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
-
Moving our Google Analytics Account to a New Account
My company is building a new website with a new web development company. Our old website development company hosted our Google Analytics account on their account (this was done 13+ years ago, probably a good idea then, but we definitely would've done it differently knowing what we know now). I've been researching how we could move our GA property to a new account owned by us, but according to this article: "There are some circumstances in which you cannot move a property:
Reporting & Analytics | | GreatLegalMarketing
-> The source account and the destination account are not in the same Google Marketing Platform organization. Contact an organization admin to make sure both accounts belong to the same organization." In our case, the source account and the destination account do not belong to the same organization. I may just have to accept that we are losing 13+ years of historical data about our website, and if that's the case, oh well. But, if anyone has an idea how we can export/import our GA data to our new analytics account, I would greatly appreciate it.0 -
When my new website went live I saw a huge spike in traffic for 3 weeks but then it halved again. Why would this happen?
My new website went live on 13th April and the organic traffic levels increased by 110%, staying at that level for 3 weeks. Then exactly 3 weeks later the organic traffic halved again, going back to the same level as the old site. Has anyone seen this happen before or worked out why?! Thanks Viki P2R76O9
Reporting & Analytics | | TWB0 -
Referrals - How is it possible I have 5 new users and 100 sessions over a 2 week period?
I have a referral from an email (2), android search(1) and another website(2) but my sessions is 100 over a two week period? I have NO returning visitors (still session data though?) Seems unlikely that just these 5 users have generated 100 sessions!! Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | darrenbooy0 -
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 -
Can't seem to rank for keyword "home care grand rapids" - need some advice
I am trying to rank for "home care grand rapids" and am having a really difficult time. My site: http://healthcareassociates.net has better backlinks, keywords and other seo markers than my competitors but I still can't seem to rank. The keyword and associated keywords (home care grand rapids michigan, home health care grand rapids, etc.) are only 31-33% difficulty and my site/page rank is better than the leading sites. What gives? Todd
Reporting & Analytics | | t1kuslik0 -
Any advice for better results for local search in the UK ?
Hi there, I have tried the tools here, and they are BRILLIANT but maybe to much for me. I just wondered if anyone in the UK had time to give me some advice. A lot of my customers are small businesses (mainly trades, like plumbers, builders etc etc), and I am trying to find best practices for getting them more quality traffic amidst a lot of competition. One customer I am working with currently has 50+ competitiors for his small plumbing business that are within 5 miles of him and have an effective web prescence. In those circumstances (take it as read that I have killed myself creating quality content that I am proud of for this client), does anyone have any killer advice for me that could make my sites more effective ? If anyone does have the time I am more than willing to PM the URL I am working with at the moment. Thanks for your time..
Reporting & Analytics | | nicklemonpromotions0 -
Something strange going on with new client's site...
Please forgive my stupidity if there is something obvious here which I have missed (I keep assuming that must be the case), but any advice on this would be much appreciated. We've just acquired a new client. Despite having a site for plenty of time now they did not previously have analytics with their last company (I know, a crime!). They've been with us for about a month now and we've managed to get them some great rankings already. To be fair, the rankings weren't bad before us either. Anyway. They have multiple position one rankings for well searched terms both locally and nationally. One would assume therefore that a lot of their traffic would come from Google right? Not according to their analytics. In fact, very little of it does... instead, 70% of their average 3,000 visits per month comes from just one referring site. A framed version of their site which is through reachlocal, which itself doesn't rank for any of their terms. I don't get it... The URL of the site is: www.namgrass.co.uk (ignore there being a .com too, that's a portal as they cover other countries). The referring site causing me all this confusion is: http://namgrass.rtrk.co.uk/ (see source code at the bottom for the reachlocal thing). Now I know reach local certainly isn't sending them all that traffic, so why does GA say it is... and what is this reachlocal thing anyway?? I mean, I know what reachlocal is, but what gives here with regards to it? Any ideas, please??
Reporting & Analytics | | SteveOllington0