New Google Partners Experience

Google partners experience

Now Google has removed some barriers the entry For their Google Certified Partner status many may think to themselves - "it's time to jump on board!". For those of you that have passed the GA exam and are convinced you have the gumption to swing few more tests for a completed profile - be warned, the new process is vastly more difficult than the previous.

The old Google testing format allowed users to pause test, Then leisurely traipse around the internet- collecting data to boost their grade. Now that testing cannot be paused it will be necessary to know the information more intimately.

Educating the User Base

While it may be slightly more difficult to pass the tests themselves - Google has done a much better job of educating their users! Each test has recommended study units on the website that gives a full and complete understanding of the platform.

Google Certification for the Price of Free

The value of being a Google Certified Partner serves as an excellent pinion to adorn ones chapeau. It may not be easy, but with a little bit of dedication certification is totally achievable. Many novices and small businesses may have found the cost of testing to be an unattractive barrier to entry, now that that is no longer the case we can expect an influx of certified partners and small agencies. Good move Google!

Below is a great Hangout I stumbled upon that describes the new experiences precisely.

GTM - Auto Event Tracking!

Google Tag Manager Matures!

During the Google Analytics 2013 Summit they released a volley of features that I look forward to greatly! One of these being a listening tool for GTM (Google Tag Manger) I posted about it on my Tumblr and G+ and I have had my ear to the ground regarding its functionality. What many users have been doing up to this point is utilizing jQuery to target their events, but with this new functionality it is supposed to be even easier!

GTM.click

The GTM.click event is what enables the tag manager to listen for clicks on any web page. By hooking in the GA event tracking rule you can easily create event tracking that records the various parts of the <a> tags or buttons with macros. The element URLs, the page URLs, classes and IDs are all accessible. It is easy to create rules that have logic to track when a user clicks on an outbound link. +Justin Cutroni  made a very useful instructional guide on Youtube which I shared at the bottom of the page.

Top Ten Google Analytics GAIQ Certification Resources

10. Conversion University

Starting out is fairly simple, you know what Google Analytics (GA) is you have probably created an account or been granted access to a profile. You should learn the basics from the Google Analytics conversion university which exists on googleanalytics.com. They have in-depth videos and presentations that teach you about the various layers of data that exist within the GA platform such as accounts, properties, profiles, filters, and goals.

Link
http://www.google.com/analytics/iq.html

9. LunaMetrics

LunaMetrics is one of the foremost websites as it pertains to troubleshooting GA. You will find as you learn how to manage your account that their articles will be a guiding light - they may not be as much of a study guide as a safety net.

Link
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog

8. YouTube

YouTube is great for learning everything, GA is no exception. I found that YouTube was especially useful for questions about implementation. Furthermore there are always webinars from marketers that will give great insight and can help new users develop that strategic edge that is necessary to understand not only what is happening on your web property, but how to activate users and accomplish your goals.

Link
https://www.youtube.com/user/googleanalytics

7. Google Analytics Social Accounts

GA has verified accounts on twitter, Facebook, and of course Google+. Connect with them on these channels to stay appraised of upcoming changes to the platform. GA is constantly rolling out new updates to their products some of these changes may effect the questions on the GAIQ certification exam. In my own experience I know when I expect a change in the interface I feel excited rather than frustrated.

Link
https://plus.google.com/+GoogleAnalytics/posts
https://twitter.com/googleanalytics
https://www.facebook.com/GoogleAnalytics

6. Google Analytics Blog

The GA blog is a great source of information from product updates, to cross promotion for other services that can tie into your GA account such as tag manager and AdWords. The posts here are very informative and can help new analysts develop their goals.

Link
http://analytics.blogspot.com/

5. LunaMetrics Regex Book

This PDF makes regular expressions very accessible, I consider it the Cat in The Hat for regex. Understanding regular expressions is critical to being able to create filters and advanced segments and it is probably one of the most daunting disciplines of the platform.

Link
http://www.lunametrics.com/regex-book/Regular-Expressions-Google-Analytics.pdf

4. Google Analytics Prep Test

This website has a 200+ question prep test that can be customized to cover virtually any subject matter and scenario a new analyst may experience. I suggest starting off with a ten question examination every day, and working through the material until you feel confident enough to drop the 50 bucks into GAIQ exam.

Link
http://www.googleanalyticstest.com/

3. Google URL Builder

Campaign tracking is critical to tracking email based visits engagement information in GA. The URL builder makes it so it is no longer necessary to manually enter URL parameters when you are creating links in your email. The value of this tool is essential for comparing email sends to each other.

Link
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

2. Google Analytics Solutions Gallery

Google has gone through the exercise of developing some commonly useful custom reports, dashboards, and advanced segments to help users ask the right questions as they develop their analytical skills. In addition to the standard intelligence reports this makes it easy for users with no marketing experience arrive at some useful insights.

Link
http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/solutions-gallery.html

1. Google Analytics

People learn by doing, in order to be successful at analyzing GA and providing insights to your employer you need to feel comfortable with the tool. When you answer a question in a prep test make sure you are verifying it on your own accounts. Create a test profile, learn how to implement event tracking and create custom dashboards that contain the information that you clients and colleagues are interested in and push it to them through scheduled emails. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg "move fast, break stuff".

Link
http://www.google.com/analytics/

New Admin Interface for Google Analytics Places Everything in One Screen

Analytics - The Beastly Shape Shifter

Part of Google Analytics' Nature - for better or for worse, is that it is in a constant flux. Each iteration has brought out more features, or greater usability. Unfortunately GA hobbyists are often surprised by the changes and frequently frustrated by the lack of education that accompanies it. With Google Analytics most recent change, I think there will hopefully be less of an issue.

Doing Big Changes Right

Educating the User

The new administration page is now a smorgasbord of delightfully easy to identify tools. Everything is now in one place and easy to access. Gone are the days of drilling down into the administration menu in search of your tools! The new menu starts everything off with an educational alert that provides a link to more information about the account structure. 

Speeding Up Navigation

The account, property, and profile can be changed on the fly from a drop down menu above each column, this improves the entire admin user experience greatly over the previous breadcrumb method that GA implemented.

Maintaining Familiarity

My Favorite part of this new change is that Google used icons to accelerate the site usage by creating visual hallmarks, some of which had been used already in previous incarnations which makes them even easier to understand.

Track Googles Frequent Updates

The best way to feel comfortable with Google's changes to Google Analytics is to stay ahead of the curb, my number one suggestion is to subscribe to updates for The Official Google Analytics Blog via RSS like Feedly, or through Twitter. This way not only will you anticipate and look forward to Analytics Updates, but you will also learn invaluable information about the robust reporting suite as well!

Jumping on the Bandwagon for Fun and Profit

Technology companies are doing two things right now - firstly they are vehemently denying that they have any association with PRISM, and secondly they are creating petitions. Mozilla, the World Wide Web Foundation, stopwatching.us and even the White House. Brands and organizations can petition against the the PRISM initiative or they can petition against the prosecution of Edward Snowden whichever cause they choose, everybody wins!

Reflecting on PRISM

On its face, PRISM is something that the average American has suspected since the genesis of the Patriot Act. Whether you watch too many movies, or follow the news way too closely we all know that the United States has a vested interest in collecting data about it's citizens. The terrifying truth of PRISM is that can instantly recall anything you ever created online "privately". Your entire life is now an open book to the system administrators in mid-paying jobs that clearly have a machiavellian approach when it come to the issue of governance. How this immense database is used at the moment is less problematic than the longevity of this data. It can be accessed by whatever officials are influencing the NSA for the rest of our lives. Imagine how the government will be able to leverage that sort of power five, ten, or fifteen years from now!

Breach of Trust or Exciting Opportunity?

Okay, it's not all doom and gloom; sure this is heady stuff and we should take the matter seriously, but now that we all have a unified focus, let's use it to create awareness for our brands! We have a meaningful, and universally approachable stance against government monitoring and we are being represented by trustworthy companies like: Amicus, BoingBoing, Control Shift Labs, CREDO Mobile, DSLReports.com, Ghostery, Namecheap, NodeWest, TechStars, ThoughtWorks, Personal Democracy Media, and reddit. Taking a stance against PRISM shows your customers that you support their privacy. Even if your own data collection methods are as black as sin!

The rationale for attaching your brand to this issue is that more and more consumers are seeking brands that share their values and their passions. Conversely brands that do the opposite of what people believe receive spite and neglect, like Godaddy during the SOPA fiasco.

Google Analytics NSA Edition

Even though the wound is fresh, content publishers are already poking fun of the PRISM scandal and japing about the Power Point presentation. As a resident Google Analytics expert I find it thought provoking to consider the metrics and dimensions that the NSA is implementing to develop insights about potential threats. Is there an aggregate threat score? What is the funnel of terror that converts a normal citizen into a potential terrorist threat? Perhaps the best reporting tool would be multi-channel hate mixes, containing targeted problem individuals as well as diversely malevolent segments!

Looking Forward

The world has learned about PRISM, so whether the public likes it or not - we are aware of our surroundings can never un-learn how the sausage of our civil liberty is "made". Which is apparently by direct violation of our privacy. The natural progression from this point is several rounds or denial, followed by scape goats, and then topped with a smattering of something nefarious overseas after the media focus drifts away from PRISM there will be acceptance of the fact that secretive agencies have been, and will continue the way they have for decades.

Editorial
I may have been more writing to entertain than to inform, if anyone is looking to learn more about the technology the NSA is implementing then Ars Technica wrote an amazing article about the use of Big Data and graphing. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/what-the-nsa-can-do-with-big-data/2/

Facebook Pipe Dreams can Definitely Deliver

Why Leave Facebook to Move Files?

It's a simple idea - if Google, SkyDrive, and Box are trying to encourage sharing through the web, why not skip storage and move right to transfer? Pipe will be launching in the next 17 hours and it will enhance the level of interaction with Facebook by letting users cram up to 1 Gig of data transfer! By creating an environment where people can socialize and share large files all in one place Facebook is removing reasons for users to use competitor's services analogous to their platform.

How Did they Do it!

As The Verge has already reported The Pipe uses Adobe Air tech in an original paradigm to move information through the realtime media protocol. How well the software performs is to be determined, but if everything goes smoothly then the company already has mobile versions of the app in the works. 

Responsive Web Design

How Responsive Design Changes The Web

The internet as we know it is constantly evolving; as digital experts it is our duty to position ourselves on the cutting edge. We want to steer our clients away from fad-ware and push them to engage into quality platforms and applications. Responsive web design (RWD) is a well tested, highly effective design paradigm that enables us to optimized websites across all devices.

Device Agnostic

Being device agnostic literally means the website doesn’t believe in one device over the other. The pages are designed according to predetermined breakpoints in the CSS which focus on the screen sizes instead of individual brands, devices, and operating systems. Did we mention that responsive design is Google’s recommended configuration.

A truly responsive design will accomodate any screen size by utilizing media queries and fluid grids to adjust the content. Responsive design forces the designers and developers to create consistent experiences across platforms because unlike the traditional mobile redirects of yesteryear the experience uses many of the same assets as the desktop would albeit they may have been adapted to smaller file sizes.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/webmaster/what-is-the-difference-between-responsive-vs-adaptive-web-design/2540

http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/05/the-two-flavors-of-a-one-web-approach-responsive-vs-adaptive/

Ancillary Benefits

Some of the benefits of responsive design outside of the obvious is that responsive websites consolidate all of their traffic to one set of pages. This makes tracking traffic behavior as an aggregate easier and gives you the biggest picture available of your digital property. The other advantage of having one set of responsive web pages means that all of the authoritative links and “link juice” is being concentrated in one place, which means a higher quality score and better adwords placement. If anyone remembers the Google Panda update that penalized websites for having duplicate content, they will notice that responsive web pages had less issues because they did not have to reuse any copy.

http://www.copyblogger.com/mobile-responsive-seo/

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/06/recommendations-for-building-smartphone.html

http://www.brand5.com/why-is-pagerank-important

Strategy

When implementing a responsive design it is important to focus on the user experience and plan out what modules are going to stack or disappear at certain breakpoints. In a nutshell you can estimate that a responsive website is going to double or triple the amount of effort required to develop a site. There are some site where that are exceptions to the rule of “responsive is better” and they have very good reasons why they do not translate to responsive well. If a website capitalizes of of a technology that is perfected for desktop computers (like flash) then responsive design will not work well for the mobile users. It is also worth mentioning that M-commerce has not yet matured into an equal of E-commerce and many E-commerce websites are yet to jump on the mobile bandwagon.

It is critical that brands that are entertaining the idea of going responsive think about how they are going to make a great experience inside of a responsive layout, because it is not enough that the user can access the same page from their laptop and their phone, they have to enjoy the experience when they are there. An example of this is convertibles, basically two types of car in one; however everyone can see that not all convertibles are equal, especially when one compares a Nissan 370z to a PT Cruiser.

http://www.copyblogger.com/mobile-responsive-seo/

http://visualogs.com/

http://www.carzi.com/

Create an Experience

When building a responsive experience requires planning and creativity more so than older static designs. Evolving to meet the expectations of the user in a RWD framework can be difficult at first, but with determination and out-of-the-box creative thinking it is possible to leave lasting impressions and activate users in new and exciting ways. The below is a list of some of my favorite RWD sites.

Some inspired responsive websites are

• http://2012.buildconf.com/
• A good example of a standard responsive site
• http://css-tricks.com/
• A great example of consistently good experience for all screens
• http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/index.html
• The best example of a client side responsive ecommerce site
• http://www.atdrupalcon.com/
• An example of mixing responsive web design with parallax scrollling also you can make a lumberjack and a bear tousle!

Google Universal Analytics

Google Universal Analytics is the new face of GA. Gone are the days of exclusively web based reporting as GA evolves into a universal reporting platform.

GUA Status

The current universal tool is in beta, it will take some time for all the features to be implemented but so far it is already an improvement by moving many options that used to be specified in the tracking snippet into the administrator interface. With the new tools for adjusting campaign timeout and keyword exclusion, it has become a little easier to manage your properties.

Dimension Widening

It is now possible to create your own dimensions, which will allow new metrics like walk-ins, and loyalty card swipes. A great example of the power of GUA is the caffeine tracker that Loves Data put together.

Phone Tracking

Do you have an automated phone system in place for your customers? Now you can report on that information through GA and gain some keen insights on how customers are moving through your phone services.

Implementation

To start experimenting with the new Google Universal Analytics it is necessary to create a new property as a Universal Analytics web property and run it parallel to your current GA tracking code. Don't worry! It won't mess up your data! But it may be a good idea to consult your clients before installing anyway.

Why Worry About it Now?

It is a good idea to be proactive when it comes to GA because of the non-transferable, non-historic nature of the beast. Google has made no guarantees that it will offer a migration feature so it will be a good idea to start collecting history as of now.

Google IO - Updates Trickling Down

More Wood Behind Fewer Arrows

The IO is long over as I write this article, but as I look at my Google services, Drive, Gmail, etc; I cannot help but be excited for all of the attention they are paying to their platforms. There was a general sense that  the software titan is refocusing it's assets to create a consistent experience across the board.

Google Drive Changes

Fifteen Gigabytes for each user across their various accounts means that Google is now the leader of free storage crushing Box's 5 Gig limit and appealing to our sense of utility. After all, who uses 10 gigabytes of space on their Gmail account? I believe the new limit also applies to Google App engine which is something to keep in mind for users that are toying around with AE.

Geo-Fencing

One of the big changes for developers is the opening up of the Geo-Fencing API. This allows apps to interact with their users in the context of location like never before. As these tools become more and more accessible they will also yield better results! This technology is going to shine with the advancement of their new low power location systems. I haven't seen any case studies yet but I am sure they are coming through soon.

Hangouts

Did you scramble to play with the new Hangouts app after the keynote? I know I did! I was pleased with the unification of chat across all services and the sleek UI changes. There will definitely be some problems activating a community around the text chatting portion of Hangouts over the more open XMPP platforms that plug into Pidgin and Adium. My thought is that Google chrome should install Hangouts Chat by default - then Google will in essence gain the same user acquisition strategy as Facebook - "the general idea being, you are already here, why not chat?". Implementation would have to be carefully managed to keep the browser experience as clean as possible, but just speaking for myself - I have been enjoying the chrome Hangouts app as is.

Search

The search titan is striving to make the computer as cool as it is in classic Star Trek episodes. Chrome's Google Now feature is being updated, and the engine is being geared towards conversational searches through dictation and memory rather than the classic typing input. No word on when exactly the changes are going through, but I am certain we will be chatting up Google in the next weeks.

Page Speed

An important asset in your website optimization toolbox is page speed analysis. There are two ways to analyze your page speed, there is a very useful plugin for all major browsers from Google Developers that automatically assesses your website and makes suggestions based off of the images you serve, any excessive redirects, or whether or not browser caching is enabled.

The second way to analyze your page load time is by using pingdom as a critical path explorer. This provides a gantt like chart that illuminates potential problems ranging from un-minified CSS and JavaScript to over-sized images and possible DNS errors.

Below are the links to these two tools, keep in mind that there are many other page speed analysis tools on the market and many times they will give you different results dependent on where the server is located geographically.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/