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Wondering exactly what the answers are to these questions:
“How many visits have we had to the website from social media sites?”
“How many of those visits turned into enquiries?”
“How many of the total enquiries were influenced or helped by social sources?”
“What value has social media sites generated via the website?”
Look no further than the new ‘Social Report’ in Google Analytics. The report can be found under ‘Traffic Sources’ tab and then clicking on ‘Social’.Read More
Last week I attended BrightonSEO (biggest SEO conference in Europe) for the very first time, usually I just follow it on Twitter, but this year decided that I had to be there as so much has developed in the SEO and Analytics industry over the past 12 months. Search engine updates, coding enhancements through to how users have changed their behaviour online. Fascinating stuff. This for me was an opportunity to hear and speak to experts in the industry and get their perspective on how search is changing and is expected to change over the next few years.
The biggest point I took away from the conference was this, even if you decide to not read the rest of this post then the least you, as a marketer, can do is take this thought away with you:
“Don’t chase after Google’s algorithm, chase after your best interpretation of what users want because that is what Google’s chasing after” Matt Cutts – Feb 2011
It’s the question on everybody’s lips at the moment – do journalists use social media to research their stories? Are you missing a trick if you’re not engaging with key editorial contacts on Twitter? Which channels should you focus on developing?
Certainly within the PR industry there is significant rumination going on at the moment – PR professionals are desperately trying to anticipate the platforms that journalists might be trialling, hoping to stay one step ahead so that they are ready and waiting should a journalist come looking for them, and yet still trying to cover all bases by email broadcasting news in the more traditional way.
I met a PR professional at an event a few weeks ago who confidently told me “Journalists always prefer me to tweet them now (rather than phone or email) – I never email anybody any more”. But how true really is this? Can we rely on our audience using Twitter alone to source their news stories, or do we need to try and spread our efforts between maintaining social media alongside more traditional communication methods?Read More
Last week I wrote about the growth of Pinterest and how it can be used by businesses in the construction industry. The article proved to be very popular so I decided to approach it from another angle and specifically look at the SEO benefits. If you decide to create an account and start using Pinterest, it’s also a good idea to add Pinterest buttons to your website (yes, ANOTHER button). Since social signals are becoming increasingly important for ranking positions, encouraging your audience to pin and share your images/videos can only help increase your online visibility. To add these buttons to your site visit: http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
The main reason Pinterest has been making headlines over the last few weeks is because of the vast amounts of traffic it’s driving. Pinterest can bring new visitors to your site that might not have come across you or your products and services before. At the moment, I don’t think much of that traffic is targeted or quality traffic but this might change as Pinterest comes out of beta and more people from your target audience group sign up. Below you can see that within about a week, Pinterest is already in the top 5 traffic referring sources to our site.
Welcome to this week’s episode of MDi TV. Ayaan gives a quick overview of Pinterest and describes how this social platform can be used by businesses within the construction industry. Earlier this week we also published a blog post with a case study on how McKay flooring are already using Pinterest, and this episode takes a closer look at their profile once again.
Hope you enjoy the episode and if you have any further questions (or would like an invite to join Pinterest) then please tweet us @PauleyCreative.
Over the last few weeks I have heard (and read) alot about Pinterest which is making headlines for a variety of reasons. Pinterest can be described as a social bulletin board and image-sharing site that allows users to ‘pin’ images and videos onto their own, or other people’s, pinboards. Considering that it is still an invite only platform, it has seen tremendous growth over the last two months.
According to research company Shareaholic, Pinterest already has over 4.9 million users and drove more referral traffic in the last two months than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined and generates over 15 billion page views a month.
The big question many of you are asking is whether this platform has any business use, especially for product manufacturers within the construction industry. My initial answer to this would be that it has great potential. Since our industry is very visual, especially when marketing to architects, who want to see the aesthetics of your products and see them in situ. What better way of doing this than sharing lots of images of how it has been used in recent building projects? There are also other business reasons to use this image based network, some of which I have listed below:
This is the fourth blog post in our interview series that investigates how different companies within the UK construction sector are using social media for their business. Karen joins me from Reed Harris, a specialist tile importer, to discuss how Twitter and blogging have helped them connect with architects, interior designers and other construction professionals from all over the UK. I personally met Karen on Twitter when she joined over a year ago and then had the pleasure of meeting her face to face at Ecobuild last year.
I am also a big fan of her blog which is full of useful design information and inspiration. If you would like to know more about their fabulous tiles then download the Reed Harris tile guide which gives an overview of the methods and materials used in their successful projects.
Last week Google launched their latest feature called ‘search, plus your world’ or search+ for short. This change sees a deeper integration of Google search with its social network Google+, thereby turning search into a more social experience. They want to improve the search experience by making results more relevant and personal to users when they are signed into their Google.com accounts. Read More
Welcome to the third post in our interview series with various companies within the construction industry. Today I’m joined by Paul from The Construction Index (TCI), an online search engine which is used by a large majority of the UK construction industry, the site also includes the UK’s largest construction search directory. In October 2011, Experian Hitwise confirmed that The Construction Index continued to be the number 1 website for UK construction search and construction news. It’s free to access, with no subscription or registration pay wall. The website provides a wide range of content including: comprehensive coverage of the main news and issues affecting the construction industry, online advertising, tender information, market data (which we used in our social media analysis of the top 15 UK construction companies) and a unique search facility that delivers targeted local and national results. TCI have a prominent social media presence, especially on Twitter which is how I met Paul. We have had various conversations about industry developments, interesting news (sometimes in German!) and inevitably… good food. So here we go… enjoy the post!
Many marketers struggle to identify which sources of traffic are most effective when it comes to converting web visitors into leads. Setting up Goals in Google Analytics for events such as downloads, registrations, subscriptions or enquiry submissions is the first step in working out which sources of traffic, and which campaigns, are most effective.
A few weeks back I decided to use one of our clients’ high volume traffic websites to test the new Assisted Conversion and Conversion Paths reports in Google Analytics V5 for a 4 week period. Assisted conversions in Google Analytics identifies which sources of traffic played a part in converting a visitor into a lead. This is an important report for identifying which sources of traffic are helping in converting visitors. Here is what the Assisted Conversion path report looks like:
Assisted Conversions