Category Archives: research

SEO Analytics

Analytics are an important aspect of search engine optimization. You can use analytics in developing a brand new site or you can use it to assess performance of an existing site and figure out what changes need to be made to improve the standing of the site. Some of the analytical data at your disposal, often available using free tools but at least cheaply includes:

  • Web Traffic Statistics – Traffic and keyword analysis. Whether you use a custom, proprietary package or Google Analytics, just remember that they give you great trending information, but they may not be comparable data points because they may use different methodologies, e.g. cookies based tracking vs. IP address look up, to arrive at their reports.
  • Text analysis – this includes keyword extraction from your curent web page to see for which keywords your page does well, and assessing term targeting, ie how well does your site perform against your important keywords
  • Crawl test – ie how does a search engine see your site
  • Indexed pages – are there pages missing that shoudl be indexed by a search engine. Here a sitemap and robot.txt file can alleviate any problems
  • Rank Tracker – software that tells you whether your site ranks anywhere near the first page of search results for specific keywords
  • Back links – get a report on how many sites and who links to your site. Linking strategies can be an important part of achieving high search engine rankings.
  • W3C validation – the World Wide Web Consortium is the standards organization for the web. It offers several free validation tools such as HTML validator designed to help you determine whether your site meets international standards.

Intrinsic connections: SEO and Brand

In my recent SEO seminar I put search engine optimization firmly in the context of branding and building customer relationships. My premise:

  • Web users want: what they want, when they are ready, wherever they are, and in just the way they want it 
  • People don’t want to ‘search’, they want to ‘find’, so SEO must foster user-centred and brand-oriented keyword thinking and writing

Online Channels are about: Dialogue and Conversation

  • They work because of: Relevance and Timeliness
  • They demand: Authenticity

In that sense then, brand matters. Because trust can be won and lost in an instant. And search engines are often the first encounter a web user has with your brand; they might also be the last encounter when web users choose another listing over yours.

I used a simple three step process to explain the importance of SEO from a brand point of view.

  1. Search for company name, or important keyword relating to your company in a search engine (do this with the top 3 search engines and note the differences): What does the listing say? Is the headline and short description search engines use understandable and a meaningful communication about your brand? Does it leave the right impression?
  2. Look at your company’s homepage: Identify where each engine is getting the information it shows from? Typically search engines use title tags – that’s the text that shows up in the browser’s tab – and either words appearing on the site or the description meta tag, if you have one set up.
  3.  Title tags and meta tags: Anyone can, you included, look at the source code of your web site. Most likely its in a menu drop down like “View – Source”. Or look for developer in the page icon drop down. Title and meta tags should be easily found at the top of the page for each of your web pages.

This may well be the first step to making improvements to your web presence that are championed beyond the confines of the web team, or maybe the web and marketing teams.

Because, SEO is a way to ensure your brand is effectively communicated. It is also a way to be found by the right people in the online environment.

The Qualitative-Quantitative Divide

MRIA Ottawa held a fascinating panel discussion on qualitative-quantitative research approaches. The discussion explored combined focus group and survey methodology but touched only lightly on other methods of marketing research.

In my view the following merit consideration:

  • Marketing research is not merely doing focus groups and surveys. It includes the full gamut of research activities that contribute to better decision-making: from literature reviews to know what is already known, to web reviews to find out what others are doing and how, to communications audits and semiotic analysis, to customer data mining/behaviour modelling, to competitive branding assessments.
  • Opinion bias comes from ones own experience. A Survey house invariably discusses the marketing research business based on what they are so very good at. Other practitioners who offer another range of services will have a point of view that is informed by that. As a consultant I am not tied to a call centre or focus group facilities and I do not need to achieve any particular scale to amortize my hardware or infrastructure investments. I am free to build research methodologies to any budget and I can make sure that better information is used to make decisions.
  • Computers count, people measure. I heard this at a recent Third Tuesday meeting and was struck by how much it resonated with the audience. Technology is simply a tool, decisions are made by people supported by tools. As a researcher part of my job is to interpret data points relative to a business decision. That requires me to know enough about my clients’ business – without that I am liable to misinterpret data points and my recommendations may or may not be all that relevant.
  • Budget is important but it’s not everything. I can use research methods that fit nearly any budget and improve the situation. A marketing/communications materials audit may take as little as 1 or 2 days and can result in major transformative decisions that improve effective communications. An intelligent review of web traffic statistics can reveal important insights to improve a web site.
  • There is no qualitative-quantitative divide. What we call research (primary or secondary, qualitative or quantitative, statistically valid and reliable or directional), is not all that important. What is important is to choose the most effective methods possible within time and budget constraints that allow for a better decision.

Making Research Actionable

On November 20, 2008 I will present at this month’s MRIA Ottawa Chapter Speakers Series event. My talk will provide an updated NAC Orchestra case study to further illuminate how we succeeded in aligning research, business strategy and marketing execution to deliver outstanding year 1 results for the NAC Orchestra. I will also offer updated information to address work undertaken during the current year 2 of the 5-year Audience Development Strategy.

For the event details, visit the MRIA Ottawa Chapter site.

Strategic Directions

With 2 successful conferences behind me, I went on vacation to Germany: we had so much fun seeing friends and family.

Coming back, I was fortunate to have several interesting projects brought to me. This attests to the effectiveness of my primary business development activity: deliver great work and invariably more interesting work results (so far, so good).

Over the last 2 months I have been working on projects as varied as branding-related research for the Stem Cell Network, a Nokia for Business marketing project, focus groups testing NAC Orchestra programming under consideration, developing a 5-year plan for NAC Music Education program evaluation and editorial work on defining 10 new thematics for Canadian Geographic’s Canadian Atlas Online Phase 3 (based on the 3 volumes of the Historical Atlas of Canada).

As I am observing politics, the economy and ‘nature at work’ in Canada and the US in particular, I am wondering about the new strategic moves that will be required both in my own and in my clients’ businesses. I know diversity of skills and continually honing my capabilities are important to my success – I already have a minimal environmental footprint in terms of my business. For my clients the answers will run the full gambit of business strategy: from investing in customer experience to attracting and keeping the right talent, from creating new products to becoming more effective and savvy communicators.

Conference Presentations

I am presenting at two national conferences on the National Arts Centre Orchestra work I’ve lead over the last 2 years.

Marketing Research and Intelligence Association National Conference in Winnipeg May 26, 2008 at 1 pm (full conference information)

MarCom for public and not-for-profit sector marketers and communicators
Hope to see you there!
Strategic Moves – Thinking : Business

A marketing and a research perspective

I’ve been thinking about how to tell people about my consulting business in an easy to understand manner. Strategic Moves – Thinking : Business in a way does say it all. It encapsulates both an outcome and its underlying process.

In essence, what I am doing with Strategic Moves is to bring to bear a deeper understanding of my clients’ 360 environment (including their organizations) and help them make decisions that will move them forward. In that applied, practical sense, marketing research isn’t about the research results. It is about the insights, decisions and actions that follow the data and analysis. At best, the actions marketers – and thier agencies – take should be backed by deep insights derived from all manner of research and monitored and evaluated using analytical processes.

My positioning then is to bring both a professional marketing and research perspective to my clients’ business issues. I think of it as a fire-aim-fire brand – take a lot of action and learn from all of it to advance the business or cause.