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Asbury Remodeling & Construction, LLC

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Daily Report: Tepid Response to Twitter Shake-Up

If Jack Dorsey and the other leaders at Twitter thought news of a high-level shake-up would excite investors, they were wrong.

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1002 Towhee Drive

Apex, NC 27502

919-904-4548

http://www.asburyremodeling.com/



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Business Technology Starts to Get Personal

Despite their very different companies, the chief executives of General Electric and Apple have something in common: They believe businesses will increasingly rely upon "personalized" technology to run their operations.

A Scientific Guide to Hashtags: How Many, Which Ones, and Where to Use Them

This post originally published on April 8, 2014. We’ve updated it here with new info, screenshots, and audio.

Have you ever found yourself explaining hashtags to someone whose only connection with the word is as a telephone button?

Internet language has evolved considerably over the past few years as social media has taken off. Hashtags are a huge part of this evolution. What once was a telephone button is now a social media phenomenon.  No wonder people are curious.

When they ask, I tell them that hashtags are a pound sign immediately followed by a keyword. They’re used for categorization on social media. Yes, they can be annoying if overused. And yes, I’ve seen the hashtag video of Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake.

Hashtags also have the potential to be truly valuable. The stats and info below make a pretty clear case that we should be understanding, using, and appreciating hashtags.

Research says you should be using hashtags

If you’re looking for a completely cut-and-dry ruling on the topic of hashtags, then here it is: You should be using hashtags.

The proliferation of hashtags is truly incredible. What began on Twitter has now spread to Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Google search, and almost everywhere in between. (LinkedIn experimented with hashtags for awhile before giving up.)

The widespread acceptance of hashtags should give you plenty of reason to consider using them. I also really enjoy the case laid out by Steve Cooper, writing for Forbes.com:

As ridiculous as hashtags might seem to marketing veterans who remember a time before Twitter and Facebook, the younger generation and potential customers/clients don’t. To them, using hashtags is as natural and common as typing their query into the search box.

Not only could people be typing in your hashtag on a Google search, but they could very well be doing it in Twitter, too. In this sense, a hashtag will make your content viewable by anyone with an interest in your hashtag, regardless of whether they’re part of your clan or not.

A hashtag immediately expands the reach of your tweet beyond just those who follow you, to reach anyone interested in that hashtag phrase or keyword.

But how do you find the right hashtags for your content and make sure you’ve got them in the right number, on the right social network? Let’s break it down.

Hashtags on Twitter

Tweets with hashtags get two times more engagement than tweets without.

This data, courtesy of Buddy Media, is one of the most-cited examples of the effectiveness of hashtags, and for good reason: doubling your online engagement is a big deal! Imagine going from four retweets to eight or 10 retweets to 20. And all it takes is a simple # or two?

Apparently so. Although, you’ll want to keep it to no more than two.

Buddy Media’s research also showed that the volume of hashtags bears monitoring: one or two hashtags appear to be the max. When you use more than two hashtags, your engagement actually drops by an average of 17 percent.

Twitter’s own research into hashtags confirms that there is significant advantage to using them. Individuals can see a 100 percent increase in engagement by using hashtags (the same bump as seen in the Buddy Media study). Brands can see a 50 percent increase.

Engagement, as measured in these studies, can include clicks, retweets, favorites, and replies, yet if it’s only retweets your after, hashtags still would be a smart bet.

Tweets with one or more hashtag are 55 percent more likely to be retweeted.

Dan Zarella discovered this effect in a study on retweeting behavior that included more than 1.2 million tweets. The large scope of the study made for a 99.9 percent confidence interval with the results.

The one caveat to hashtags on Twitter might come for those brands looking to gain clicks on Twitter ads. In the case of advertisements, Twitter found that tweets without a # or @-mention generate 23 percent more clicks.

The reason? Hashtags and @-mentions give people more places to click inside a tweet instead of focusing solely on a call-to-action.

Hashtags on Instagram

Instagram is another hotspot for hashtags, and the good news for those who love to extensively tag photos is that there doesn’t seem to be a saturation point.

Interactions are highest on Instagram posts with 11+ hashtags.

A rule of thumb could be: Don’t sweat your amount of Instagram hashtags.

The best part about this recommendation is that the data comes from a set of users with 1,000 or fewer followers—a group that likely includes small businesses and those just diving in to Instagram. In other words, hashtags could be your best bet for growing a fast following on Instagram.

Hashtags on Facebook

So yes, Twitter and Instagram are clear winners for hashtags. But what about Facebook? Here’s where the recommendation gets a little trickier.

Facebook posts without a hashtag fare better than those with a hashtag.

Hashtags have only been around on Facebook since June 2013, and three months later, research from EdgeRank Checker found that using hashtags on Facebook has zero positive effect on reach. Posts without hashtags outperform those with hashtags.

A lot could have changed since September, when this data was first released. Should you abandon hashtags on Facebook solely due to this research? It’s probably best to test. There’s still a lot of analysis left to be done. For instance, Social Bakers studied posts in February of this year and found that using hashtags might not be the main worry, but rather using too many hashtags (just like the advice on Twitter).

Hashtags on Google+

On Google+, your posts are given hashtags automatically based on their content, but you can also edit them or add your own. Also unique about Google+: You can add hashtags in your comments as well as your post – double the opportunities to be found.

And since Google+ is Google’s social network, hashtags are now built right into Google searches. If you type in a hashtag search, you’ll get the normal search results plus a sidebar of relevant Google+ posts. Hashtags have truly arrived!

Google+’s “related hashtags” also offer smart marketers a brainstorming opportunity to discover new content ideas and gauge interest level in specific topics.

Tools to find and manage your hashtags

Using the right tools, you can use hashtags as an organization system for your social media campaigns. With everything collected under one hashtag banner, you can see at-a-glance the reach of your campaign and the discussions happening around the topic.

1. Hashtagify.me

One of the most complete hashtag tools you will find, Hashtagify.me has reams of data you can use to analyze hashtags. The most helpful could very well be the first data you’re shown: related hashtags and their popularity. When you type in a hashtag, the service will show you other hashtags to consider and will display visually how popular each hashtag is and how closely it correlates to the original.

2. RiteTag

RiteTag helps ensure that the tags you use are well-chosen by showing you how good, great, or overused a particular hashtag is. The visual organization of hashtags into colored bars works great for quick analysis at-a-glance.

3. Tagboard

With Tagboard, you can see how your hashtag is used across multiple networks. The results pages on Tagboard show hashtagged posts from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Vine, and App.net

4. Twitalyzer

Though not an explicitly hashtag tool, Twitalyzer does show hashtags as part of its audit of Twitter accounts. Input the username of someone you want to investigate, and Twitalyzer can tell you what hashtags he or she uses most often. This can be really helpful in finding out how your niche’s influencers tweet.

5. Trendsmap

Local businesses might find value in Trendsmap, which shows you relevant hashtags that are being used in your geographic area. (#wrestlemania is a popular one where I am in Idaho.)

4 steps to find the right hashtag to use

Using the tools above, you can hone in on a few ideal hashtags to start with, and like most things online, test and iterate from there.

1. Learn from the best: What hashtags are influencers using?

Twitalyzer can give you a good foundation of where to begin for your hashtag search by showing you how influencers are using hashtags. Grab a handful of usernames of people and brands in your industry whom you admire, and input the accounts into Twitalyzer. At the bottom of the results page, you’ll see a section for their most commonly-used hashtags. Add the relevant ones to your list of potential hashtags.

Let’s say I wanted to find some hashtags to use in promoting social media marketing content. I might start with a list of names like Jeff Bullas, Jay Baer, Mari Smith, and Ann Handley. Here is what the hashtag results on Twitalyzer look like for Jeff Bullas:

 

Info like this would lead me to start a short list of hashtags like:

• #socialmedia
• #SMM
• #twitter
• #contentmarketing
• #social
• #content
• #marketing

2. Cover all your bases: Are there related hashtags you should be considering?

Armed with an idea list of hashtags, you can then hop into Hashtagify.me to see which related hashtags might also be worth pursuing. While you’re doing this exercise, take note of the circle size on your results: The larger the circle, the more popular the hashtag.

Again, following our social media marketing example, here is what the results page would look like for a search of #socialmedia:

Not every hashtag listed here will be relevant to you, but it does help to see some that you might not have previously considered. In the case of our example, I might add #business, #infographic, and hashtags of specific network names like #twitter and #facebook.

3. Identify the all-stars: Which hashtags are the best to use?

Popularity and volume can be good indicators of the value of your hashtag, but you may wish to go one step further. Hashtagify.me has advanced, premium tools that let you go deeper into statistics on individual hashtags. In a pinch, you can also get some solid data from RiteTag and their visual expression of how much each tag can boost your post’s reach. 

Among posts that contain the word “marketing,” RiteTag shows these tags as the most likely to be great, good, or overused. (There’s that #wrestlemania tag again!)

4. Double check: Could your chosen hashtags mean something else entirely?

One last check before you finalize your list of hashtags should be whether or not the hashtag you’ve chosen is being used elsewhere in an entirely different context.

The worst thing that can happen when using a hashtag is to realize after it’s tweeted that the same hashtag is used for an entirely different topic.

Jawbone tried a #knowyourself campaign on Instagram, only to find that the hashtag was already being used generically by thousands of users in all sorts of different contexts. This didn’t necessarily ruin Jawbone’s campaign, but it may have made life a little more difficult for the marketing team. 

Takeaways

Hopefully you’ve learned the value of hashtags here and a few neat ideas on how to find some to use in your social sharing. If you’re looking for a simple rule of thumb for hashtagging posts, I think there’s a lot of truth here in this advice from The Next Web:

Rule of thumb: 1 – 3 tags is best over all platforms.

• Twitter: to categorize
• Pinterest: to brand, and be specific (tags are only clickable in pin descriptions)
• Instagram: to build community, and be unique/detailed
• Google+: to categorize; autogenerates tags based on what it thinks your post is most relevant to
• Tumblr: to categorize interests, can be specific and general (has a “track your tags” feature)
• Facebook: sort of a hashtag fail – if your audience is very business-minded, follow Twitter rules; if it is community-oriented, follow Pinterest/Instagram rules

What hashtags do you routinely use on social media? I’d love to hear how you’ve put hashtags to work in your social media strategy.

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our Buffer Blog newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox, plus our can’t-miss weekly email of the Internet’s best reads. Sign up here.

Image credit:mikecogh, Unsplash, IconFinder, Pablo, Quick Sprout

The post A Scientific Guide to Hashtags: How Many, Which Ones, and Where to Use Them appeared first on Social.

5 Actionable Analytics Reports for Internal Site Search

Posted by ryanwashere

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

I was furious when keyword data disappeared from Google Analytics (GA).

I mean, how could I possibly optimize a website without keyword data?!?!

It didn't take me long to realize I was overreacting. In fact, I quickly realized how trivial keyword data was.

Search engines are pretty damn good at what they do. If you properly optimize your content, people will find it with the keywords you intended. (You should set up an SEO dashboard in GA to verify your results.)

The truly valuable keywords are the ones visitors use within your site.

When mined correctly, internal terms uncover how and why users engage with content. These insights provide clear direction to improve content, SEO, and the user journey (resulting in increased conversions, leads, and sales).

In this post, I'll cover three things:

1. How to set up internal search reporting in GA
2. How to access and analyze five internal search reports in GA
3. Two client case studies using internal search data

---

Prepping your analytics account

Before I get into the details, make sure you have the following set up in your GA account:

1. Exclude internal traffic (filter). You wouldn’t believe how many organizations don’t do this. This simple filter makes all the difference when it comes to data quality. Make sure your website is excluding all internal traffic (step-by-step directions: how to set up internal filters in GA.)
2. Goals, events and conversions. In order to discover user intent, we need to be able to segment reports by conversions. Make sure that your website has clearly defined key performance indicators (KPIs) that are represented by goals in GA (step by step directions: how to set up goals in GA.)

Supplemental reading: How to set up Google Analytics on your website

Setting up GA site search reporting

Standard GA implementation doesn’t have internal search reporting configured. In order to get the data, we need to input some information into GA manually.

Follow these steps to get it up and running:

1. Navigate to the “Admin” tab
2. Click “View Settings”
3. Go to the bottom, where you’ll find “Site Search Settings”
4. Click the button so that its setting is “On”

In order to complete the tracking, you’ll need to locate your site’s query parameter.

1. In a new browser tab, open your website
2. In your website's internal search bar, type the word "seo" and click "search"
3. You will be redirected to your website's internal search landing page
4. Look at the URL on the landing page (see screenshot below)
5. You will see your search term, along with these characters: "?", "random letter", and "="
6. The letter before the equal sign ("=") is your website’s query parameter
7. Enter this value into the appropriate box in GA
8. Click save

EXAMPLE

Search query: seo
Landing URL: http://webris.org/?s=seo
Parameter : ?s=seo
What to enter in GA: s

GA will not post-date searches. In other words, searches that took place before you set up reporting won't populate. You will only get data from searches occur going forward.

For this reason, you'll need to wait about 30 days after setting up site search tracking in GA before analyzing the site search data. Otherwise, you won't have sufficient data to conduct meaningful analysis.

Analyzing the site search data

To access your site search data, navigate to Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search in GA.

There are five reports under Site Search:

1. Overview
2. Usage
3. Search Terms
4. Pages
5. Any/All Reports (Segments)

---

Report #1: Overview

How to get there: Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search > Overview
What the report tells us: Lists the high-level metrics related to your site’s internal search
Potential insights:

• Visits With Site Search, % Search Exits, and % Search Refinements: When looked at together, these metrics can tell you a lot about how visitors are finding content. If all three numbers are high, it likely means users can’t find what they‘re looking for.
• Time after Search and Average Search Depth: Conversely, if these two metrics are high, it probably means users find a lot of value in your site search.
• Overview (graph): Pay close attention to spikes and surges in internal searches. Were you running campaigns during this time? Use traffic segments to dig into causation.

---

Report #2: Usage

How to get there: Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search > Usage
What the report tells us: User journeys that used site search vs. those who didn’t
Potential insights:

• Pages/Session, Average Session Duration: If the pages viewed and session duration is higher with visitors using site search, this indicates your website has the right content (i.e., users are finding the content they are searching for). Keep a close eye on these metrics and test widgets, sidebars and "suggested article" plugins to help you figure out how to improve navigation.
• Goal Completions: These are important metrics. Plain and simple, this tells us whether or not site search helps drive goal completions. If so, you may want to consider making your site search more prominent, or make it stand out with specific calls to action.
• Secondary dimension: You can add a number of dimensions to this report to get deeper insight. I like to add "Medium"—it gives you a breakdown of each traffic medium, segmented by Visits With Site Search and Visits Without Site Search.

---

Report #3: Search terms

How to get there: Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search > Search Terms
What the report tells us: Lists the most used search terms with corresponding engagement metrics
Potential Insight :

• Look at each engagement metric for discrepancies between search terms. If one search term has an abnormally high % Search Exits or % of Search Refinements, then you most likely don’t have content those visitors are looking for.
• Look at the complete list of terms—are these included in your PPC and SEO keyword targeting strategies? If not, they should be. These are the terms your visitors expect to see on your site.
• Add traffic channel segments to see which channel drives the most internal searches. These terms should match up with your PPC and SEO strategies. If a visitor is using site search to refine what they’re looking for, it could mean that they didn’t find your site from the right landing page.

---

Report #4: Pages

How to get there: Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search > Pages
What the report tells us: The pages users made their queries on
Potential insights:

• Overall: Looking at the overall picture of the data will show you where users are having problems finding content. Take a closer look at how your top pages are structured—can users find what they need?
• Secondary dimension: I like to layer on the “Previous Page Path” dimension. This helps create a greater context for the problems users are have navigating your site.

---

Report #5: Segments

How to get there: Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search > Any/All Reports

What the report tells us: Segments add additional depth and value. I often use the following segments to drive more insights:

• Mobile traffic: Segmenting by mobile allows you to see visitors are using site search more from mobile. This can yield insights into mobile design and layout.
• Converters or Made a purchase: Is site search driving conversions or adding roadblocks?
• Organic traffic: What percentage of users that find your website through search engines need to refine their searches? The internal keyword searches are the keywords that users are really looking for when they find your site.
• Returning users: Returning users are loyal—they enjoy your content enough to return for more. Use the internal search data to find out what content you need to best serve them.

---

Case Studies: Driving action from internal search

The internal site search reports described above are high-level. Sometimes it takes seeing them in action to understand how to truly apply them.

As such, I've included two case studies that show exactly how I've used internal search data to drive meaningful action.

Case study #1

Site: Pop culture publisher (online only)
Marketing channels: SEO, social, and content

Problem:

• The site drives traffic from five to eight daily blog updates about niche pop culture celebrities
• In November, traffic stagnated, and then started to decline

Research:

• The site thrives by creating content about niche celebrities, the ones few other sites write about. This gave them the monopoly on both the SERPs and avid social media fans
• Digging in further, I found social traffic was steadily declining, while organic was remaining nearly the same, month-over-month
• A full-scale content analysis was completed, finding that more and more content was being created about the same niche celebrities. This was causing diminishing returns on social and organic traffic.
• The site suffered from content exhaustion: Writers were covering the same topics over and over.
• In order to build traffic, they needed to scale efforts horizontally by creating content around new niche celebrities.

Solution:

• I consulted the Search Terms report (Behavior > Behavior Flow > Site Search > Search Terms) to see what visitors were looking for on the site
• By adding a filter for "no-results", I could see what content visitors were searching for on the site that turned up no results
• I dumped this list into Excel, and had the writers create new content based on the search terms in the report

Results:

After launch of the strategy, the site saw amazing results:

• 201.05% increase in month-over-month traffic
• 210.99% increase in month-over-month pageviews
• 3.30% increase in pages per session
• 3.15% increase in session duration
• 4.75% decrease in bounce rate

Up and to the right!

Case study #2

Site: Online travel site
Marketing channels: SEO, PPC, email, social, content, display, TV, radio, and print

Problem:

• Large spike in month-over-month internal searches on client's site, with poor metrics for actions following internal searches
• Both the search volume and search rate had nearly doubled (35,457 to 65,032; and 4.37% to 8.56%, respectively) month-over-month

Research:

• Digging in, I found traffic on-site increased by 40,000 month-over-month; when segmented, I found the increase was strictly organic traffic
• Consulted GA Landing Pages report with Organic Segment to find which pages the increase in traffic was going to
  • (Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages > Organic Segment)
• This showed that 100% of the increase in month-over-month traffic went to the home page
  • This was out of the ordinary, as 80% of organic traffic generally goes deep into the site, not to the home page

• Next, I consulted the Google Webmaster Tools (GWT, recently rebranded as Google Search Console) Search Analytics report to see what keywords were driving the increase
  • (GWT > Search Traffic > Search Analytics)

• GWT analysis showed the increase came from queries consisting of branded keywords + "giveaway" (e.g., client giveaway promotion and client giveaway)

Solution:

• I reported the findings to the client, and found out they'd been running a series of offline ads promoting a giveaway in attempts to generate email leads
  • Note: Large organizations often have employees, agencies, contractors, and consultants running for multiple efforts. It's not uncommon for efforts to operate in silos.
• The giveaway was set up on a landing page that was difficult to find unless typed in directly (e.g., clientsite.com/giveaway)
• I recommended that the client include a call-to-action on the home page that linked to the giveaway

Results:

• Sessions with search decreased by nearly 10%
• Results after search increased by 6.45%
• Search depth increased by 9.01%
• Most importantly, users were able to find the giveaway. Email leads increased by 245%!

Closing

When mined properly, internal search data will give you the information you need to greatly improve your web content, design, and search engine optimization efforts.

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Help Us Improve the Moz Blog: 2015 Reader Survey

Posted by Trevor-Klein

In late 2013, we asked you all about your experience with the Moz Blog. It was the first time we'd collected direct feedback from our readers in more than three years—an eternity in the marketing industry. With the pace of change in our line of work (not to mention your schedules and reading habits) we didn't want to wait that long again, so we're taking this opportunity to ask you how well we're keeping up.

Our mission is to help you all become better marketers, and to do that, we need to know more about you. What challenges do you all face? What are your pain points? Your day-to-day frustrations? If you could learn more about one or two (or three) topics, what would those be?

If you'll help us out by taking this five-minute survey, we can make sure we're offering the most useful and valuable content we possibly can. When we're done looking through the responses, we'll follow up with a post about what we learned.

Thanks, everyone; we're excited to see what you have to say!

Can't see the survey? Click here to take it in a new tab.

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