Google Analytics is a fantastic tool with a lot of functionality but many webmasters don’t get the most out of their Google Analytics account. Kind of like we don’t use all of our brain, you may not be using all of the Google Analytics’ functions. Here are 9 Google Analytics features you aren’t using but should be. As an added note, if you aren’t using Google Analytics at all, you need to sign up now and make sure you take advantage of these 9 features.

If it sounds confusing, you’re not alone. However, Google has a comprehensive document on their website that describes custom variables in more detail and also guides you in setting them up.

Learn more:

• Google Analytics Custom Variables, Part I: Why?
• Custom Variables, Part II: The Code
• Custom Variables, Part III: Slots

Advanced Table Filters
Using advanced filtering can save you time. Instead of having to wade through pages of keyword results, for example, you can filter these keywords out using several filters including bounce rate, average time on site and pages viewed per visit. Watch this video from Google to learn more about how to use advanced table filters.

Learn more:

• New Feature Spotlight: Advanced Filters

Advanced Segmentation
Advanced Segmentation allows you to create more defined reports generated from your Google Analytics data. Google Analytics captures a lot of data and sorting through the available information can easily overwhelm novice users. Using advanced segmentation gives you more precise control of this data.

Learn more:

• Setup Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation
• What’s the difference between advanced segments and filters?

Weighted Sort
Weighted Sort is relatively new to Google Analytics. The feature provides you with another way to dig deeper into your data to obtain more actionable information. It is easy to initiate a weighted sort on your existing data, find the information you were looking for, and revert back to the standard sort.

Learn more:

• Your New BFF: Weighted Sort in Google Analytics
• Google Analytics Weighted Search is a License to Print Money

Analytics Intelligence
Google Analytics Intelligence allows you to create custom alerts based on specific events. Google Analytics Intelligence monitors your data in near real-time and can alert you when a significant event occurs, based on your preset data. You simply name the alert and then set the conditions.

For example, you can set up an alert to be notified when visitors from Phoenix post a 50% decreased time on site when compared to the previous day. Setting up the alerts is simple but it will take some tweaking to determine what type of data you want to generate an alert.

Learn more:

• New Feature Spotlight: Analytics Intelligence
• Playing with Google Analytics Intelligence

IP Exclusion
When monitoring your traffic data, you don’t want to count your own personal and employee visits to the site as this could skew your results. Think about how many times you, your Webmaster, web designers, etc visit your site during a big project. If you have millions of visits per month this may not make much of a difference but if you have a smaller site, these visits could overshadow your real traffic numbers. You can’t make solid website-based business decisions if you don’t know your actual traffic.

Learn more:

• How do I exclude my internal traffic from reports?

Stat Comparison
Google Analytics allows you to compare your existing statistics to previous data. You can compare this week’s traffic to last week’s or this even this year’s traffic to last year’s traffic. As an added bonus, you can schedule automatic comparison reports that are delivered to your inbox regularly.

There are several ways to use stat comparison to better your site but one example is figuring out what happened to keywords that once generated significant traffic for your site. If you are no longer receiving new traffic based on an important keyword, but you were at one point in the past, you can begin to focus on that keyword again. If you never bothered with stat comparisons then you wouldn’t know that you’re losing important keyword-based traffic.

Learn more:

• How do I compare different metrics or date ranges for a single report?
• Using Google Analytics to Compare Traffic from Different Periods of Time

Goals and Funnels
Google defines goals and funnels as:

Goals – A goal is a website page that serve as conversions for your site.
Funnels – A funnel represents the path that you expect visitors to take on their way to converting to the goal

Goals and funnels allow you to track specific conversions on your site. If your conversions are low, you can make the necessary changes to increase your site conversions.

Learn more:

• Google Analytics in Depth: Goals and Funnels
• What are the different goal types and how do I create each one?

AdWords Integration
If you are a Google AdWords customer, then you must integrate your AdWords account into your Google Analytics account. You will be able to better track the visits generated from your AdWords ads and get the most bang for your buck.

Learn more:

• How do I link my Google Analytics accounts to my AdWords account?
• Linking AdWords & Analytics: a Troubleshooting Guide

If you’re already a seasoned Google Analytics user, what are your favorite features?

SilverPlatter.info is one of the best sites for Phoenix music. The site was recently updated, so I was poking around and realized they could do a lot of things better with regards to search. I’ve outlined a few things for them here. The people who run it don’t do it for the money, they’re simply trying to foster the music community in the valley. It’s desperately needed, and appreciated by music lovers here. Hopefully they’ll implement some of the things I talk about.

First thing’s first though … INSTALL GOOGLE ANALYTICS!  No excuses here people.

Use Google Analytics to figure out how people are finding your site. It’s important to know which searches people are using to find you in the first place. You can then find out where you rank for all those searches, and choose to optimize for the ones that are going to yield the most traffic. Without know any of this though, I’ve developed a list of keywords they might want to target, at least initially, using Google’s External Adwords Keyword Tool, as well as Google Insights for Search.

Using the AdWords tool we can see that most searches for SilverPlatter’s niche revolve around ‘phoenix music.’ If looks like there isn’t a terrible amount of competition for ‘phoenix music’ so we’ll go ahead and use this term. It’s logical that this is the most relevant phrase for SilverPlatter, now we just need Google to understand that.  Lets take a look at what Google Insights for Search shows us …

Looks like a lot of people are searching for ‘arizona music’ as well.  Lets take this for a grain of salt, but there are ways we can accommodate both. The AdWords tool shows half the amount of searches for ‘arizona music’ which is odd, and which is why we’re not taking this too seriously. Lets see what a paid keyword research service, KeywordDiscovery, has to say about these terms …

Not even close to the data Google’s giving us. It makes sense that lot of people are searching for ‘phoenix music’ so we’ll just go with that as our top level keyphrase. This is something that we can easily change as time goes on. If we find more people are finding the site from one or the other we can adjust. This is part of the optimization process. We’re also pretty confident in this phrase because the Phoenix New Times is optimizing for it, as seen here …

Lets not forget to use AuthorityLabs to check where SilverPlatter ranks currently for some of the keywords we’ll be targeting …

It looks like they’re showing up for a few venue names and few band names, but they’re not even #1 for their brand searches.

Now, anyone will tell you it’s not about optimizing for a single keyword because that won’t get you anywhere, but the point of this is to find the primary theme people are using to find SilverPlatter, and for which to base all other strategies upon. Everything we do from now on will fall under the umbrella of ‘phoenix music’ and it will keep our efforts focused as we move forward.

Figuring out where to focus our attention is important, even more important when it comes to a side project. We’re going to concentrate on Community, Venues, Artists and Shows. You’ll notice that there isn’t a Community section on SilverPlatter yet. They’ve got the beginnings of it with the ability to create an account and log in. I’m assuming they’ll develop this a little more. A full-on social networking side of SilverPlatter would be great, but things take time and should always be tackled in stages. This could be the next iteration of what the people at SilverPlatter have already started.

So lets start with the homepage. I’ve organized everything by the way the site is currently structured. This will be a good base for them to built upon. I’ve tried to define what I think they’re most important on-page factors should be based on the research above. I’ve also tried to go into a few strategies, if set up right from the get go, will help them out tremendously in the long term.

Homepage

URL: Definitely not silverplatter.info … something with a .com.

.info domains are associated with spam in the eyes of Google. When .info domains were initially put on the market they were sold for very cheap, so spammers were able to buy these domains in volume cheaper than others. Because of that most .info domains are spam and Google realizes this.

Title: Phoenix Music | SilverPlatter

Description: Local Phoenix music information, concert calendar, venue and show reviews. Join the Arizona music community. Sign up with SilverPlatter.

Navigation: Navigation looks good, utilizing list code and formatted with CSS.

H1: The homepage H1 should be something else.  Right now it’s “Today’s Shows a taste of the week.” What does that tell us about the content on that page, nothing.

H2: Should be “Today’s Shows…,” “Staff Picks,” “Hot Tickets,” etc.

H3: Should be the date, because that’s how the content is organized.

H4: Should be the band name.

/community/

The SilverPlatter site was recently updated, and it looks like they’re trying to build in some community features. They now allows you to create a profile, review venues, and state whether you’ve attended a certain show or not. Community sections of websites can be extremely powerful from a social aspect. Allowing people generate content on a site not only helps foster community, but it can generate massive amounts of content, which drives traffic from search, if that content and page structure is optimized.

Profiles can also drive a good amount of traffic. More and more are people using Google to search for information about others. If a site has profiles, making those optimized for community members’ names can be a great way to get more traffic. This technique becomes more powerful the more people join a community. Ranking well for individual names should be a priority for any site with member profiles.

URL: http://silverplatter.info/community/

Title: Phoenix Music Community | SilverPlatter

Description: Join the SilverPlatter arizona music community and find great music and shows in Phoenix.

/community/firstname-lastname/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/community/john-doe/

Title: John Doe | SilverPlatter

Description: John Doe is using SilverPlatter to connect with the Phoenix music community, find new local band and get accurate and up-to-date Arizona concert information.

The above description can be used when a new profile is created, but the member doesn’t have any other info. You do want these descriptions to be unique to the individual though, so that when their profile is updated, the description is updated automatically. Member statistics like number of reviews, friends, shows attended, etc are all good things to include in a profile description. An important ranking factor is freshness, Google ranks pages recently updated higher than pages with older content. This is an easy way to keep profile content fresh.

Alt-Description: John Doe: 35 artist reviews, 5 venue reviews, and has attended 2 concerts since joining SilverPlatter.

H1: John Doe

H2: Shows, Artists, Venues

H3: Show Name, Artist Name, Venue Name

/community/firstname-lastname/favorites/

URL: /community/firstname-lastname/favorites/

Title: Firstname Lastname Favorites | SilverPlatter

Description: Favorite items for Firstname Lastname on SilverPlatter

H1: Firstname Lastname Favorites

H2: Favorite Item 1, Favorite Item 2, Favorite Item 3, etc.

/shows/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/shows/

Title: Phoenix Concert Calendar | SilverPlatter

Description: Local Phoenix Arizona concert calendar and information from SilverPlatter.

H1: Phoenix Concert Calendar

It seems that the people running SilverPlatter are organizing concert information by date first, which makes sense. So, we’re reinforcing that structure with the heading tags, and also the URL structure of each date page individually.

H2: ‘January 30, 2008′, ‘January 31, 2008′, ‘February 1, 2008′

H3: Band Name A, Band Name B, Band Name C, etc.

H4: Venue Name A, Venue Name B, Venue Name C, etc.

/shows/2009/january/30/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/shows/2009/January/30/

Title: Phoenix Concert Information for January 30, 2009 | SilverPlatter

Description: Listing of all concerts in Phoenix, Arizona for January 30, 2009

H1: Phoenix Concert Information for January 30, 2009

H2: Band Name A, Band Name B, Band Name C, etc.

H3: Venue Name A, Venue Name B, Venue Name C, etc.

/shows/2009/january/30/show-name-goes-here/

URL: http://silverplatter.com/shows/2009/january/30/show-name-goes-here

Title: Show Name Goes Here | SilverPlatter

Description: Concert information for ‘Show Name Goes Here’. Show times, venue details and maps courtesy of SilverPlatter.

H1: Show Name Goes Here

H2: Show Details, Reviews, Attending, Map

/artists/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/artists/

Title: Phoenix Band and Artist Information | SilverPlatter

Description: Find artists playing concerts in Phoenix, Arizona. Local band information for the greater Phoenix metro area from SilverPlatter.

H1: Bands in Phoenix

H2: Artist Name A, Artist Name B, Artist Name C, etc.

/artists/artist-name/

The goal here is to rank well for the artist name. A lot of artist sites aren’t search friendly whatsoever. This is actually one of the reasons MySpace became so large. Artists were using MySpace as their website. MySpace optimized their pages properly and now when you search for a band, their MySpace page will rank better than their website. SilverPlatter should attempt to take the same approach and at least rank when someone searches for the band name in the context of Phoenix, or Arizona.

URL: http://silverplatter.info/artists/artist-name/

Title: ‘Artist Name’ Phoenix Concert Information | SilverPlatter

Description: ‘Artist Name’ is playing in Phoenix. Get Artist Name concert, venue and band information at SilverPlatter.

H1: Artist Name

H2: About ‘Artist Name’, Shows, Vanues, Artist Info, etc.

/venues/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/venues/

Title: Concert Venues in Phoenix Arizona | SilverPlatter

Description: Phoenix concert venue information. Details on upcoming shows and more from SilverPlatter.

H1: Phoenix Concert Venues

H2: Venue Name A, Venue Name B, etc.

/venues/venue-name/

The idea behind this section of the site is to rank when people search for a venue name specifically. If SilverPlatter can collaborate with these places, and even get links from their site to the specific venue page they’ll have a decent chance of ranking well for searches for venue names. You could even use Yelp to pull in some details on venues if no one has added any yet. This will also help with an initial seed of content on these pages. Ultimately though, letting people review these places with an emphasis on concerts it will help SilverPlatter rank even better. Unique content on these venue pages is extremely important.

URL: http://silverplatter.info/venues/venue-name/

Title: ‘Venue Name’ Concert Information | SilverPlatter

Description: ‘Venue Name’ is a local Arizona concert venue. Find details and music related information on SilverPlatter.

H1: ‘Venue Name’

H2: Upcoming Shows, Venue Details, Photos, Reviews

/staff_picks/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/staff/

Title: Staff | SilverPlatter

Description: SilverPlatter can only happen with the help of wonderful people.

H1: SilverPlatter Staff

H2: Staff Name A, Staff Name B, Staff Name C

/staff/favorites/

You’ll see above in the community section that we added a favorites section to their profile. For ‘Staff Picks’ their profile information can simply be called out on the homepage. Their profile can have a special ‘Staff’ designation that will help set them apart, and filter their favorites from everyone elses. The ‘Staff’ page will also be able to be dynamically updated as different members are designated ‘Staff’.

URL: http://silverplatter.info/staff/

Title: Staff Favorites | SilverPlatter

Description: Favorite shows, venues and artist from the crew at SilverPlatter

H1: SilverPlatter Staff Favorites

/about/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/about/

Title: About | SilverPlatter

Description: SilverPlatter is the #1 resource on the Internet for local Phoenix concert, band and venue information. Join the SilverPlatter community today and discover the Phoenix music scene.

H1: About SilverPlatter

/contact-us/

URL: http://silverplatter.info/contact-us/

Title: Contact Us | SilverPlatter

Description: Contact information for SilverPlatter | Email: info@silverplatter.info | Phone: 666-666-6666 | Address: 123 W. Street St. Phoenix, AZ 85018

H1: Contact Information for SilverPlatter

blog.silverplatter.info

It looks as though the blog is a standar WordPress blog. They should be using an altered Thesis theme. There are plenty of resources out there on the best way to optimize a WordPress blog for search.

What else???

I’ve outlined a good amount of things SilverPlatter needs to do to get started optimizing the site better for search, but I’m sure I’ve forgot a lot. What else can they be doing?

Since the launch we’ve been signing up accounts left and right.  A lot of people have been asking … “Ok, so now I have this ranking info, now what?”

I’ve explained the way AuthorityLabs can provide serious value when used in combination with a good analytics system and keyword research tool a few times, so I thought it would make a good blog post.

First, if you have a website already and you don’t have analytics installed DO IT, right now! Google Analytics is easy to install, easy to use and best of all it’s free. Analytics information is invaluable these days. If you have a contact info form, or you’re actually selling something set up goals so you know what your conversion rate is. Use the Google Analytics Help Center to learn how to set up goals. Once you do this, wait a month so you have some decent data and then find out how much traffic you’re getting from search and which keywords people are using to get there.

Search referrals are telling you how people are finding your site through search. This is basically telling you what Google thinks your site is about. You’ll have some shorter phrases that are probably sending you some traffic, some branded keywords (keywords surrounding your brand name), and a lot of long-tail keywords as well.  Your long-tail keywords are probably making up a good deal of traffic. Go through these keywords and find the ones that are generating the most traffic for you, then export these in a .csv file.

Once you know which keywords are sending you traffic, add those to your AuthorityLabs account. In a day you’ll know where you rank for all those. Here’s where you can find some serious opportunity. For a lot of your keywords you might be near the first spot on Google. For most though, you’re probably not. You’re probably ranking on the 3rd or 4th page for a lot of your keywords. If you’re getting 50 visits a month (for example) and you’re on the 4th page, imagine how much traffic you can get if you’re on the 1st? Finding the keywords that are generating traffic, but where you’re not ranking that well is the first step of the optimization process.

You don’t want to optimize for terms that you don’t have a chance of ranking for, and you don’t want to waste your time on keywords that won’t drive any traffic.

Now that you know what’s going to be worth your time to target get into your favorite keyword research tool. I like Keyword Discovery, but WordTracker is a great one as well. You want to find keywords that support your targeted keyterms.  Keyword research tools will try and give you an idea of search volume. They’ll also give you an indication of how difficult those keywords will be to rank for. Don’t be concerned with this as much. These are meant to be keywords which support your content and linking strategy going forward.

Now it’s time to get cranking. Content is perhaps the single most important element to your search strategy. The more content on your site, the more search engines have in their index, and the greater your chance of ranking for something. If this content is themed correctly, linking correctly and targeting keywords correctly you’ll do even better.

What do you think? What tools are you using? Have you found another way to leverage ranking or traffic information? Let me know.