Ian will be speaking about Website Analytics at Searchfest which will take place on March 10th, 2008 at the Portland Zoo. Purchase your Searchfest 08 tickets now.
1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living?
My background, actually, makes no sense whatsoever. I have a law degree from UCLA (1993), then worked in an engineering firm as a writer and information architect until 1995. In 1995 I started my company under the name The Written Word, Inc. We focused on marketing and technical copywriting for electronic delivery. Once it was clear the whole internet thing wasn’t a fad, we focused on that (1997).
We changed our name in 2000 because everyone asked me if we were making bibles online. (I was thinking Shakespeare)
My company, Portent Interactive, is a full-service internet marketing agency. As the president, I’m the head marketing geek.
2) Why do businesses need to pay attention to web analytics?
Business need to pay attention to web analytics for the same reason you don’t drive down the street with your eyes closed. The internet is the only marketing medium where you can monitor your audience’s reaction and adjust accordingly. No one in their right mind will ignore that.
3) Please give me the top 5 key analytical metrics and explain their importance
a) Unique visitors. This is a basic statistic you always need to know.
b) Time on site. The average amount of time on the site spent by each visitor is a critical measure of visit quality. That’s how you make sure that, while building traffic, you aren’t bringing folks who have no interest in your site.
c) Bounce rate. See #2, above. You need bounce rate by page, so you can see if folks visiting the site are more or less compelled by the page they visit.
d) Keywords. A complete report of every keyword that generates traffic to the site. How else will you know what’s generating traffic and what’s not?
e) Referrers. A complete report of who’s coming to the site, and which site they’re coming from. That lets you get aggregate data.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.