Are you building a Website or a Blog? Think what are you making it for. For a Robot or for Humans.
I know you will say, you are building it for Humans and you don't care for the Robots. But I can give you some strong reasons why you should be caring robots.
Let us take two people building website -- first a Web Analyst and second a Search Engine Optimizer.
Web Analyst picks five points:
1. Site should look attractive; people must enjoy it.
2. Page traversal needs to be easy and friendly
3. Let me put colors blue and red; blue signifying stability and red performance. We are gonna be a company which provides stable solutions with above the market performance.
4. My business model has a ad revenue part; let me put ads on the right hand side where people are likely to click. But will not keep ads from day one; instead start one by one each month after 6 months.
5. Will have to make the site search engine friendly; will define metadata.
Search Engine Optimizer picks the other five:
1. Make w3c standard, and define metadata
2. Create content with as much links as possible
3. Find as many good and similar websites as possible; let me add their link in mine and seek reciprocative favor
4. Add as many keywords as possible in the inside pages; include wrong spelling to the major keywords (let me tap those search queries with typos e.g. laon, loon, loan\ etc for loans)
5. Now let me put adds on the website; and build a good looking website over it.
Great approaches. Do you think, the second one looks so selfish? Well, let me analyze the after effects.
First Site :
Have small number of regular visitors, who are happy with the site. They admire the Website and copy the design for their own site.
Less traffic with little favor from the Search Engine crawlers. Frustration with less earnings and start adding more and more ads with no results.
Second Site :
High traffic but with unhappy visitors. They dont admire the site, but search engines keep on pushing them to this site. Visitors start liking site slowly and when they know the site traffic is huge, they will like more. And even start to write reviews of the site, may be critical!!
Optimism comes with traffic and earnings, and it gives more room for improvement by listening to feedback and market buzz.
Analysis of the Result:
First one has given too much focus on marketing, and to understand others. This can seldom help. Human Nature is not predictive, and mostly what humans like is the success. And they don't like failures however good it be.
Don't agree? Search your inner self and try to answer few questions below:
1. Why did Amitabh Bachan won the hottest Vegetarian Contest? Is he that HOT even now?
2. Why do we worship and admire Gautam Buddha? Is he not the same Siddarth who left his mum and went in search for Peace?
3. Why do you admire Japan and not Somalia? Isn't it the economic reasons behind it? Else who in the World has shown more cruelty than Japanese in World War II!! But still.
The underlying fact is do the best to sell yourself, and don't bother about if anyone like it or not. Just do it and give your best. People will like it at one point or the other, provided you are able to reach them again and again.
Re. robots, be as friendly as you can because they don't change. The thing that can change is either you or the creator of the Robot. Keep track of what the creator thinks, and can do. And change yourself in accordance to how the creater changes his robot.
After all, all we want from a website is its ability to solve our problem. Looks hardly matter. And so does our experience while visiting the site. And in this crowded world, I can hardly remember any sites, all I do is Google. So whatever I like, I will land up to a place where Google The God takes me. Isn't that true for you also?
Showing posts with label Web Analytics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Web Analytics. Show all posts
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Monday, August 6, 2007
Avinash Kaushik: Rewriting the Indian Knowledge Economy
Time magazine has gone farther than the BRIC report by Goldman Sachs in welcoming the coming Indian Economic dominance over the world. It is very well evident from the recent proceedings that US, China and India will map the new world politics in coming days. But Time's article has brought more than predictions, they are calling "Indian Remake" and not "Make". It is interesting to know the facts how South Asia went to become third world from World Dominance and took few hundred years to revive it.
Few interesting quotes from various articles in "Time".
"Today, things are slowly returning to historical norms. Last year the richest man in the U.K. was for the first time an ethnic Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, and Britain's largest steel manufacturer, Corus, has been bought by an Indian company, Tata. Extraordinary as it is, the rise of India and China is nothing more than a return to the ancient equilibrium of world trade, with Europeans no longer appearing as gun-toting, gunboat-riding colonial masters but instead reverting to their traditional role: that of eager consumers of the much celebrated manufactures, luxuries and services of the East."
"Over the past few years the world's biggest and rowdiest democracy has matched its political freedoms with economic ones, unleashing a torrent of growth and wealth creation that is transforming the lives of millions. India's economic clout is beginning to make itself felt on the international stage, as the nation retakes the place it held as a global-trade giant long before colonial powers ever arrived there."
"Twenty years ago the rest of the world saw India as a pauper. Now it is just as famous for its software engineers, Bollywood movie stars, literary giants and steel magnates."
I Congratulate all Indians for their success and wish them best for more.
Not to forget, in our mass of Analyst Bloggers there are few Indians at the top. Avinash Kaushik and Anil Batra are the two Indian Elites with us.
Among then, Avinash is the author of the famous Web Analytics book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day and the owner of the No. 1 Web Analytics Blog, Occam's Razor. He has done same to Web Analytics and Analytics Blogosphere what L. N. Mittal did to the Steel Industry. He is in the way of writing a new Web Analytics paradigm. Any one can become his fan if he spend little time with his writings. They are very explanatory and rational, yet very practical. His book teaches the practical aspect of Web Analytics, which most other books does not do.
(Web Analytics: An Hour a Day with Occam's Razor)
I am particularly fascinated by his style of writing. All his articles are well written, supported by pictures and graphs, and all points well explained. He has very good tone of expression too. More to that he does almost everything for free. Not only the articles at his blogs are free, the earnings from his book is donated to the charity organizations. He just makes a perfect match to become the Google's Man. He is a Strategy Evengelist at Google. Apart from blogging and working for Google, he also give lectures on Web Analytics. So if you are interested in Web Analytics then you can find Avinash speaking somewhere and hear him. It may be one of the best learning experience that you can get in life.
Few of his posts which have impressed me much.
1. This post of his tell how to measure success of your blog or website when you don't do E-commerce. His recommendations are looking at these metrics: visitor loyalty, recency, length and depth of visit.
2. The second comes his post on work life balance. It shows the way to become highly acclaimed professional yet a value being.
3. Passion, love and skill for the subject are the three components that make a successful manager. The third article has the seven skills to look in a Web Analytics Manager.
(Avinash Kaushik)
Avinash is rewriting the Indian Story from a different front. He is leading the way in the knowledge Economy. I have heartiest congratulations for Avinash for reaching this peak.
Hope we get more from Avinash and many more Avinashs from India.
Few interesting quotes from various articles in "Time".
"Today, things are slowly returning to historical norms. Last year the richest man in the U.K. was for the first time an ethnic Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, and Britain's largest steel manufacturer, Corus, has been bought by an Indian company, Tata. Extraordinary as it is, the rise of India and China is nothing more than a return to the ancient equilibrium of world trade, with Europeans no longer appearing as gun-toting, gunboat-riding colonial masters but instead reverting to their traditional role: that of eager consumers of the much celebrated manufactures, luxuries and services of the East."
"Over the past few years the world's biggest and rowdiest democracy has matched its political freedoms with economic ones, unleashing a torrent of growth and wealth creation that is transforming the lives of millions. India's economic clout is beginning to make itself felt on the international stage, as the nation retakes the place it held as a global-trade giant long before colonial powers ever arrived there."
"Twenty years ago the rest of the world saw India as a pauper. Now it is just as famous for its software engineers, Bollywood movie stars, literary giants and steel magnates."
I Congratulate all Indians for their success and wish them best for more.
Not to forget, in our mass of Analyst Bloggers there are few Indians at the top. Avinash Kaushik and Anil Batra are the two Indian Elites with us.
Among then, Avinash is the author of the famous Web Analytics book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day and the owner of the No. 1 Web Analytics Blog, Occam's Razor. He has done same to Web Analytics and Analytics Blogosphere what L. N. Mittal did to the Steel Industry. He is in the way of writing a new Web Analytics paradigm. Any one can become his fan if he spend little time with his writings. They are very explanatory and rational, yet very practical. His book teaches the practical aspect of Web Analytics, which most other books does not do.
(Web Analytics: An Hour a Day with Occam's Razor)
I am particularly fascinated by his style of writing. All his articles are well written, supported by pictures and graphs, and all points well explained. He has very good tone of expression too. More to that he does almost everything for free. Not only the articles at his blogs are free, the earnings from his book is donated to the charity organizations. He just makes a perfect match to become the Google's Man. He is a Strategy Evengelist at Google. Apart from blogging and working for Google, he also give lectures on Web Analytics. So if you are interested in Web Analytics then you can find Avinash speaking somewhere and hear him. It may be one of the best learning experience that you can get in life.
Few of his posts which have impressed me much.
1. This post of his tell how to measure success of your blog or website when you don't do E-commerce. His recommendations are looking at these metrics: visitor loyalty, recency, length and depth of visit.
2. The second comes his post on work life balance. It shows the way to become highly acclaimed professional yet a value being.
3. Passion, love and skill for the subject are the three components that make a successful manager. The third article has the seven skills to look in a Web Analytics Manager.
(Avinash Kaushik)
Avinash is rewriting the Indian Story from a different front. He is leading the way in the knowledge Economy. I have heartiest congratulations for Avinash for reaching this peak.
Hope we get more from Avinash and many more Avinashs from India.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Behavioral Targeting -- follow up from Avinash
Avinash Kaushik has started an interesting discussion on Behavioral Targeting. Most of the time investing in Behavioral Targeting software and going forward with aggressive Behavioral Marketing needs a lot of skill set and indepth understanding of its use.
Premature use of BT Software may lead to various problems as a consequence of poor or no data, and no proper plan or skill to use the results.
The action based on the BT results can be the change in marketing source change (mode of advertising) or actualy change in website (content change, content location change etc). Each is a outcome of focussing something and discarding something. These strategic move may come by the dominance of customer segment by volume or quality.
You need to be aware for not doing one of these mistakes.
1. Loss of important but unprofitable segment: The segment that is found to be unprofitable (in direct calculation) may be profitable indirectly. They may be strong in spreading the news or good views about the company or product etc. They may even be a segment whom the other mass follow. Like for my own blog, major source of traffic is due to the inclusion of web analytics discussions while I am not a web analyst (but I learned it later from blogger friends and their books). There is huge chance that if I remove web analytics topics, I will lose much traffic. And this is not because that majority of the readers come for web analytics topics in my blog but the source from where they come are web analyst friends blogs referal links. (I could find this in the Google Analytics report.) In this scenerio, BT study may suggest something where the business benefit lies somewhere else, and the problem is not with the BT software but with the user (weaknesses listed above).
2. Over-reacting to profitable segment: This is as worse as above. If I like pink rose, it not necessarily mean I like a pink car. To find out accurately what customers want and what not, proper data is not enough but sufficient data is. This justifies Avinash's point 1.
3. Portfolio Moves ok, but how about market move: I am not sure how sophisticated are today's BT tools, but I expect them to fairly show the portfolio movement and give good segmentation picture. Testing of software and the method of using the BT software outcome can be done as Avinash has pointed out in his point 2. But the question lies, is that enough?
My take is, it is not. Both the methodology and the software need regular testing and upgrades. Market is moving faster than ever before, the technology changes, the macro-economic fundamentals change, and new products and process evolve almost everyday. This asks for us to be more prone to change than ever. We need a more advanced system in the likes of Enterprise Decision Management (the link follows James Taylor's blog where he writes on EDM), but I am not sure whether EDM is available for website management. If its not available, I am sure it will come sooner than later. In the absence of such system, we will need very skilled people and frequent testing infrastructure. Atleast once a month testing of software and the methodology is required (which I found practical and relevant while working for sub-prime loan market earlier). This is more important if the software vendor is not very proactive. I beg to differ with Avinash here.
This is all I have to say. And now its your turn to say. Please share your views in comments.
Premature use of BT Software may lead to various problems as a consequence of poor or no data, and no proper plan or skill to use the results.
The action based on the BT results can be the change in marketing source change (mode of advertising) or actualy change in website (content change, content location change etc). Each is a outcome of focussing something and discarding something. These strategic move may come by the dominance of customer segment by volume or quality.
You need to be aware for not doing one of these mistakes.
1. Loss of important but unprofitable segment: The segment that is found to be unprofitable (in direct calculation) may be profitable indirectly. They may be strong in spreading the news or good views about the company or product etc. They may even be a segment whom the other mass follow. Like for my own blog, major source of traffic is due to the inclusion of web analytics discussions while I am not a web analyst (but I learned it later from blogger friends and their books). There is huge chance that if I remove web analytics topics, I will lose much traffic. And this is not because that majority of the readers come for web analytics topics in my blog but the source from where they come are web analyst friends blogs referal links. (I could find this in the Google Analytics report.) In this scenerio, BT study may suggest something where the business benefit lies somewhere else, and the problem is not with the BT software but with the user (weaknesses listed above).
2. Over-reacting to profitable segment: This is as worse as above. If I like pink rose, it not necessarily mean I like a pink car. To find out accurately what customers want and what not, proper data is not enough but sufficient data is. This justifies Avinash's point 1.
3. Portfolio Moves ok, but how about market move: I am not sure how sophisticated are today's BT tools, but I expect them to fairly show the portfolio movement and give good segmentation picture. Testing of software and the method of using the BT software outcome can be done as Avinash has pointed out in his point 2. But the question lies, is that enough?
My take is, it is not. Both the methodology and the software need regular testing and upgrades. Market is moving faster than ever before, the technology changes, the macro-economic fundamentals change, and new products and process evolve almost everyday. This asks for us to be more prone to change than ever. We need a more advanced system in the likes of Enterprise Decision Management (the link follows James Taylor's blog where he writes on EDM), but I am not sure whether EDM is available for website management. If its not available, I am sure it will come sooner than later. In the absence of such system, we will need very skilled people and frequent testing infrastructure. Atleast once a month testing of software and the methodology is required (which I found practical and relevant while working for sub-prime loan market earlier). This is more important if the software vendor is not very proactive. I beg to differ with Avinash here.
This is all I have to say. And now its your turn to say. Please share your views in comments.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Google Analytics User Review
Google is so kind to offer Google Analytics for free. I have been using it for few months now and I have much praise for it. But that does not mean, it is out of any short comings.
Let me first list out what I like in Google Analytics.
1. User Friendliness
Google Analytics is one of the best site/software to use. I found it very easy to browse in and out of the site.
There are many logical insights that GA gives and many people have earlier discussed about it, so I chose to tell what additional GA has added to the Web Analytics World. So are the features mentioned above.
These features may be neglected by many while chosing the tool but it is prime important to get these features. I would say almost equally to the presence of metric. Understanding a metric is a one time work, while using it is recurring. With ease in using, some time is saved each time the tool is used, and thus increase in work efficiency is obvious.
Also, with better look and feel, the chances of error decreases.
Well, I will stop good words here. There are something that GA lacks. Let me list them too.
1. Cross Attribute Significance
I sometime feel, GA is more like a presentation software than Analytics. It digs into all the major attributes that define a visitor but cross attribute significance check is lacking.
What if I want to know the behaviour of people in US using Internet Explorer? This is not answered by GA. (If it does, please tell me)
2. Actionable Segmentation
It would have been very nice, had GA provided the actionable segments. The segments well characterized by relevance factors like high conversion or frequency of revisit etc. and well described by natural parameters will be the best.
In the absence of such profiled business motivated natural segments, the natural segments of visitors or the major objective segments will be good addition in the present form.
3. Predictive Analytics
GA is all about data mining and presentation. The predictive part is not yet added.
Here ends my evaluation. Please correct me where wrong. And also, please add your evaluation through comments.
Let me first list out what I like in Google Analytics.
1. User Friendliness
Google Analytics is one of the best site/software to use. I found it very easy to browse in and out of the site.
To know any of the information given, only thing that is required is to click in the word. The link will take to the desired page.
2. Excellent graphics
This picture is self explanatory.
3. Concise and Complete
This table made me feel how complete the information is. It is simply awesome.
4. Excellent use of Graphic Tools
The use of line diagrams, maps, pie chart, bar diagram is simply awesome. I can think no better.
5. Well Detailed
Right from continent, the user source can be traced till the individual city. I was excited (dont know whether you will also).
There are many logical insights that GA gives and many people have earlier discussed about it, so I chose to tell what additional GA has added to the Web Analytics World. So are the features mentioned above.
These features may be neglected by many while chosing the tool but it is prime important to get these features. I would say almost equally to the presence of metric. Understanding a metric is a one time work, while using it is recurring. With ease in using, some time is saved each time the tool is used, and thus increase in work efficiency is obvious.
Also, with better look and feel, the chances of error decreases.
Well, I will stop good words here. There are something that GA lacks. Let me list them too.
1. Cross Attribute Significance
I sometime feel, GA is more like a presentation software than Analytics. It digs into all the major attributes that define a visitor but cross attribute significance check is lacking.
What if I want to know the behaviour of people in US using Internet Explorer? This is not answered by GA. (If it does, please tell me)
2. Actionable Segmentation
It would have been very nice, had GA provided the actionable segments. The segments well characterized by relevance factors like high conversion or frequency of revisit etc. and well described by natural parameters will be the best.
In the absence of such profiled business motivated natural segments, the natural segments of visitors or the major objective segments will be good addition in the present form.
3. Predictive Analytics
GA is all about data mining and presentation. The predictive part is not yet added.
Here ends my evaluation. Please correct me where wrong. And also, please add your evaluation through comments.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Fair Isaac enters Web Analytics space
First the machine for optimizing the Search Engine Marketing and then the research on click fraud, these two events makes the entry of Fair Isaac into the Web Analytics space. Time will tell how Fair Isaac uses its knowledge outside Web Space to the world of Web. It may or may not be successful financially but one thing is sure, Fair Issac entry will bring a major change in the Web Analytics world.
Fair Isaac said it has tested the SEO machine for marketing its website myfico.com and has attained considerable success. And FI expects good return from the market with this product. Few people say, it may happen that the major search engine providers change their algorithm and this machine go obsolete anytime. But regular updates from FI can be expected, after knowing its good track record of maintaining the services in the likes of leading credit score in the United States, the FICO Score (FICO Score is used by many banks to control their credit risk for more than two decades). It will be interesting to see how much business FI makes out of it when it releases SEO Machine to the market.
Second take up is the bigger one. When FI's limited research has shown the click fraud rate to be alarmingly high (as high as 10-15%, Google and Yahoo says it is less than 1%), a huge success may be in waiting for FI. Fair Isaac has many years of experience in controlling fraud in many industries like Financial, Telecoms and Insurance, and owns the best fraud fighter FALCON (fraud detection software for Credit Cards). People at Google and Yahoo (or their fans or partners) has defended FI's claim saying FI knows fraud but not click fraud, while it could be otherwise too, Google and Yahoo know click but may not know fraud. I don't undermine this possibility too. I will just be eagerly waiting for FI to bring its complete research paper, till then just wait and watch. (News Update and Googles response)
The entry of FI into Web world may not limit to these researches. It has the analytic capability to come up with full fledge Web Analytics Enterprise solution or its like and I would not be surprised if something of this kind happens in future. As a web savvy and a analyst, I welcome the World's first Analytics Company and leader of Decision Management Industry to the Web Analytics World. May it brings a considerable change, and all the change happen for good.
Fair Isaac said it has tested the SEO machine for marketing its website myfico.com and has attained considerable success. And FI expects good return from the market with this product. Few people say, it may happen that the major search engine providers change their algorithm and this machine go obsolete anytime. But regular updates from FI can be expected, after knowing its good track record of maintaining the services in the likes of leading credit score in the United States, the FICO Score (FICO Score is used by many banks to control their credit risk for more than two decades). It will be interesting to see how much business FI makes out of it when it releases SEO Machine to the market.
Second take up is the bigger one. When FI's limited research has shown the click fraud rate to be alarmingly high (as high as 10-15%, Google and Yahoo says it is less than 1%), a huge success may be in waiting for FI. Fair Isaac has many years of experience in controlling fraud in many industries like Financial, Telecoms and Insurance, and owns the best fraud fighter FALCON (fraud detection software for Credit Cards). People at Google and Yahoo (or their fans or partners) has defended FI's claim saying FI knows fraud but not click fraud, while it could be otherwise too, Google and Yahoo know click but may not know fraud. I don't undermine this possibility too. I will just be eagerly waiting for FI to bring its complete research paper, till then just wait and watch. (News Update and Googles response)
The entry of FI into Web world may not limit to these researches. It has the analytic capability to come up with full fledge Web Analytics Enterprise solution or its like and I would not be surprised if something of this kind happens in future. As a web savvy and a analyst, I welcome the World's first Analytics Company and leader of Decision Management Industry to the Web Analytics World. May it brings a considerable change, and all the change happen for good.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Web Analytics: An Hour A Day
Web Analytics Guru Avinash Kaushik has come up with a book "Web Analytics: An Hour A Day". I am yet to get the book, so I cant comment on the book right now. But I am eagerly waiting for the shipment to reach me. I promise to give the feedback as soon as I get it and dig it. Till then you may choose to find it yourself.
I strongly recommend any book from this author for anyone who have slightest interest in analytics. Happy Reading.
Buy the book at Amazon.
I strongly recommend any book from this author for anyone who have slightest interest in analytics. Happy Reading.
Buy the book at Amazon.
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