If you’re not familiar with the Goal Copy Firefox extension, you can read the original post here.

The GoalCopy Firefox plugin has been updated (download here):

1. Updated to work with the most current version of Firefox

2. Fixed  some pasting bugs when pasting goals.  I hope

3. Added a Find/Replace filter

Find/Replace

So, I added this when working with a client that wanted me to create a very large number of very similar filters.  Each filter was for a different directory/hostname.  I wanted a simple way to just replace the directory and hostname with the next values in the list without finding them in the long strings of text and selecting-pasting and hoping I didn’t create typos during the process.

There is now a second Toolbar, named “GA Goal Copy Find Replace”

If you enable this toolbar, you have access to 3 find/replace boxes.

It works pretty much just like any other find/replace functionality you’ll find in other programs.

1. Copy any Goal or Filter

2. In any “Find” box, type in the text from the copied goal that you want to find, for example, “mother.com”

3. In the corresponding “Replace” box, type in the text you want to replace it with, for example, “father.net”

4. Now when you paste a Goal or Filter, the plugin will look for all cases of “mother.com” and replace it with “father.net”

5. It will do this for each of the 3 pairs of Find/Replace text boxes

Then you can go to the next Goal and put in “brother.org” into the Replace box and Paste.

And go to the next Goal and put in “sister.org” into the Replace box and Paste.

I don’t use this feature very often, but when I do have a use for it, it is a big deal, and a big time saver, and helps me with consistency and tpyos.

Download the updated GoalCopy Firefox Plugin here.

** If you downloaded the plugin and didn’t see the extra toolbar.  Please try downloading again.

Whenever a visitor crosses from one domain to another, the information contained in the cookies must be passed in the query string to the second domain. Google Analytics documentation recommends using the provided method of _link().  This looks like:

<a href=”http://www.newsite.com” onclick=”pageTracker._link(‘http://www.newsite.com’);return false;”>Go to our sister site</a>

Following this link will cause the visitor to arrive on the page http://www.newsite.com/?__utmb=. . . .&__utmv=. . . .&_utmk=123456789&__utma=1.1234567.1234567. . .&utmz=. . .

With the values of those query parameters used by the GA code on the new site to create the necessary tracking cookies.

But when you have a very large number of links that cross from one domain to the other, it is difficult to find and modify every one, and to continue to maintain and update new links as they are created in the site.

To manage a situation like this you can use JavaScript to automatically determine which links are cross-domain links.  Once the script has determined which links are cross-domain links, it can create event listeners to wait for someone to click on that link.  When they click, the event listener will trigger the GA code that adds the cookie information to the query parameters.

There are several examples of scripts like this, and sometimes the script will need to be modified slightly to suit a particular web site or particular needs.

iQ Content published an autotracking script in this blog post:

http://www.iqcontent.com/blog/2009/08/google-analytics-automatic-tracking-across-multiple-domains/

An example of a script that I used for a particular client:

http://lunametrics.com/autoTrack-crossdomain.js

You can also find script examples in the books:

* Advanced Web Metrics by Brian Clifton (http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/about-the-book/)
* GA Short Cuts by Justin Cutroni (http://gashortcut.com/)

If you have an example of an automatic tracking script for GA you’d like to share, link to it in the comments below.

Looking at a website written in a foreign language is incredibly insightful. You may not get the immediate gratification of being able to easily find the location of a particular Prada shoe store, but you’ll find out a lot about yourself and how you use the site.

Let me preface this post by giving you all a little background about my recent activities. I recently went on a 10 day trip to Rome, Italy to visit my mother who has an apartment there for a month.

Rome, with its seemingly never-ending wealth of culture, beauty and delicious, delicious gelato and amazing boots kept me completely occupied about 16 hours of the day. But at the end of the day as it got dark and cold and damp, I would come home and indulge in a tiny cup of espresso and my internet addiction.

Though I was under strict orders from Robbin to avoid work at all costs, I still found myself dabbling around the web looking at where clients ranked in Google from Italy and paying attention to the differences in the types of results that came up when searching in Italy (for instance, the local 7 pack wasn’t as prevalent there even if I did searches for local shoe stores etc.) I must admit, I was also researching where to get fur/leather/boots and all the other things I’d made up my mind to purchase while in Rome.

I should also mention that I do not speak Italian at all. I took some Latin in high school, but that’s about as close to Italian as I’ve ever come. This profound lack of literacy made wandering around on Italian websites a somewhat confusing venture. It was only after three days of searching around for various things that I realized that what I was actually doing was usability testing.

Interesting Insights

It occurred to me that, in the nanoseconds of time that users give websites to prove their worth, the actual words on the page matter slightly less than the overall composition and clarity of the webpage. I realized what a unique experience it was to have to translate meaning from colors and shapes rather than actual words on the site.

Since all (yes all) of the Italian the shoe store sites I drooled over were flash sites I won’t use them for this usability blog post. However, I was on a few Italian travel sites trying to find good prices for tickets for inter-European travel (for funsies…I was just curious about how much Italians paid for their vacations) and quickly just how difficult it is to use the Italian versions of Orbitz, and Priceline. Then I stumbled upon Edenviaggi and was immediately impressed.

The first thing that struck me about this site was its clarity. I felt that my eye could rest somewhere and, before I even knew what the words on the page meant, I felt like I could stop there and figure it out. It lacked the overwhelming info-packed clutter that plague so many other travel sites. The call to action is clear and was visible even on my tiny little netbook. The form was quick and easy to fill out and the resulting information was exactly what I wanted. It was the perfect research site, and I could immediately understand it without knowing a single word of Italian.

Translate Your Own Site

Now, if you really want to screw with your head, take a look at your own baby: the website whose content you crafted so carefully and whose design you agonized over. Go to translate.google.com and enter in the URL. Make sure you’re translating into a language you don’t know. Then take some time to click around your site, or a competitor’s site. Without text to guide you, can you figure out what to do? Is the website set up in such a way that you intuitively know how to get where you’re going?

It’s likely that without directions and prompts it’s going to be really hard to figure out where to go and what to do. Try checking out or filling out a contact form. Ask yourself how you could make that process more intuitive

In conclusion, I want to make a few clarifications. I’m not trying to imply that if you can’t get through your site in another language you (and your site) fail. The actual words on the site are integral to the user, and can’t be discounted.

I guess I’m just offering a bit of a unique perspective here. It’s sort of like how some famous artist (I wish I could remember who!) used to draw faces from the bottom up instead of the top down in order to free himself from the preconceptions inherent in doing something in an entrenched pattern. By removing one part of the website, you can gain insights into how you view other things and maybe some flaws will jump out at you.

Did you know you can make a coupon for your business through your Google Local Business Center? Not many people are aware of that, because the coupons have been nearly invisible to searchers since they were introduced back in August of 2006. Until now.

I present to you, Exhibit A:

I found this coupon in the wild while doing a search for “wedding photography Pittsburgh“. If you scroll over the coupon, it expands to show you more detail:

This little addition could have tremendous impact for local businesses. Just look how much the listing with the coupon stands out; the bright yellow definitely catches your eye. Of course, it’s only a matter of time until everyone jumps on this bandwagon, so it remains to be seen how Google will show the coupons when every listing has them. I can’t imagine them showing the same yellow coupon next to each listing – that would be cluttered and hard on the eyes.

Here are a couple more searches that I found interesting:

This is a search for “hotels Pittsburgh“. Notice how the listing in the top right stands out? It’s ranking at the #9 position (letter I), and it would be interesting to know if it would rank at all on the first page without the coupon.

Hey Pittsburgh attorneys, how would you like to get a few more phone calls from your Google Maps listing?:

That’s right, not a single coupon… yet.

Here’s another one, this Pittsburgh plumber has the idea:

All those dots, and he’s the only one with a bright yellow coupon.

And finally, a bit of a surprise. Usually locksmiths are all over this kind of thing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (at least not in Pittsburgh – I’m busy right now doing a much more thorough search of cities and categories).

How long do you think it will take until more businesses start utilizing these coupons?

“If I use keywords in the link title attribute, will that help me rank higher?”

I recently had a client ask this question. They were under the impression that using keywords in the link title would help in terms of SEO. Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily the case. There are several issues to consider, the big one being usability. Let’s take a look at this link title, shall we?

What is the link title attribute?

Put simply, the link title attribute gives additional information about the page being linked to. Here’s what the W3C has to say about it:

The title attribute is used to provide additional information to help clarify or further describe the purpose of a link. If the supplementary information provided through the title attribute is something the user should know before following the link, such as a warning, then it should be provided in the link text rather than in the title attribute.

When should I NOT use a link title?

You should not use a link title if you’re just repeating the anchor text. Not only does that not provide any additional information about that link and the page it goes to, but you could be annoying your visitors (if they’re anything like me). Have you ever scrolled over a link and the title pops up, covering surrounding text. Yeah, that’s what I mean by annoying.

When should I use a link title?

Use the title attribute for your links when you can provide additional information about that link and/or the page it goes to. For example, if your anchor text just says click here, give your users a better idea of what they’ll get if they click on the link (scroll over the “click here” link to see what I mean).

Of course, I’m not the first one to talk about this. If you want to find out more about the title attribute for links, here are some helpful resources:

How to Use Link TITLE Attribute Correctly

Supplementing Link Text with the Title Attribute

How to Customize Your Link Title Attribute

Do you use the title attribute on your links? If you do, let me know in the comments if you have any cool examples, or if you do it differently.

We’re continuing to update the GoalCopy Firefox extension to make it as useful as possible. This update comes right on the heels of the most recent update a couple weeks ago.
If you’re not familiar with the GoalCopy Firefox extension, you can read the original post here.

What changed:

The “Copy Goal” buttons and the “Copy Filter” button now just say “Copy”.  This is because each of the 5 Copy/Paste button pairs on the GoalCopy toolbar will now copy both Goals and Filters, based on which form you are viewing when you press “Copy”.

After copying a filter, the Paste button changes from saying “Empty” to saying “Paste Filter”, indicating that you have copied a filter.

Likewise, after copying a goal, the Paste button changes to say “Paste Goal” indicating you have copied a goal.

Of course, if you try to paste a Goal into a Filter form, or paste a Filter into a Goal form, it won’t work.  But, in addition to not working you’ll see an alert box to tell you what you did:

That’s the update. And you can get it here: goalcopy.xpi

If you’re not familar with the Goal Copy Firefox extension, you can read the original post here.

Goal Copy now works with the new GA Goal Interface.  Sorry it took me a while to get it updated and posted.

But as a bonus, you’ll now find an extra pair of buttons for Copying and Pasting Filters.  They work the same way as the Copy and Paste Goal buttons, (but they don’t have little icons next to them).

When you Click on the “Copy Filter” button while editing a filter, the filter fields are stored, and the “Empty” button changes to display the Name of the filter being stored.

Thanks to Jeremy Aube from ROI Revolution who helped me out with the coding methodology on handling the new GA Goals Interface. Check out his posts on the ROI Revolution blog for some great tools and great tips.

Download Goal Copy Firefox Extension

We’re doing some experiementing with our Google Analytics training (coming up in Washington DC on Dec 8 & 9th, 2009).  The biggest problem attendees face, and we face as instructors, is getting the level right.  Not too easy,  not too hard. But those things are different for everyone.

That’s why we decided to do Basic GA Analysis the morning of Dec 8, more advanced analysis that afternoon, and techie implementation all day on the 9th. You can pay for just half a day on the 8th ($199) and there are discounts to come to the full day (and yet more discounts to come to both days.)

Here is the link for the event, where you can see the schedule, and here is the registration page.

Robbin

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about Google’s announcement at eMetrics of the new features to Google Analytics (if you were away from your computer for the past 24 hours, read our post about the new features in Google Analytics).

A lot has been written about these new features. Of course, we’ll be spending the next couple weeks going over each new feature in detail, letting you know how to use it, why it’s important, and what it means for your analytics. In the meantime, here’s a look at what other people are saying:

Google’s Official Announcement – This is required reading if you want it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Daniel Waisberg on Search Engine Land goes over the basics and adds his own analysis. Be sure to read the last paragraph about the importance of human analysis in conjunction with analytics tools.

Stéphane Hamel at immeria goes beyond just rehashing the new features by offering his take on them and what this announcement means for the web analytics industry.

Justin Cutroni over at EpikOne goes into detail on one of the new features – expanded and engagement goals. Your goal should be to read this (cue rimshot and tomato throwing).

And for you videophiles out there, here are three videos from Google showing off some of the new features:

Expanded and Engagment Goals

Create up to 20 goals per profile and group them into for different Goal Sets. Track your conversions and site engagement with URL, average time on site, and pages per visit based goals.

Advanced Table Filters

Advanced Filtering simplifies narrowing down data in the reports table by allowing threshold filters to be created. Instead of creating standard profile filters or weeding through rows and rows of data, Advanced Filters can be created on the fly for any report.

Analytics Intelligence and Custom Alerts

Google Analytics helps you make faster, smarter decisions with the new Intelligence reports and Custom Alerts. The algorithmic driven Intelligence engine monitors your traffic and provides automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods.

Google Analytics has just introduced a gaggle of new features at eMetrics today. Some you’ll already find in your account, and some are being rolled out over the next couple of weeks.

Analytics Intelligence & Custom Alerts

The most exciting of these new features is a set of reports called “Analytics Intelligence”. They look for patterns in your daily, weekly, and monthly data and call out significant changes and anomalies. This makes it a lot easier to separate what’s really new and interesting from the mountain of data you have about your site.

Here’s an example Intelligence report:

You can see it calls out alerts for changes in the patterns of your traffic. (You can adjust the sensitivity level with which these show up.) The specific alerts look like this:

You can see here that referral traffic was up from what’s expected (visits up 66%, pageviews up 54%) These really help call out changes in your traffic that might otherwise be hard to see without digging through lots of reports.

In addition to all of this happening automatically, you can also create custom alerts. Say I want to know when my organic search traffic is up 10% from last week:

And, you can even have GA email you when that happens.

But Wait, There’s More!

There are a slew of other features, too. We’ll be covering all of these in more depth in the coming weeks.

Goals:

• If you’ve ever created yet another profile to have four more goals, you’ll be relieved to hear that profiles will now be allowed 20 goals each.
• You can now set goals based on Pages/Visit and Time on Site!

Advanced Analysis Features:

• New, easier-to-use filters for reports. In addition to the existing “contains/excludes” filter you can use a nice interface to build multiple conditions for filtering, and also allow you to filter based on metrics.
• Previously-announced secondary dimensions and pivots are rolling out to everyone.
• The unique visitors metric will now be available in custom reports.

New Tracking Features:

• Multiple custom variables. Previously, you could use the user-defined variable, but you only got one and had to resort to workarounds to get multiple values. Now you get multiple values out of the box, and you can specify whether to track them at the page, visit, or visitor level.
• Expanded mobile tracking, including tracking for iPhone and Android apps and tracking websites for mobile devices that do not run JavaScript.

You’ll hear lots more about these in blog posts coming soon, and you should see the features rolled out into your accounts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!