It was all so beautiful in the beginning.

Your website went live. Then you set up Google Analytics and started checking your reports, getting great information about your customers, how they were using your site and where they were coming from. You were able to use this information to improve your site. And your website traffic was really starting to increase. Fantastic!

But then you noticed something strange: while the number of sessions and users were going up, your time on site and page view averages were dropping and your bounce rate was going up. Way up.

So now when you look at where your web traffic is coming from, you notice that you’re getting a lot more referral traffic . . . and you don’t recognise most of the domain names.  Names like semalt.com, www.Get-Free-Traffic-Now.com, social-buttons.com, free-share-buttons.com and chinese-amezon.com are showing up in your sources and throwing off all your stats.

What the heck is going on?

The bad news:  it’s referral spam bots

Referral spam (a.k.a. referrer spam, log spam or referrer bombing) shows up in your website traffic reports appearing to come from a link on another website. However, the link is actually false and the domain of the website may also be fake.

Why would someone do this?

There are several possible reasons. Just as with email spam, the people initiating this trash are trying to get you to click on something in the hope of getting you to make a purchase, boost their own site rank by getting more visits, or – worst case scenario – bring malware or viruses into your computer.

In addition to being highly annoying and malevolent, these hits on your site ruin your traffic stats, because the “visitors” aren’t real people interested in your products and services. They spend about one second on your site and leave, which causes your traffic stats to go up falsely, your time on site average and page views to plummet and your bounce rate to go through the roof.

The good news: you can do something about these

You’re not alone in battling the bots. There are more spammers showing up all the time and most companies are seeing them in Analytics reports. Plenty of people are frustrated, so chances are that at some point, Google will find a way to put in a permanent block at the data collection level.

In the meantime, if you have a site built in WordPress, you can block crawler spam by downloading a plugin to help block bots. You can also add code to your .htaccess file. Editing code is more involved, and if you do it wrong it can cause real problems, so make sure you work with your web developer for this option.

For ghost spam, you need to use a filter (or segment) in Analytics to block hosts that aren’t yours. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest we’ve found is to go into the Admin section in your Analytics account and click on Segments under Personal Tools & Assets. Click on New Segment, then click on Conditions.

Create a name for your segment at the top (like My Hosts). Under Conditions, choose Hostname under Behaviour and use the drop-down menu to select “matches regex”. Put your cursor in the box on the right. You should see your domain name (like www.breathemarketing.com.au) show up as the first option. You’ll also see options with strange letter mixes – these are what we want to block, so leave them alone and click the blue Save box up at the top. Now you can choose this segment when viewing your reports to show more accurate visitor information.

Note: This filter doesn’t actually stop the bots from “hitting” your site, but it helps give you a more accurate report. A few bots may still sneak through, but you can usually do a quick removal of them once you look at your referral traffic.

Can’t I just ignore all this stuff?

You can, but you won’t be getting accurate metrics about your true visitors and customers, which means you won’t have the tools necessary to make informed marketing decisions.

Need some help blocking spam or your setting up filters for your Google Analytics reports? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

Have you been working on improving your website for mobile users? Fantastic. Now, what about improving your user experience across all devices and platforms?

Today’s consumers are on the go, they do their homework online (probably on multiple devices) and with the help of technology, they’re pushing marketing in new directions. With that in mind, let’s take a look at omni-channel marketing and the message you’re sending your customers.
What is omni-channel marketing?

Omni-channel marketing has to do with the change that’s taking place as consumers connect with your brand across an increasingly wide range of devices and marketing channels.

For instance, customers can visit your website, see your posts on Facebook, view an email on their tablet, call you to ask questions and then stop by your store. In all of these instances – and all devices – your marketing message and brand should be consistent.

If you have an e-commerce site, you want your customers to be able to see and order your products easily from any device. And if someone creates an account, places an item in their shopping cart from their phone and then leaves your site, you’ll want them to be able to jump back in later – even from a different device – and complete their transaction. (Ideally, you’d even send them an email reminder after 24 hours if they still have items waiting in their cart.)

The ultimate goal is to make visiting and purchasing from your company as easy and pleasurable as possible. The easier you make it to buy, the more likely customers are to make a purchase and come back in the future to do it again.

Tips for improving your omni-channel marketing

• Reach out in a variety of different ways – Customers will take different paths on their “journey” to buy your products and services. They may start by visiting your website from a phone, take a more in-depth look from a desktop computer, and then come by your store to take advantage of a discount you send them through email.  Think of all the different ways your customers can see what you offer and find ways to connect them.
• Track your results – Watch your Google Analytics (or other analytics) carefully and see how people are using your website, especially by device. Are they purchasing from their phone/tablet/desktop most of the time? Are they visiting your site by phone, getting a coupon and coming into your store? Are coupons sent via email campaigns more successful than those on your Facebook page? It’s critical to track what’s working and what’s not and make changes accordingly.
• Do an overall analysis – How does your site look and work from a phone and a tablet? Is it easy to see and buy the products? Have you mentioned your sale offers to your most loyal customers (i.e., the ones who like you on Facebook and are on your email list)? Do you offer live chat services, or is your phone number front and centre so customers can call if they have questions?Have someone – preferably a marketing professional, but definitely someone outside your organisation – walk through your site with you on multiple devices and various browsers, and take a look at how these compare with all your marketing messages and campaigns.  If there are questions or improvements to be made, this is a good place to get started.

Need help creating a consistent message?

Struggling to get a grasp on omni-channel marketing? Need to send a consistent message across different channels? We can help. Contact Breathe Marketing today to discuss your options.

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at some recent changes to this tool that have made it even easier to track your web traffic and improve your site’s performance.

After a quick review of the highlights, we’ll discuss making the switch from Classic to Universal Analytics.

Universal Analytics: What’s New

For almost a full year, Google was beta testing some new features in Analytics. As of early April, the full version – known as Universal Analytics – became the operating standard. In essence, the features change the way data is collected and organised in order to do a better job of tracking how people are getting to and using your site, especially when using mobile devices.

At this point, Universal Analytics is an option; it’s not required. You can still use Classic Analytics if you prefer for now, but at some point, you’ll have to make the switch. Moving forward, product updates and new features will only be available to Universal Analytics properties, and Google will ultimately ‘auto-enroll’ you in the new Analytics.

So why make the change now? There are a number of features and upgrades that definitely make the upgrade worth considering (especially since, as always, it’s free).  Here’s a breakdown of some of the biggest updates:

Customise it

Want to create and define your own metrics for reports? Now you can. With custom dimensions and custom metrics, you can collect, segment and review data that wouldn’t otherwise get analysed, such as specific product details, different authors who write content for you, etc.

In the (Time) Zone

Until Universal came out, all Analytics properties were processed in the US Pacific Standard Time Zone, because that’s where Google is based. For those of us in Australia, that wasn’t very helpful. With the new rollout, you define where you are and get time zone-based processing, which is a big deal for our side of the planet.

User ID

The new User ID feature allows you to ‘group’ multiple visits by a visitor (and associated activity) with a unique ID. For instance, if an individual customer logs in and visits your site from a laptop, then from a smartphone and finally with a tablet, you can measure that activity and tie it to one single visitor, rather than as separate unique visitors. (Note: The person remains anonymous – only the behaviour gets tracked.)

With the User ID, you can get a more accurate user count, analyse user experience, and get reports across different devices. This is one of the biggest changes in Universal Analytics, and offers a whole new way of determining how and where your customers are using your site.

Ready to make the switch?

If you’re currently running Classic and want to upgrade to Universal, there are a few things you’ll need to do. Remember that snippet of code you used to set up Analytics in the first place? You or your developer will need to update this with new tracking code.

Google has established a Universal Analytics Upgrade Center to help you understand and make the changes – it’s definitely the best place to get started.

Have more questions about Google Analytics and how to use it? Contact us.

Your website can be your most powerful sales and marketing tool if you understand what’s working and what’s not. But how do you get this information? The good news is, there are many tools available to help you analyse your website performance, and many of them are free. One of the most important free tools available is Google Analytics.

What is Google Analytics and what does it do?

Google Analytics is a service (provided by Google, of course) that generates detailed information about your website traffic. With Analytics, you can get all kinds of data about how many visitors you’re getting, where they come from, how long they stay, how many pages they visit and which pages they’re most likely to view when they get there.

Not only that, but you can see your website performance over time and get a sense of your visitors’ behaviour.  Are you getting more or fewer visitors than you used to? Are some pages much more popular than others? Are visitors spending less time on certain pages than you want? Once you have this data, you can start looking at ways to improve your overall site performance.

Google also provides information about which browsers and operating systems your visitors are using, as well as whether they’re viewing the site from a desktop/laptop computer or a mobile device. Since more and more visitors are now using mobile devices, this information provides solid clues about whether mobile viewers are able to access and use your site.

How do you get Analytics?

To get Analytics running on your site, there are two basic things you need to do: 1) Use (or open) a Gmail account with Google to sign up for the service, and 2) Get a snippet of html code – which Google will provide for you – installed on the pages of your website. Usually, your marketing consultant or web developer can assist you in getting and installing this code so you can start tracking data.

How to use this information to help you

Having statistics about your site is nice – and these alone may help give you some ideas about what to improve – but Google Analytics can also help you measure campaigns, conversions and sales.

For instance, if you’re sending out an email campaign that’s connected to a designated landing page on your website, Analytics can help you track campaign results by showing you exactly how many visitors came to that page and whether or not they took the action you wanted them to (such as filling out a contact form, taking advantage of a special offer, etc.). You can use this information to determine how successful your efforts are.

You can also set up Goals in Analytics to see how many people are taking a specific action. For example, let’s say you have one primary goal when people come to your site: You want them to sign up for your newsletter so that you capture their email addresses. With Analytics, you can set up a Goal to track how many visitors are doing what you want them to. Once you know this, you can try making adjustments to your content, layout, buttons, etc., to see if performance improves.

Have more questions about Google Analytics and how to use it? Need help setting up goals? Contact us – and stay tuned for more on Google Analytics!

What’s ‘repurposed’ content?

When you repurpose content, you basically take ideas or images from one piece of content and reuse them for other content. For instance, let’s say you have some text that’s been written for a company marketing brochure. With a little editing work, you can probably use some of the same information on your website, in a blog or forum post, as a narration script for a YouTube video, or for a Twitter or Facebook post.

Here are four ideas for repurposing content:

1. If you’ve recently given a presentation at a conference, workshop, industry meeting, etc., see if you can reuse the information in a whitepaper for your website. Keep in mind that if you use highly technical terms in the paper, you may need to simplify some of the language for different audiences.

2. Have some great photos of a new product for your brochure or website? Use them to your advantage in social media by posting images to Facebook or Pinterest. Whenever possible, include some ‘teaser’ text about the product and add a link to a corresponding page on your website so that interested viewers can easily get more information.

3. Review your Google Analytics reports, take a look at what blog posts or pages have been most popular recently, and look at ways to expand on that information. For instance, if you have a blog post that’s been popular with your visitors, see if you can create a short video or do an interview with an industry expert about the same topic.

4. News releases are great sources of content. If you have a formal PR announcement about an event, new employee or industry award, use that information in other ways. Do a quick Facebook post about it with a link to the release, create an informal version of the text for your blog (and add a photo or two), or add a few links to related information or resources for readers who want to learn more.

Have thoughts, questions or other suggestions? Let us know!