Santa Fe Ford, Alachua FL

Two Guys and a Back Rub

Santa Fe Ford, Alachua FL211 cars in February 2014All Time Record February

Google is Data Drivenwww.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q

Douglas Bowman, a well known graphic designer at Google, left the company because he felt they placed too much reliance on data over intuition when it came to visual design decisions.

“Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.”

Regardless of whether you think acting on data or intuition is the right idea, if you can relate to the data-driven mindset and the culture that results, you will better understand Google. Searcher satisfaction metrics are writ-large on Google’s radar and they will only get more refined and granular as time goes on. For Google, their user’s behavior is everything.

So What Can Google Measure?Remember that everything that happens on Google.com is monitored by Google and effects your site’s overall trust levels and organic placements in Google search results.

Google Chrome is the SpiderWhether or not you install Google Analytics, Google always has an accurate measurement of your site’s

traffic, bounce rate, user’s average time on site, average page views, conversion rates and every

significant engagement statistic.

Greg Linden, Internet Relic“Google VP Marissa Mayer just spoke at the Web 2.0 Conference (2006) and offered what Google has recently learned about load speed, user experience, and user satisfaction. Marissa started with a story about a user test they did. They asked a group of searchers how many search results they wanted to see. Users asked for more than the 10 results Google normally shows. More is more, they said.

So, Marissa ran an experiment where Google changed the number of search results returned to 30. Surprisingly, traffic and revenue from Google searchers in the experimental group dropped by 20%.

Why, when users had specifically asked for this, did they seem to hate it?

Marissa explained that there was an uncontrolled variable. The page with 10 results took .4 seconds to load. The page with 30 results took .9 seconds. Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction.

This conclusion may be surprising -- people notice a half second delay? -- but we had a similar experience at Amazon.com. In A/B tests, we tried delaying the page in increments of 100 milliseconds and found that even very small delays would result in substantial and costly drops in revenue.

Greg Linden, Internet Relic

Being fast really matters. As Marissa said in her talk, “Users respond to speed.” Marissa went on to describe how they rolled out a new version of Google Maps that was lighter (in page size) and rendered much faster. Google Maps immediately saw substantial boosts in traffic and usage.

The lesson, Marissa said, is that speed matters. People do not like to wait. Do not make them.”

-- http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20.html

Source: http://www.akamai.com

Source: StrangeLoopNetworks, Tealeaf

Source: http://mobithinking.com

Improved Load Speeds Immediately Impact:

• Bounce Rate• Time on Site• Avg. Page Views• Brand Reputation

Most importantly,

• Search Engine Results

• Engagement Levels• User Satisfaction• Conversions/Leads

Improved Load Speed Increases Sales

I’m not a geek, so how do I know if my website is performing?

It’s easier than you think.The overall user experience on the web, crawl rates and page load speeds are important to Google so they provide the necessary tools to fix your website.

Sounds great, how much?

Free-er than riding a bald eagle naked

into the sunset.

Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and Google Developer Tools are Powerful, Robust and

Free!

Google Webmaster ToolsWebmaster Tools is the only way that Google communicates with you about your site regardless if you have access to it or not. If you do not use webmaster tools, your site may have major problems that can easily be corrected and you’d never know it.

Google uses your webmaster tools account to communicate about any penalties or manual actions taken against your website and even provides recommendations for HTML and structural data improvements.

GWT also reveals crawling errors that Google encounters, all blocked URLs, any sitemap problems and shows you how many pages are being crawled per day, how much data they are downloading from your site and how fast.

Google uses webmaster tools to show you the top keyword searches that drive traffic to your site and large portions of your inbound link profile.

Here is what it looks like,

Google Analytics

Google AnalyticsIncredibly simply to install, Google Analytics is a full featured tracking service that reports all user activity and categorizes all visitors into:

• Search Engine Traffic• Visits from Referring Sites (craigslist, cars.com, autotrader,

etc.)• Direct or “Branded” Traffic

Also tracks conversions (form fills) and connects them with the traffic source. They even report on user demographics and their geo-location.

“Sounds Great, but what should I be looking for?”

Google Analytics BenchmarksThe reporting provided by Google Analytics represents an incredibly deep rabbit hole that includes automated reporting, custom dashboards, geo-tracking, alerts and extremely granular data about your website visitor’s habits and demographics. At the very least, you should be monitoring:

• Overall Traffic Levels – Depends on brand and market • Average Visit Duration – 4.5 minutes at a minimum• Average Page Views – 4.5 page views at a minimum• Bounce Rate – Maximum of 9-10%

If your website traffic does not reach these minimum benchmarks, you do not have a premium website. If your web provider refuses to install the Google Analytics tracking code for an account that you own, than you definitely do not have a premium website.

Google Developer Tool – Page Speed Insights

Page Speed Insights ToolGoogle has been shouting the importance of website load speed to webmasters since 2010 and has recently launched a robust tool for non-geeks to evaluate their sites and hold their providers accountable. The “Page Speed Insights Tool” is simple, you just enter your domain name and press Go.

In less than one minute, the tool scores both your mobile and desktop site between 0 and 100 and provides the necessary fixes for your site. This way your vendor or staff knows exactly what needs to be done and when they make the corrections, your Page Speed score improves instantly. You don’t have to know what all the techno babble means, when you see the score has improved, you know that your site has been corrected. Here is what it looks like:

Value Points Summary1. Creative Use of Craigslist – Search

“trade” and filter with minimum price of $5,000.

2. Google Webmaster Tools – Google wants to communicate, it’s important to listen and adjust your site and linking accordingly.

3. Google Analytics Benchmarks – Hit Em.

4. Google Developer Tools – Page Speed Insights from the Ultimate Judge. Show your web provider or staff and tell them to fix it.

http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Thank You.