Statistics, R, and You: Advice for a New Analyst?
-
Hey SEOMozers!
Two prongs to this question; I'll keep it succinct.
I've been working as an in-house SEO/SEM Analyst for about 5 months now. While I'm generally savvy at telling the story behind the traffic/conversion data, and making forensic recommendations (I worked in SEO prior to this while in college), ideally I'd like to see my reports read less like these piddly Excel charts and percent change statistics. Ideally they'd look more like Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog for the New York Times, or OkCupid's periodic dispatches on OkTrends: visual, statistically-informed, and predictive, the kind of report that under other circumstances might plausibly generate backlinks.
Data analysts swear by R for statistical modeling, but is it useful for our Google Analytics data sets, holes and uncertainty and all? Is the steep learning curve worth the effort? Tutorials I've seen online assume a proficiency in programming or statistics that's beyond me, or they're written to support a textbook exercise. Any recommendations for a book, online course, or general resource with more of a niche focus?
And a general question about stats too, since it's related: what level would you prescribe if I really wanted to kick this up a notch? I studied a humanity in college and while it helps with the numerical storytelling, I wonder if the practical arcana of Bayesian Methods/abstract probability theorems have a place in Web Analytics. Do they? Are there options for us bushy-tailed young analysts to pick this up without resorting to B School?
Thanks in advance!
-
What Steve said.
Especially:
"Slipping in one or two suggestions about direction and budget in the verbal reports can be very beneficial."
I've found verbal briefings every week or two are far more effective than written reports. Sometimes we take a quick dive into the raw data in a "guided tour" type of way. Often that goes away over time. But first you have to establish trust. That means getting some wins user your belt. And it also includes fessing up to failed initiatives.
I see a lot of people get hung up on metrics of questionable significance and obsess over reporting. They never ask a basic question: "Is any there evidence my reports are being read?"
Of course, meetings and calls are far more easily arranged with small business owners than in big, bureaucratic organization that lack a single decision-maker. But I'd move heaven and earth to try to get a monthly 20 minute meeting with someone as high up the food chain as possible. Pretty soon, he'll start inviting others and stuff will really happen.
-
Hi,
I've just replaced an "In House" SEO with a consultancy model. The process related to me from the in-house guy was very bureaucratic as you have said.
From a consultant perspective I need to prove what I do does have a difference to te bottom line and then this builds trust.
Work out what will make a difference to the bottom line and attack that first. In my situation, they'd been running AdWords unsuccessfully for a while so I managed to get a small budget (£100) to prove a point. We ran a campaign for 2 weeks and got a noticeable spike in traffic and business. This has built the trust in my approach and process enormously.
On the reporting side I only report once a month in writing with other ad-hoc verbal reports of how things are going. Slipping in one or two suggestions about direction and budget in the verbal reports can be very beneficial.
Report less - Do more.
When reporting try to focus on the "what you did, what outcome you expected and what you learned" This should then feed back into an SEO Plan and overall strategy. In terms of SEO I've found business leaders like strategy.
Hope that helps
Steve
-
Love a good wacky, "out there" response to keep my intuitions in check!
I get what you're saying. That's happening, but in-house SEO/SEM is a slow and measured process, subject to approvals that go far up the chain of command. I figure if I can at least present my recommendations in a more salient way, they'll be able to defend themselves whether or not I'm in the room.
We also, as with most hotels, deal with affiliate sites. The cost/benefit of involvement there has considerable room for interpretation, and while it isn't exactly my onus to understand it, I'd like to. Basically looking to grow here.
-
Right.... make a change on the site and show how it increased sales.
Show what you have done that has hit the bottom line.
-
Ready for a really wacky, "out there" response?
Stop writing so many reports and start trying to influence decision makers in other ways.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Different statistics in Google Analytics
Hi! A client of mine is having some trouble on his Google Analytics overview. When he checks the yearly report with number of visitors, new visitors, returning, ... he gets statistics that doesn't match mine. Also, he gets a notation from Google that no hits were fired, although the script is still there. On the other hand, I (logged in with another account) am seeing all statistics correctly. FYI: no filters were installed, nor segments, ... Why does the client see different and incorrect statistics? There should be a setting or something I'm overseeing. Hope you guys can help.
Reporting & Analytics | | conversal0 -
How can I distinguish new visitors from existing (customers) in Google Analytics to attain an avg # of new visitor traffic per day/week?
i do marketing for a business software site where we have hundreds of clients and each account has on avg 100 users. I am having a very challenging time to attempting to figure out the real number of unique traffic that our site receives. **(what's creating the issue is that we have thousands of user accounts where our users log-in via our site to access our app/platform). Would love help with this! Christian
Reporting & Analytics | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
The differences between New Users to User
Hi, Someone know the exact differences between the following Google Analytics metrics: "New Users" "User" Hope to get your support. Thanks in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | Kung_fu_Panda0 -
Open internal links in a new tab increase bonus rate?
Hello! This week I used a simple method to reduce my blog Google Analytics bounce rate. My blog all the posts are guides, in order to follow them, user need to download a zip file (same zip file). Otherwise they can't. Therefore I added a separate blog post to download all the necessary files. As a result of that I can reduce my bounce rate from 62-70% to 45-50% level. Now I'm thinking to open that zip file download page in a new tab. If I open my blog zip file download page, in a new tab. It will again increase my bounce rate? I reduced my bounce rate using that zip file download page. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Godad0 -
How to Setup New Domain in Webmaster Tools? Can Anybody HELP?
I, I have a new domain, and a new account is now created in webmatser tools. Is there anythings I should know about using or setting up webmaster tools? For example, the geographic target, I'm in Canada our web site, a local Pilates studio, is a commercial web site to provides informations about our services. Should I select Canada? One thing about this, I have another domain, http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/ and in the setiing, I have select geographic target to: Canada. When using google.ca result are better then when using google.com! I think must Canadian user are using google.com Does this ''Geographic Target'' setting has anythings to do with search results in Goolge.ca versus Google.com? Thank you for your help, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
Do i need a new dedicated server to increase my website speed
Hi, i have been talking to my hosting company about my site. I am having major problems with the speed of the site. My site is www.in2town.co.uk Ever since i had to redesign my site after a major mistake was made by the hosting company, my site has been running slow and i have tried everything to sort this out including moving to a dedicated server. The trouble is nothing is working and now my hosting companny have told me that i need a new dedicated server which will make it faster. My site is in joomla and the hosting company have told me that the dedicated server below will make the site run faster, but shall i trust them or find another hosting company. Intel i3 540 3.06 Ghz HT 4MB S-Cache $219/mo $289/month500GBStorage6GBRAM10TBBandwidthI am using the following to test the speed of my site http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/r0spOGObd/www.in2town.co.uk and http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.in2town.co.uk/kVV1mTDcThe trouble i have is, when you try loading the home page it is slow and when you try moving around the site it is slow.Can anyone please give me some advice.
Reporting & Analytics | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How to export all my keywords from GA new version
Hi I want to know how can i download all my keywords within the kw report of the google analytics new version. It seems to me that the "limit=50000" parameter doesn't work on this new version. If that is true how can i do to export all my keywords let say on CSV format? Thanks a lot
Reporting & Analytics | | FranckNlemba0 -
Should you get a new Google Analytics account if your site has a new domain after a site redesign/new development?
We recently developed a new site for a client and they have opted to move forward with a domain change. Should we create a new Google Analytics account for the new site?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheOceanAgency0