Over a year ago at the Annual American Association for the advancement of Science, Google co-founder Larry Page stated, “The ultimate search engine engine will understand everything in the world.”Google will carry out this plan using computer science algorithms and their vast database of human knowledge.  As reported in the Edge.org, a Google employee let it slip that, ”We are not scanning all those books to be read by people. We are scanning them to be read by an AI (artificial intelligence).”The ultimate goal of search is to recognize human speech and formulate an intelligent answer. Instead of typing in a search, perhaps you will talk into your mobile phone to get directions or information from the Google AI.  Science fiction will soon be science non-fiction and you can check out the real-life video here from Google Tech Talk.

The speech was given by Ben Goertzel – Director of Research at The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence and head of Novamente. Novamente receives financial support from Google. Ben Goertzel will be speaking along with Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, November 15-16, 2008 at Convergence08. Heady stuff.

New Google Analytics Tracking Code SLI Setup:

1.    Starting from the “Analytics Settings” page, click “Edit” under settings, then click “Edit” again under the main Website Profile Information section. This will present the following options.

2.    Select “Do Track Site Search”

3.    Complete a Site Search on your website and view the resulting URL and find the keyword phrase you used as a test.  Identify the query parameter that immediately precedes your test query and insert it into the Query Parameter box as seen in the setup below.  Be sure to replace with your parameters versus what is in the example below.

4.    If you have categories, follow the same test and place your Category Parameter in the box below as well.

Google Analytics Tracking Code for Results Hosted on SubDomain:

** Must be placed on every page on both the main domain and the search results sets.

<script type=”text/JavaScript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-789266-1″);
pageTracker._setDomainName(“replacewithyourdomain.com”);
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Google Analtyics Tracking Code for Third Party Tracking:

Complete the steps listed above and follow the instructions listed below.

The following code must be placed on all pages on both websites.

<script type=”text/JavaScript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-642481-1″);
pageTracker._setDomainName(“replacewithyourdomain.com”)
pageTracker._setAllowLinker(true);
pageTracker._setAllowHash(false);
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

The action in the form must also contain an onsubmit event using the following code:

“pageTracker._linkByPost(this)”

** Every link on either site that allows visitors to cross each domain including all search results must also contain the following code in the onclick event:

pageTracker._link(‘http://www.websiteaddress.com’); return false;

Ecommerce Setup and Tracking:

Access the “Edit Profile Information” configuration through the same steps as setting the Site Search.

Select “Yes, an E-commerce Site”

Select your currency and related settings.

You will need to embed the following GA Ecommerce Tracking code into your website’s ecommerce Confirmation Page.  This code will need to be integrated with your existing ecommerce platform and will have to dynamically extract the information either from the database or from variables that can be carried over from the shopping cart.

** This step will require programming knowledge and custom programming in order to extract the correct variables and build an array for instances where there may be multiple products.  The array will then dynamically add all the products and build the correct coding to deliver the information to Google Analtyics. If this step is not completed correctly, your ecommerce will not function.  You can not copy and paste the code below and have it function for your system.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
pageTracker._addTrans(
“order-id”, // required
“affiliate or store name”,
“total”,
“tax”,
“shipping”,
“city”,
“state”,
“country”
);

pageTracker._addItem(
“order-id”, // required
“SKU”,
“product name”,
“product category”,
“unit price”,  // required
“quantity”  //required
);

pageTracker._trackTrans();
</script>

Example of Reports Available Once Setup is completed:

The reports above are only a few examples of the available reports.  You have the option to dig down on any of these and investigate peculiar or interesting information in much further detail.  I hope this has been helpful and if you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Brad

If you operate an online retail store also known as an ecommerce website, you know the value of information about your customers.   The more you know about their motivations for actions on your site, the more likely you are to create a better user experience.  What’s so important about that you say?  Well the better the experience a visitor has on your site, the more likely they are to convert to a customer.

When taking into consideration that your 1.5% conversion rate actually equals 100% of your online revenue, increasing your conversion rate to 1.75% actually means a 25% increase in your bottom line.  Conversion rates are extremely important and being able to identify certain groups that are more likely to convert on your site is a great way to accomplish that incremental increase.

Below are just a couple of examples of different ways you can group visitors based on types of phrases people may have searched for.  There are several other ways including content they accessed, actions they took, or

For the first example, the website sportsnutshop.com which is an online sports merchandise and apparel merchant was able to use website analytics to divide their visitors into groups based on what they may have searched for.   My goal was to see if I could identify phrases that may convert at a much higher rate so I could increase advertising for those phrases while reducing advertising for phrases that perform below a set standard.   Let’s take a look at some of the results of this exercise.

The following graph shows the site’s conversation rate for all organic keywords which is about 1.2%.

If we segment these phrases we can observe that some groups are much likelier to purchase.

If we segment these phrases we can observe that some groups are much likelier to purchase.

We can see that people that are shopping for gifts are about 134% more likely to purchase.  Ah Ha!  Now we have some good information that we can take action on.    You could start with keyword research/discovery, position testing, write more focused and optimized tags and content for these phrases, and the list goes on.  The amazing part is that this is just one example of how you can use ecommerce website analytics to increase your revenue.

Now if we dig a little deeper, we might find something else.   Let’s segment by visitors that were searching for “apparel”.

Now we can see that those visitors searching for apparel had a much lower conversion rate.  Why is this?  There are several possible reasons including the inventory selection might not be comprehensive enough, maybe the prices are too high, maybe the visitor is landing on a page that isn’t focused to “apparel”.   As an analyst we are now able identify what’s happening and now need to search for why it’s happening.    To do this, we can investigate the time on page, % of new visits, bounce rates, and other site usage data to help answer the golden question of “Why?”

The point here is that website analytics can make a large impact on your bottom. Knowing how to use these tools or hiring an expert to help you discover your site’s potential is even better.  Google Analytics provides a comprehensive analytics package that allows you to a lot of creative segmenting and this article really only begins to scratch the surface.  If you have additional questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.  Thanks!

“Building a web site requires teamwork. Although I’m your facilitator in building your web site, the web site is an extension of your company, it still needs your work to be successful. I may be your biggest fan, but you definitely know your company better than I do.”

This may come as a surprise to some in the audience, but I’ve said that on occasion to clients in the past. When it comes to web sites, it really does require teamwork from all sides to make it successful.

I hear common questions from clients about what is required to make a successful site. Time and time again though, I have to stress that there are certain processes to web development that are done by certain people and these separations are usually, unfortunately, not common knowledge. So allow me to spoil some important secrets and provide a good foundation for those of you who are interested in creating a new company web site or looking to redesign your company’s web site.

“What does research tell us is the #1 ‘make or break’ thing we need for our web site?”
Good content. Studies time and time again show that content is more important than navigation, visual design, functionality and interactivity. ¹ To put it into perspective, content is what drives people to your site in the first place whether on purpose or by accident. Content is what people will tell other people about your company’s web site. When I advise someone to buy a book off of Amazon.com, I just told someone about the content. When I share a link with someone to read an article at BBC World News, I just advertised about the content. When I search a search engine to find an answer to my question, I’m in desperate need to find content about my question.

Beacon can provide the most exceptional, functional, useful, marketable, and pleasant web site for you, but if people don’t have a reason to use it, they simply won’t be using it. Beacon can advise you to add certain pages in your site like a “Site Map”, “Privacy Policy”, or “About Us” page, but you know your company a lot better than we do. If your company is all about selling different types of brick, only you will know if it’s important to have content on that web site explaining the different types of brick you offer and what your customers expect to see. Would they like to see photos of the different bricks? We don’t know, and we’ll suggest these things to you, but you have a much better perspective on it than we do. Just remember that your customer/audience is your #1 knowledge bank and the answers to their questions are usually necessary content material for your web site.

“What are some things we can do to improve our content?”
General tips on improving your content:

1. You may be better off hiring at least one writer to write your content. There are actually businesses devoted to writing content for the Internet you could look into.
2. Build credibility within your content by providing articles with references, show author’s/company’s credentials, make sure it’s up-to-date, and provide links to outside resources. ²
3. Provide the content based on whether it will be read on screen or printed. Generally, if you want people to read it on the monitor, and therefore quickly, keep it concise. ³
4. Avoid jargon, use familiar words, use abbreviations sparingly, use an active versus a passive voice, and make first sentences descriptive within paragraphs. ⁴
5. If all else fails, you may need to reinterpret the feedback you are getting from your customers. “Customers can’t tell you how to fix a problem; they can only tell you that the problem exists.” You may have to rethink what they’re trying to tell you. ⁵

“We loved reviewing the analysis documents with you; we never thought about this aspect before. Was there anything we could have done to foreshadow this?”
There are many ways to help the success of your site and ease the analysis process. Here are some things you should consider before starting work on the site:

1. Annette Fowler, here at Beacon, wrote an article in the past that covers some basic questions, check it out.
2. Think about your company’s web site as a medium to become an advertisement, a brochure, a customer service representative, a call center, a store, a face and a reference to your company. It can be all the things that make up your company. If you think about the web site as a separate entity from your company, then it will never be successful, it won’t work for your company. Make sure to plan your web site into your company’s business, marketing and long-term strategies before looking to create it. ⁵
3. “It’s a good idea to communicate these things to, and develop consensus from, management and those working as representatives during the development process later.” ⁶

The most important thing to remember is teamwork - when everyone involved does their best, the site will always be successful! What questions did you have regarding things you could do to improve the success of your site?

1 Asher, 1980; Badre, 2002; Baldwin, Peleg-Bruckner and McClintock, 1985; Celsi and Olson, 1988; Levine, 1996; Nielsen and Tahir, 2002; Nielsen, 1997b; Nielsen, 2000; Rajani and Rosenberg, 1999; Sano, 1996; Sinha, et al., 2001; Spyridakis, 2000; Stevens, 1980;
2 Fogg, 2002; Fogg, et al., 2001; Lightner, 2003; Nielsen, 2003.
3 Shaikh and Chaparro, 2004.
4 Cockburn and Jones, 1996; Evans, 1998; Horton, 1990; Mayhew, 1992; Morkes and Nielsen, 1997; Morkes and Nielsen, 1998; Nall, Koyani and Lafond, 2001; Schramm, 1973; Spyridakis, 2000; Tullis, 2001; Zimmerman and Prickett, 2000; Zimmerman, et al., 2002; Furnas, et al., 1987; Kucera and Francis, 1967; Leech, Rayson and Wilson, 2001; Spyridakis, 2000; Whissell, 1998; Ahlstrom and Longo, 2001; Evans, 1998; Morrell, et al., 2002; Nall, Koyani and Lafond, 2001; Nielsen and Tahir, 2002; Tullis, 2001; Flower, Hayes and Swarts, 1983; Horton, 1990; Palermo and Bourne, 1978; Palmquist and Zimmerman, 1999; Redish, Felker and Rose, 1981; Smith and Mosier, 1986; Spinillo and Dyson, 2000/2001; Spyridakis, 2000; Wright, 1977; Zimmerman and Clark, 1987; Bailey, Koyani and Nall, 2000; Lynch and Horton, 2002; Morkes and Nielsen, 1997; Morkes and Nielsen, 1998; Spyridakis, 2000.
5 Lee Gomes, “Good Site, Bad Site: Evolving Web Design“. 2007, The Wall Street Journal.
6 Badre, 2002; Coney and Steehouder, 2000; Detweiler and Omanson, 1996.
All references, with exception to Gomes, have been  obtained within the research of Shneiderman, “Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines”. 2007, U.S. Government Official Edition. ISBN: 0-16-076270-7

For the third year, Hannon Hill will be holding its annual Cascade Server User’s Conference in Atlanta, GA, September 22-23.  During this conference, Cascade Server users from around the country gather for this two-day event to collaborate, meet the Hannon Hill staff, learn tips & tricks, and in general, learn more about Cascade Server.I was able to attend the first conference in 2006, and was asked to participate in a roundtable discussion with two other users (watch Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4).  It was a great opportunity to share how Beacon uses Cascade Server as an Application Service Provider (ASP), and share some tips & strategies that we use.  I met a lot of great people, and still collaborate with many of them today.

In 2007, I was asked by Hannon Hill to speak during a technical session on how Beacon, as an ASP, uses Cascade Server.  However, I was unable to attend, as my wife and I were moving into our first house that day, so I had to respectfully decline.  I had to think about my decision for a while:  go to Atlanta, stay in a nice hotel, eat great food, and have some fun, or lift heavy furniture, paint rooms, clean, and get no sleep?  I guess I made the right choice by choosing the latter!  Members of Beacon’s team did attend the conference and said that it was a great experience, and I caught up with everything that happened by watching the session videos.

This year, since I’m definitely not buying a house again, I’ll not only be attending the conference with other members of the Beacon staff, but I’ll also be a speaker during one of the business user sessions.  I’ll be doing a “Tips & Tricks for End Users” session, where I’ll be covering:

• Smart implementations for large sites
• Content re-use
• Using structured content (Data Definitions)
• Integrate Cascade Server with eCommerce and other database applications (scripting languages)
• Manage Search Engine Marketing efforts
• Control full Flash websites and Flash applications
• Integration of advanced JavaScript applications
• Tips on training end users and providing documentation

I won’t lie and say that I’m not nervous about speaking in front of a crowd, but it’s something that I’m eager to do.  In Hannon Hill’s “Call for Speakers”, they asked, “Are you proud of your implementation?”.  I thought about that, and answered “yes!”.  I’m proud of how much Beacon has invested in this software in order to offer CMS solutions to our customers.  I’m proud of how my team implements Cascade Server sites that are tailored to the customer’s individual needs.

Check back here after September 23rd, and I’ll give you an update on how it went.  Wish me luck!

As I’ve written in the past, a Content Management System (CMS) is a valuable tool to your business’ online presence.  They enable anyone to maintain their Web site, with no Web development skills required.  As I tell potential and current customers when demonstrating our CMS of choice, “With Cascade Server, if you know Microsoft Word®, you can maintain your Web site”.  This powerful statement is the difference between hiring an expensive Web development staff and having your accountant maintain your Web site (instead of writing big salary checks).  Your Web site “contributor” (a user whose job it is to maintain the content of your site) now has the ability to keep the site up-to-date.

Of course, the “anyone” part does introduce a big problem:  how do you keep control over what your contributors are putting out there?  Chances are they’re not publishing inappropriate content:  anti-government, anti-(insert-your-favorite-sports-team-here), etc.  But what about spelling errors, inaccurate content, general formatting issues, and anything that you just don’t approve of?

Enter CMS workflows.  What is a CMS workflow?  Hannon Hill, the manufacturer of Cascade Server, states that a workflow “ensures that content entered into the system is quality checked by mandating that the entered content go through a series of approval steps.”  In short, it’s a way for a Web site manager to control what’s added to their Web site.

How does a workflow work?  Let’s take a look at a simple workflow.

The first step is to set permission levels for your users.  A contributor in your system should only have the ability to edit content, and not be able to publish that content to your live Web site.  Furthermore, a user can be locked down to a specific section, folder, or even page of your site.  Here, they can make any edits to an existing page, create pages, or if given permission, delete pages.

Once their edits are done, they submit the page into the workflow.  The manager is notified via email that the contributor has submitted content for approval.  The manager then logs into the CMS and reviews the content.  From here, the manager can either reject the content back to the contributor with personalized comments (which notifies the contributor via email as well), or the manager can “approve” the changes, which then publishes the page and associated files to their live site.

Pretty simple, yet effective, right?  By implementing this easy workflow, you maintain control over your Web site, while your contributor does all of the work!  Of course, workflows can be much more robust than our example, and can be tailored to fit your organization’s specific quality assurance practices.  You can have the contributor submit to a manager, that manager can submit to Legal, Legal can submit to Marketing, Marketing can reject back to the manger or submit to IT for publishing, and…well, you get the idea:  it’s completely flexible!

Below is an example of a workflow that we have implemented for a large Cascade Server implementation.

What kind of quality assurance program do you have for your Web site right now, whether it’s in a CMS or not?  Is it robust with several review checkpoints and processes?  Or do you not have one at all?  Whatever the case may be, my team and I can bring your entire Web site into Cascade Server, and apply a custom workflow that fits your needs.  Contact us to find out more.

Ever notice how most disaster recovery/business continuity articles seem to overlook a critical component of the plan – the people.  The best plans, the most technically advanced hot data centers, are of no value if you have no people to run your business.

There is plenty of information available on the internet on how to prepare for a natural or man-made disaster.  I want to share a few thoughts about the human side of a disaster.

Let’s say a hurricane or tornado has struck your region.  Your building survived, your data center is operational and you’re ready to get back to business.   Who is going to show up in the morning?  The victims of this disaster (your employees and co-workers) have just been traumatized by the loss of their home and are more concerned about the welfare of their families and their own survival than they are about their jobs.

Can your key employees travel (even if it’s to work at the same place)?  Are they willing to travel?  Given the choice to stay home, care for their families, and salvage whatever’s left of their house and possessions, how many will rush to their jobs instead?

Even if their families are safe and their homes secure and they are willing to get to work, can you contact them to find out?

Miles of telephone and power lines have been torn down by high wind.  Cell phone towers are out of service or so overloaded that few calls get through.  You need to reach them if only to find out if they’re all right.  What are you going to do?

Even supposing you can contact them and they’re willing to help, how do you get them from where they are to where they need to be?  Count on the roads being littered with trees, power poles, sections of roof, covered in water and generally impassable.  The street signs have all been destroyed.  How do you find your people?

Are you going to invest in redundant hardware, the most sophisticated backup solution, the most detailed disaster recovery plan and forget the people who have to implement that plan?

Think you don’t need to worry about it and that it can’t happen to you or your business?  On September 15, 1995, Hurricane Marilyn tore through St. Thomas and damaged 80 percent of the buildings, left roads closed for days and power disrupted for weeks.  Disaster Recovery teams used runners on foot to get information around the island.

Your may not remember Hurricane Marilyn, but I’ll bet you remember Hurricane Katrina.

Now, I won’t claim to have all the answers to these questions, in fact I don’t have any answers for these questions.  So…

What do you think?  How do you prepare your people and organization for a major disaster that can disrupt your business and your co-workers’ lives?