Nothing Stays the Same, Google Insights Says So

Its a fact, an obvious one that nothing stays the same. Over any length of time things change, fashion, what we eat, what information we digest and the media we use to do so. There are number of forces that create the need for change, time of year, what certain fashion designers are designing and popular culture as a whole.

Google Insights allows web managers and marketeers to research the search habits of potential customers/clients/subscribers. By using the available settings it is possible to research and compare search terms and catergories over a certain length of time in a number of different areas. For example, lets say I run a hotel in Leeds and need to improve occupancy at the weekend, I could begin to target Hen parties using a Paid Search campaign. I can use Insights to work out how to optimise a strategic marketing plan. The image below shows changes in use of the search term 'hen party hotels' in the UK over 2007 and 2008.

Judging by the graph above, the best time to concentrate the majority of my budget for the campaign would be January, February and March. Although looking at the rest of the year, especially July (where the is a steady climb towards a peak) it would be worth keeping the campaign running, maybe with an lower budget.

Using Google Insights for Search it is also possible to view habits in certain pre-defined catergories, for example, search terms related to film(s) in Scotland and England in 2009 (see image below). The image shows the difference between searches made related to film in the 2 regions as well as the most popular search terms. This example shows that the term 'cinema' was the searched the most in this category.

The statistics are not delivered as pure numbers, instead Google scale the figures to give a range of 0 to 100, the former being the peak. Looking at the graph for 'hen party hotels' the lines starts at its highest in January (100), around May it is down to 30, then back up to 50 by July.

Bounce Rates, How important a metric is this?

When looking at the analytics for certain websites developed by VR3 Media there is always a metric that can ruin any day for us, the dreaded bounce rate. VR3 have a number of sites, all with varying bounce rates mainly due to the vast range of clients in our portfolio.

One particular client of ours runs an emergency plumbing and boiler repair company in North London. Google Analytic stats show a very high bounce rate, where visitors are landing on the homepage and exiting before clicking through to any other sections on the website. On this particular website the contact details are in a prominent position on the homepage and the content tells the visitor all they need to know about available services and how much they will pay.

Taking these factors into consideration and the fact that if you did have gallons of water flowing through your ceiling or your boiler had packed up in the middle of the coldest weather for 30 years, then chances of even bothering to go beyond a page with the relevant details are slim.

As important bounce rates are to websites with sales processes or multiple pages of information, sometimes the visitor can find what they need to know in order to commit to using a service on the landing page. Other metrics within Google Analytics can show whether users are engaging with the content. 'Average time on page' will show how long users are spending viewing the page, for example the home page of the plumber has an average of 2.27 minutes.

There are other factors that may effect the bounce rate such as the fact that as part of the marketing for the website we have set up a paid search campaign using Google's Adwords application. The text adds that appear in the search results include the telephone number as well as click-to-call on the mobile ads.

PQS Banner Animation

This is the banner animation for the PQS website. Produced in 3DS Max and compressed in Sony Vegas.

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