Page Load Time in Universal Analytics

In Google Analytics, you can monitor your site speed and get a decent overview of what pages are contributing positively and negatively to site speed. The problem with page load time metric is that it’s an average based on a sample. You can modify the sample rate with setSiteSpeedSampleRate(), but for me that’s not bloody well good enough. (UPDATE 28.3.2014: This post is still valid, but an implementation with User Timings is a much smarter way to measure actual page load time. Read More…

Universal Analytics: Weather as a Custom Dimension

There is a new version of this post for GTM V2 here. [Last updated June 2014] I’ve fallen in love with Universal Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Together they form an incredibly powerful tool for marketing professionals. In most cases, I no longer need to post recommendations to my client for yet another page template revision, since with the tag manager in place, I can just add custom code via the admin panel. Read More…

SEO for Sales: Making the Pitch

My days as a freewheeling, unrestrained, happy-go-lucky, gung-ho city cowboy are over. As of 31 August 2013, I’m a married man, and for the rest of my life, I will dedicate myself to optimizing my relationship to my beautiful wife. The old ball-and-chain. But before I bury myself in the bosom of our blessèd alliance, I’ll continue to blog about the dark and murky undergrowth of digital marketing that SEO is. Read More…

An Optimized Haiku

Dear client, search engine Optimization for you? Or perhaps - donuts? The Web, I’m afraid, Is a pretty sticky maze. And you’re the trapped fly. We tell you we’ll help, But you will not believe us. You are very wise. Everything we do, Everything we claim we do, You can do yourself. But if you let us Approach you humbly, gently, As a team, we’ll rock. We’ll rock Google, check! Read More…

After the Click: Conversion Time

So you’ve spent a whopping amount of money on paid search, SEO, Facebook ads, competitions, link building, and traditional marketing. You’re seeing a crazy influx of visitors to your site. Just as you’re about to call your boss to accept the promotion, you notice a worrying trend: your new visitors are barely making an impression on conversions from online traffic. What’s up with that? All your high-paid consultants told you that a high return of investment is guaranteed, since The Internet is da bomb, everything is cheap, and percentages are always in your favor! Read More…

Website Redesign With SEO and Common Sense

So it’s been a while, I know. I’ve been enjoying my summer vacation, either swimming in the lush blue waters of Finland’s lakes or in the murky, greenish, (only slightly toxic) chemistry lab reject also known as the Baltic Sea. I’ve also had the pleasure of playing golf only to realize I’m roughly at the same skill level I was at when I first started. I blame the fact I’ve played less than ever before due to some unexpected patellofemoral pain in my right knee (yes, I know it’s called the Runner’s Knee, but if I know words like patellofemoral, I will use them). Read More…

Why Learning SEO Is (Probably) Good for You

Before I begin, it is important to note that SEO, as any other facet of web design, covers both technique and purpose. Technique in the sense that SEO comprises a number of de facto guidelines (and accompanying tools) which help improve the search engine friendliness of your website. With purpose I mean the elusive concept of setting goals, and how to pursue them. Both are incredibly important aspects of learning SEO, and it can be argued that one cannot exist without the other. Read More…

It's Not About Marketing

In a recent post, I took a short foray into the world of clumsy analogies by comparing the team work qualities (and necessities) of basketball and digital marketing. In an even earlier post, I made the claim that the single most important facet of content strategy is audience design. Well, now is the time to pull these two threads together all trilogy-like. After this, you can hail me as the Stieg Larsson of marketing. Read More…

How Is Digital Marketing Like Basketball?

So I was watching the 2013 NBA Eastern Conference Finals game 7 between Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers. While making note of the dozens of different ways that the lackluster Pacers were taken to the cleaners by the dominant Miami team (read: LeBron James), I started churning a funky thought in my head. This beautiful, wonderful, exciting, adrenaline-pumping, superstar-studded, tattoo-galore of a game must be an analogy of something. Something equally thought-provoking, exhilarating and life-changing. Read More…

What Makes a Good SEO Report?

I recently started rewriting some of the templates we use for SEO reports at my company. I first thought that the task would be a simple one. Just rewrite all the SEO stuff to match the latest trends, add more diagrams, charts, and graphs, and make it more personal by increasing the number of client-specific sections. However, soon I started to question my motives (as I usually do when doing something independently). Read More…