visitors.

Update your site with a high standard of new and current text and you will build an authuritative and interesting website that has personality and people want to read. Your visitors will choose to return, linking and sharing texts which is fantastic news for your position in the search results.

# 9 Integrate with social media

Social media has become increasingly important to how a site is assessed and ranked by search engines. Different types of social media activity can really improve where your site will appear in the search results. It is therefore important to try to include content that features social media wherever possible.

# 10 Remember the reader

Our final SEO tip is to remember that behind all the technicalities of creating winning SEO content there is a real life reader. You should always write content for people first and foremost. Too much focus on search engine criteria will do more harm than good to your overall website effectiveness.

Vänliga hälsningar,
Mikael Uusitalo
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
Skype: bebetteronline
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-06-21: Relaunched! BBO Insight here for all your SEO and online marketing needs

It’s been almost three months since the last post so we think it’s about time we breathed life back into the Be Better Online Blog. Over the coming weeks and months we want to share with you the expertise that the Be Better Online team has been busy building up. We are here to help you achieve more visitors and ultimately, win more business through our favorite medium, the Internet.

We have made a few changes to our blog and now it’s back, bigger and better.

We have a new name. We answer to the name of BBO Insight: News and facts about search and internet marketing. Save us in your favourites and look forward to even more relevant content.

We have recruited new staff that will take care of providing you with insightful reading material. Get all the inside info on SEO and how to harness the potential of search engine optimisation. Our team and guest publishers will upload articles weekly to keep you up-to-date and answer those niggling questions.

The team includes me, Mikael Uusitalo, Victor Kaugesaar and of course Carl-Gustav Oberg.

I will focus on SEO from a business perspective and will provide news related to the search industry in general. Victor will write for those who like the more technical side of internet marketing and Carl-Gustav give you an insight into Be Better Online and how we work.

Finally, we have added improved functionality including RSS support (Feedburner) for those who want to subscribe to us using your favorite reader. Furthermore you can share what we write to all your profiles on various social networks. And last but not least, we have implemented proper categorization so that you can find the posts according to the topic you are looking for.

But enough talk, let us know what you want to read about. What areas, subjects or issues do you want to know about? We know that whatever the question, we have the answer.

We wish you a warm welcome to BBO Insight!

Vänliga hälsningar,
Mikael Uusitalo
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
Skype: bebetteronline
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-06-21: Linking what it is and where it can take your business

Welcome to my first post for the BBO Insight Blog and where better place to start than at the beginning. Let me take you through the world of SEO and show you how you can improve your business power on the web.

Search engine optimization from the beginning…

Ever since the Web began there have been search engines like Alta Vista, Hotbot and Yahoo. These search engines have always been the most effective way to navigate through the huge amount of information available online . These search engines lead the web surfer to web pages via tips from users and through links. The content of the pages was judged by the relevance and quality of content and this affected were the website was placed or ‘ranked’ in the search results. At this time if you were using SEO you would have to redesign Web pages so that they were valued as high as possible for the relevant keywords. There were less knowledgeable SEO technicians around and as a result bad practises such as keyword stuffing, cloaking and hidden text were used to achieve better placement in the organic result listings. As more and more people got interested in search engine optimization and revenue opportunities deteriorated XXXXXXXXXXXXX

… And then came Google!

Google offered great results and quickly gained a large user base. What differentiated Google from the other search engines at the time was that Google used the links between Web pages in order to assess the popularity and credibility of websites. To oversimplify, Google graded each site by attaching points to each sites outgoing links; the more points each site had, the higher up the ranking they would go. Google’s reasoning was that the more outgoing links a site has, the more popular and trusted they are. Google’s algorithm for this was called PageRank (after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google).

The total value of the incoming links to a site had a major impact on how the site ranks for the relevant keywords. What’s more these trusted sites provided value to their forward links. It did not mean that it was no longer important to work with the content of the pages, but the value of a site now included the linking as well. Google has existed for 10 years and has provided web users with ever-improving search results, where the big difference between a low and a high ranking site is link power.

The last 10 years

Links are still incredibly important for search engine ranking and in my opinion very little has changed since Google began. Search engines need to use a ranking parameter that indicates what real users think about content so that you end up with high-quality search results. Manipulating the search result placements through links is an effective solution and over the years, many methods have emerged and become obsolete until Google came along.

Google strives to maintain the high standards and offer results that accurately reflect the quality of the sites it lists.  Google has been known to punish websites if they violate the terms of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, this is Google’s way of protecting their interest. Google can’t allow site owners to affect their investments in any other way than by improving the quality of the content. Ultimately all that site owners’ care about is being the most visible that they can. This ongoing struggle between Google and website owners will continue and we will watch eagerly to see how it is played out.

How does it work today?

One should definitely not overlook the importance of excellence and quality, and above all what your users think about this. Once you have a good website up and running, it is still ultimately the link power that determines how you will be positioned in the search results in relation to your competitors. This is determined by the number, quality, distribution and anchor texts of incoming links. At Be Better Online we strongly believe in the idea of ​​an “optimal link profile” which is unique to each site; for example when Google determines how popular a site is and weighs up all parameters and tolerance levels it should determine the differences and know whether it is ‘Bob’ bicycle shop “or” Olle’s bike shop. The basic principle is the same, the more links from relevant websites, the better. What distinguishes a website is how much link power it has (as determined by competition), where the links come from (types of sites and geography), how the tolerance level for links with keywords as anchor text (the more such counterproductive links with brand / company name / URL as the anchor text, the higher the risk, I would say that it takes). The type of action required depends entirely on how high the competition is on “your” keywords. In certain industries, like cycling for example, it requires perhaps no more than to be on the local area listings. On the other hand there are industries that require million dollar investments each month to fight with competitors and protect their ranking. In between these extremes are all the other website businesses, probably even yours. In this blog post i purposely haven’t addressed the various techniques needed to create stronger linking prowess as it is so dependent on each specific situation but get in touch if you want to know more.

What’s next?

Search engines of today depend on what users like sites to generate qualitative results. The views expressed on social media like Facebook and Twitter have started to impact on results, both in terms of that sometimes it appears such content and there is evidence that a mention of a social channel can have an impact on rankings. If search engines are looking to find out what real users think about content on the internet I find it hard to see a better source of signals than recently said social media – why I think this is something that will have greater impact in the future. One of the drawbacks of relying a lot on the links is that there are very few regular users that affect this, there is little the same as if it had been confined to politicians who had been allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. Links are still the melody that works to take first place, and I think it will remain important over the coming 10 years – though I find it hard to back it up with something other than habit, in the light of the discussion around social media.

… What do you think?

Let us know your thoughts below. How do you think the future will value linking?

Vänliga hälsningar,

Carl-Gustav Öberg
Direct tel: +46 (0)31 - 788 02 50
www.bebetteronline.se
Be Better Online Sweden AB
Stigbergsliden 7
414 63 Göteborg

2011-06-21: The Power Of Regular Expressions and Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a fantastic free tool that allows you  to track the effectiveness of your website. You can use Google Analytics along with Regular Expressions to set up advanced filters, set up target tracking or segment traffic. In order to make the most of Google Analytics it is important to understand the basics of Regular Expressions. Regular Expressions is a science that allows you to extract information from your website so you can understand what your visitors do and why they do it.

Contents

With Regular Expressions you can use the below character tools to help you extract the information you need. You can even use a combination of these characters for more specific answers to your search questions.

1. Backslash –
2. Pipe – |
3. The question mark -?
4. Parenthesis – ()
5. The point -.
6. Brackets, stretch and staple – [-] {x, y}
7. The star – *

Backslash –

The backslash is probably the Regular Expression you will use the most. Backslash can be used when you want to turn a regular expression into a literal character. Ie. if we have a URL containing “?” the problem is “?” also plays the role of soluble expression. By using  , we can remove the function of “?”. It’s called Escape: a character.

Example:

For example say we have a webshop that makes use of different ID numbers in the URLs of each category on the website. Then we can filter such as “Search and replace” (Find and Replace) to provide clearer picture of the people who are not familiar with the site’s URL structure. But a problem arises when we create the filter because the URL contains “?”. By then put a before “?” We remove the function of “?”.

Pipe – |

The pipe or sign symbol acts as an ‘and/or match’. It is often used when website owners want to narrow down the keywords visitors have used to find your site.

Example:

Maybe you would like to compare two different types of visitors to see which ones convert best. Maybe you want to compare those who will find your site with keywords that free and cheap with all other search traffic.

The question mark -?

The question mark  is a popular regular expression character. It works to mark a sign or expression of your choosing. Tell us in the keyword report, for example, to filter out the company name. Say your company is called Dance Group, but a common misspelling is Dann group with two n’s. With the help of the question mark we can capture both the dance group and Dann group.

Parenthesis – ()

Using parenthesis allows you to group an expression without affecting the entire string. You can see how  this regular expression works by looking at the maths.

• 7 +3 * 3 = 16 – ie. three times three is nine, seven plus nine equals sixteen.
• (7 +3) * 3 = 30 – ie. Seven plus three is ten, ten times three equals thirty.

Perhaps you remember from your maths classes that you must calculate what is inside the brackets first. In this way with Parentheses you can choose the information that is most important to you and your analysis..

• / Folder-one | two / connect = / folder-one or two / contact
• / Folder (one | two) / connect = / map-one/contact or / map-two/contact

Example:

Take as an example a site with various entry fields scattered across the site and the value / information per completed entry field which you want to track. The problem is that the information is in individual destinations and you need to capture / sent, / skickat.html and / skickat.php . In this instance you need to use / sent (. html | . php)?

In this way we can cover all three final destinations. Remember, the question mark makes our brackets “voluntary”, if we were to remove the question mark, we would not get / sent only / skickat.html and / skickat.php. You can see that by using the / sent (. html | . php)? string you can track the same goal (destination) for different entries even though the source is different.

The Dot -.

In Regular Expression a dot is used in place of a character, for example if you want to find the words ending in ‘air’ you can type ‘.air’ and you will get p.air, h.air, f.air matches with any character. A dot is often used together with other expressions.

• Da.is – will match, Dagis , Da.is , Da_is etc etc. But not Daisen .

The dot is in place of any type of character, however there must be a letter after the dot.

Eg; E.il will match Evil. E.vil and E.Vil but NOT Eil. , as there is no letter/character missing between the E and il.

Example:

Say we want to filter out traffic from a certain IP address. If your business would be on all IP addresses from 83.75.140.250 to 83.75.140.255  we would use regular expressions to write 83 .75 .140 .25. In this way all the IP numbers are covered . Although we cover also 83.75.140.256, but this will never happen because there is a proper IP number.

Brackets (brackets), stretch and staple – [-] {x, y}

Brackets are used most often alongside “-” and also quite often together with staples, but can also be used without. We could use brackets in a list of keywords to filter; bracket [abc] and you will see all the keywords that contain a, b, or c. If you wrote a [abc] 2, we see only 1A2, 1B2 or 1c2. The best use of brackets is together with “-”. Then we can use out of the following techniques,

• [Az] – all lowercase letters from a to z
• [AZ] – All capital letters from A to Z
• [0-9] – All the numbers from zero to nine
• [A-oa-o0-9] – all of the above (note that you do not use out of pipe or a comma.)

You’ll get even more use from brackets when you use them alongside staples. If we take the above example again and lay down a wire so we get a [abc] {1,2} 2. So we will now go beyond them in the first example also match 1ab2, 1ac2, 1ba2, 1bc2, etc, etc.

In this way a staple acts to repeat the previous expression between X to Y times.

The star – *

Star is perhaps the characters in regular expressions most often used improperly because it did not really have the same function as it may otherwise have. The star means that you take the preceding character and repeat it from zero to many times. So Baa * st will match words both Bäääääst and Bst. The star itself is perhaps not so useful, but together with the point you can create a unique filter. One of these filters allows you to see the full visitor url address.

Example:

If we create a filter in accordance with the following settings.

• Filter Type: Custom filter = Advanced
• Field A -> Extract A: Hänvsining = (.*)
• Field B -> Extract B : leave blank
• Output To -> Constructor: User Defined $ A1 =
• Field A Required: Yes
• Field B Required: No
• Override Output Field: Yes
• Difference between small and large letters: No.

So we give this filter, then, we could see from the URL, the visitor found our site. The report will then find under Visitors -> User Defined. Remember that the filter first start functioning from the time you created it.

Hopefully you’ve now learned a bit more about Regular Expressions and how you can use it with Google Analytics. We have covered the basics here, if you’d like to know more about specifics just email us with your questions.

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Victor Kaugesaar
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