Brett Pringle

Solution Architect / Search Engine Analyst MediaVision Search, and crazy nut inbetween. Background in IT, then my career path to the online industry. The most challenging move i faced yet in my career was moving from an industry with rules and right's and wrong's (the IT industry - Hardware/Support) to a creative/interpretation/art industry of SEM. Since the end of 2005 it has been research, trial and error and more research to get to this point in my career where i can actually classify myself as a professional within SEM. My drive, to know what the industry leaders know, and be better at it.

Google Analytics 1 visit 00.00.00 avg time on site, 100% bounce rate

Posted by on January 23, 2012 in Analytics

Find the annoying 1 visit, no time on site and 100% bounce rate visits in Google Analytics? Frustrating seeing 1 visit, but there is no time? Not possible right?

Don’t panic, it is an actual visit. Yes, the visitor did leave after viewing 1 page. Keep in mind, that Google Analytics works with sessions. So if a visitor does not view an additional page on the site, Google Analytics will not have data on how long the visitor viewed the initial page. It won’t be able to pass the initial pageview data to the script on the following page.

Time to look at other metrics than fixate on avg time on site for a single visit.

What is bounce rate? Answer is not always call to actions

Posted by on August 19, 2009 in Analytics

Most people may very well be aware of what bounce rate is exactly, while there are still some that may misunderstand this metric, however it’s crucial to understand this metric correctly, otherwise actions that may need to occur to improve a site based on this misunderstanding may not deliver the results you may expect.

Avinash Kaushik, in a interview on WebProNews regarding bounce rate, mentioned “I came, I saw, puked and left” as the quick lamens explanation, while the technical explanation for bounce rate according to Avinash is “Single Pageview Session” for the bounce rate metric. In essence, you will notice when going through your analytics stats that visitor bounces are in line with a visit without navigating further (no clicky clicky), unless an event is triggered during the visit. In contrast, Blogs tend to have a higher bounce rate as visitors are usually there to read an article they found in a search or link, and will leave when complete (as said, in most cases).

Google Analytics subdomain tracking, custom script & filters

Posted by on May 17, 2009 in Analytics

There are a few pro’s and con’s to setting up individual Google Analytics website profiles for subdomains VS using a custom script to track to track your visitors across a website’s various subdomains. This post will cover using a custom Google Analytics script to track your visitor data across various subdomains within your website. If you are concerned on how you will be able to differ between the various subdomains from your analytics data, not to worry, i will cover that further within this post.

Google Analytics – creating multiple goals

Posted by on April 21, 2009 in Analytics

For many Google Analytics professionals this may be fairly straight forward, however many people using analytics on occasion require more than 4 goals for the website profile they are currently tracking.

The answer is very simple, a website profile is exactly that, it is a profile for a website. Need more than 4 analytics goals for a website? The solution, simply create a duplicate website profile for you site.

Login to your Google Analytics account, select your analytics account where the website you are currently tracking is located. Remember that analytics accounts contain website profiles. The analytics account dashboard will then display the website profiles that are associated with the selected analytics account and it is from here that you are able to create additional website profiles, setup goal tracking and manage filters.

Exclude filter in analytics for WordPress post/page previews

Posted by on January 29, 2009 in Analytics

I’ve never had to really create an exclude filter within Google analytics before, never had the need to exclude pages/queries from sites i’ve worked on. However i always need to preview my posts, allows me the opportunity to take another scan over for basic errors and to tweak images (perfectionist at heart).

I’ve hard coded my tracking script into the footer of my wordpress theme, so previewing posts is always tracked within the analytics. No point in creating a custom exclude filter for my home and office ADSL line, as the IP address always changes as well. So the other solution would be just to exclude all “preview=true” URI’s from being tracked, to help having to see my previews in my top content pages breakdown in analytics.

The Obama Effect – Online Marketing

Posted by on January 24, 2009 in Social Media

I’m sure everyone by now knows what an effect the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, has had across the globe. The “Yes We Can” attitude and his amazing ability to give hope and positivity to all those through his speeches had not been the only impact he has had on the world so far.

The online industry saw politicians enter the online realm with the race for presidency, starting with YouTube last year. But that was just the start, from MySpace and Facebook, Paid Search and Viral, right through to Twitter, Obama embraced the power of the online community to spread his message in one of the most successful online marketing campaigns i have yet seen.

2009 has started – so much happening

Posted by on January 15, 2009 in Business

It’s 2009 and for many South Africans back on the 5th, the catchup began while at the same time being fairly relaxed while the rest of the world started slowly drifting back from their time off.

The year kicked off with the fun Nerdies 09 awards, which i’m sure everyone’s twitter feeds went crazy with nominees and updates.

Surprisingly enough the reports coming in on the holiday season showed that the recession did not affect online retail as much as anyone would expect, with Hitwise reporting increases in online traffic and spend in the UK. As from today, IMRG reports and increase in 14.2% for online retail for the December 2008 period. Seems the recession had less effect on online holiday shopping as people would have expected. I can agree with that, being the unfortunate one to have to dive into the shops on Christmas eve, where there seemed to be more people shopping than i’ve ever seen in my life (South Africa that is).

Racialism in search?

Posted by on December 18, 2008 in Uncategorized

This first week of leave has had it’s up’s and downs with the tension headaches finally disappearing and a great shoulder muscle spasm taking it’s place. Anyway.

I do find it hard to keep myself completely away from the net, with that fear that some news may pass me by that i may need to know. Pro’s and con’s of the industry i’d say. Yet this morning in my twitter feed, Rich Ord posted a tweet that almost literally “pushed my button”. BBC had an article about “web searches for minority groups” pointing out that the internet may be blind to race, gender, creed etc. WHAT?!

[Begin Rant]

WordPress 2.7 – a fresh look for the new year

Posted by on December 11, 2008 in Wordpress

I have this urge to shout “it’s allliiiiive, it’s ALIVE!” in a creepy voice, just like a monster movie (oh my flashbacks from the “Cable Guy”). Alright, now that i have that out my system… WordPress 2.7 is here :)

Features a customisable dashboard, reply to comments from the dashboard and even re-arrange your posting screen to just name a few. Search and add plugins right from the admin area even upgrading the WordPress platform (now if i can just get my access permissions right on the server). I’m extremely impressed with the bulk editing update, which makes it so much easier to re-allocate posts to authors, etc.

Interesting new feature included is the “sticky post” option. All these new “toys”, it’s hard to decide where to start. The sneakpeak video says it all

Day out in Langebaan

Posted by on December 7, 2008 in Family & Friends

Time to eat at the StrandloperWith summer popping it’s head out, a Sunday roadtrip to Langebaan was definitely on the cards. 2 hour drive along the Weskus past Ysterfontein took us to Langebaan. I must admit, the place has changed drastically since i was last there a few years back. They even have a new shopping centre and some very cliche JHB looking estate agent with his face plastered all over the billboards.

The only slight problem we had with the trip out there, was that the restaurants in Langebaan only open after 12!? So without resorting to normal take aways, a little sightseeing at Mykonos was in order, with us ending up at Die Strandloper. Right on the sea, a very rustic, fishing themed little place, yet absolutely amazing. Remember to book in advance though if you are interested in having a “meal” there, R170 per person get’s you a 10 course meal, GREAT seafood (the massive potjie pots brewing in the background) and feel free to bring your own alcohol.

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