Hitwise says September 2011 search queries of eight or more words increased 3 percent from August 2011. So, what does this meant to you? Actually not much, but it does give me the opportunity, to show you the numbers for the other search term lengths. Knowing how many words the searching public (pretty much all of us), typically uses should be used in your search engine marketing strategy. You do have a search engine marketing strategy, don’t you?

That said, here are the numbers:

Knowing those numbers should affect how you approach search engine optimization (SEO), and your Google AdWords campaigns. You do have both of those in your search engine marketing strategy, don’t you?

The Answer: No, but you are, if you don’t frequently look at what Google Analytics (or another analytics program) is telling you.

When was the last time you looked at your website analytics? Here at WebWise, we matter-of-factly create an account and add Google Analytics code to the pages of nearly all new and redesigned websites we create. We also urge our clients to create a Google Account (most have them already), which we use to grant them access to their analytics. We give them the access info, and tell them that there is a near plethora of metrics to explore. Actually there are so many, and individually, the information from those metrics range from being a time-sucking curiosity, to extremely useful, to nearly critical to the success in reaching goals (You have goals for your website, don’t you?) set for their website, that it can be a bit overwhelming.

We do tell them the metrics we believe are most useful for websites in general, and their type of site specifically. Obviously, which metrics are most important can vary considerably depending on the type of website and the goals to be measured.

So, here is a short list for our clients who don’t remember which reports are important. It is also for the rest of you out there that are interested in the metrics that will likely give you most of what you need/want to know. Keep the list handy and you won’t have to spend hours of time poking around all of the ready-made reports (there are nearly 30 in the “Visitors” section alone), or creating an infinite number of custom reports. Of course, if you have the time to spend, there is a lot of interesting information in some of those reports as well.

The order in which they are listed is not necessarily indicative of their importance.

Dashboard – Site Usage: At the very least, check this report frequently.

Visitors Overview: This report gives you a quick view of the important totals for the reporting period. The GA reports default date range is the previous thirty days, and is easily changed to whatever you want. In this area, pay specific attention to:

• Absolute Unique Visitors
• Average Pageviews
• Bounce Rate
  • Explanation of this is too lengthy for this article, but important you understand

Traffic Sources

• All Traffic Sources
  • It is a good thing to know how traffic is getting to your website
• Referring Sites
  • It is a better thing to know just who really is sending you traffic

Content

• Top Content
  • By “Title” if you are unfamiliar with file names, and your webmaster did a good job with your page titles
• Top Landing Pages
  • Visitors don’t all come through your home page
• Keywords
  • This metric leads some astray. It is a measurement of keywords used while searching that actually brought visitors to your website. It is highly likely you have those keywords on your pages. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best keywords for you. If there are keywords you feel are important, and they are not showing up in this report, you need to look at your pages, and rewrite the relevant pages to include those keywords. That is, if you have researched to see if they are being used in searches, and they are.

  Of course, there is much more to say about Google Analytics, and other analytics offerings. If you regularly look at the reports listed above, and take some action based on what you find, your website will come closer to reaching the goals you have for it.

  You do have goals and expectations for your website, don’t you?

  USE Google Analytics to help measure and reach those goals, and please remember, adding up numbers is not measuring results. Dig to measure.

If you are looking for more self-qualified local traffic to your website, and have claimed your Google Places page, you should consider using “Tags” to make you local listing stand out. If you have not claimed your Google Places page for your business, scoot on over to Don’t Lose Your Place – Claim Your Google Places Page!

What are tags?

Tags are yellow markers that allow business owners to promote important aspects of their businesses. Potential customers can scroll over tags on Google or click on the sponsored link to view offers, photos, or other select features.

You use tags to highlight information in you Google Places listing. Using tags does not affect your search results ranking, but they do help your listing stand out in the crowd.

What are the benefits?

• Easily highlight your listing on Google from Google Places.
• Potential customers in your local area will see what you think is most important or unique about your business.
• Track the effectiveness of your tag with your Google Places dashboard.
• No additional work or ongoing management is needed.

What does using tags cost?

Google charges a $25 flat monthly fee, with no bids and no keywords required.

What tags can you use?

The tag types available for your listing are based on information you’ve already included in your business listing. For example, if you want to highlight a video about your business with a tag, you’ll first need to add the video to your business listing. Once you’ve added the video, the video tag option will show up in the menu for your enhancement types. Types of info you may tag:

• Coupons for your listing
• Photos of your business
• Videos of your business
• Menu for your restaurant
• Reservations page for your business
• Posts for your business

Example Place page Posts

• Specials: “Free chips and salsa today from 4-6. We’ll even throw in free guacamole.”
  Posted 3 hours prior to the start of Afternoon Special
• Events: “Come to “Anything Goes – Poetry or Prose ” Today from 7:30 pm to 9:45 pm.”
  Posted 4 hours prior to the event, linking to the Facebook event page.
• New products: “Have you checked out our newest pastries? they are yummy!”

You can only pick one tag at a time, but you can change or remove the tag whenever you’d like.

The bottom line:

If you have a business that depends on local traffic, and it is the type of business your prospective customers search for, you should, as we have talked about before, use your free Google Places listing, and many of you should consider using “tags.”

This should be a no-brainer for many of you.

Read Google Help to learn more about using “tags” for Google Places.

Of course, we are always happy to talk about how we can help you with Google Places tags.