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
-
More 'New users' than 'Users' in Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, I'm seeing more 'New users' than 'Users' in Google Analytics (see screenshot). This is over a 3 year time period. Any idea why new users would be greater than users? Thanks! 6lYmU0j
Reporting & Analytics | | RWesley0 -
Moving an entire section of a website to a new URL
Hello there,
Reporting & Analytics | | CraigFairgrieve
I currently have a website that offers services to both domestic and business clients. Currently these are hosted on a single URL, then split out .com/business and .com/domestic We're going to be moving the .com/business structure and content to an entirely new URL which will be dedicated to only the business part of the business. This will also mean a change in the branding of the existing content as the new URL will come under the name of the parent company. My question is two fold: (1) What's the best way to go about this? (2) What would be the estimated effect on the traffic? Many thanks for your help in advance.0 -
Hey guys, any advice on why my 'search analytics' in Google Webmaster tools is blank with no data?
I have added all the website versions into Google web master tools and I have no crawl errors. When I click on Search traffic these pages are blank - search analytics, & Mobile usability. And When I fetch as Google the status is constantly saying me 'temporarily unreachable' - any help would be greatly appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | HLAS0 -
New website server code errors
I launched a new website at www.cheaptubes.com and have recovered my search engine rankings as well after penguin & panda devestation. I'm continuing to improve the site but moz analytics is saying I have 288 medium issues and i see the warning "45% of site pages served 302 redirects during the last crawl". I'm not sure how to fix this. I'm on WP using Yoast SEO so all the 301's I did are 301's not 302's. I do have SSL, could it be Http vs Https?
Reporting & Analytics | | cheaptubes0 -
Migrated website but Google Analytics still displays old URL's and none new?!
I migrated a website from a .aspx to a .php and hence had to 301 all the old urls to the new php ones. It's been months after and I'm not seeing any of the php pages showing results but I'm still getting results from the old .aspx pages. Has any one had any experience with this issue or knows what to do? Many thanks,
Reporting & Analytics | | CoGri0 -
Is it possible to import data from an old Google Analytics profile to a new Google Analytics profile?
We have encountered a situation where a client's old SEO firm is refusing to grant us Admin access to our client's existing GA account. For security purposes (so the other SEO firm doesn't delete the existing GA profile) we have started a new Google Analytics profile. Again we do have access to the data in the old account. Is it possible to migrate this old data over (if we just have user access)? Thanks for the help
Reporting & Analytics | | RosemaryB0 -
What will be configuration for new version of tag manager for given below code?
Hello Expert, I am using new version of tag manager for enhance ecommerce. Now i have post related to enhance ecommerce for old version of tag manager this one - https://developers.google.com/tag-manager/enhanced-ecommerce In this post, below is the configuration of "Measuring Views of Product Details" for old version of tag manager, can you please tell me what will be configuration for new version of tag manager? ( mainly basic setting and firing rule ) Tag type : Universal Analytics
Reporting & Analytics | | bkmitesh
Track type : Pageview
Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Features: true
Use Data Layer: true
Basic Settings - Document Path: {{url path}}
Firing Rule: {{event}} equals gtm.js Thanks! BK Mitesh0 -
GATC New code structure?
Hi Guys, One of my clients has this code showing up, and it is receiving data! Is this normal? First time I ever see such a code! Thanks for clarifying!
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0