We are Insightland. We have insights for you.

Enter Insightland. More than just a data-driven business partner, we’re your digital safe land on a sea of trends.

*This success story wouldn’t happen without these people!

From where do we know that much about a client? We have been in this industry for over 8 years and our accumulated knowledge about fashion, customer behavior and technical side of online shopping is Insightland’s know-how.
We’re not just another agency; we’re a team of passionate enthusiasts crafting strategies for those hungry for sales growth. We do website audits, we create SEO-friendly content, we improve visibility and while providing complex service we have a simple, final goal – to unlock the potential and increase client’s revenue.
We know you’re likely to whip out your phone for online shopping, and we’ve got our finger on the pulse of what’s in vogue. We can describe you well: Quality matters to you, and so does finding the perfect pair of moccasins with just the right amount of flair. And we do know that you are about to buy a new pair of shoes.
Insightland is here to guide brands like Hego’s Milano to your screen, ensuring you find exactly what you’re looking for while Hego’s Milano can focus on making shoes clients love. Clients like you. As Insightland, we are inside of insights that our business partners can be outside and run their business.

A brief story of success, where moccasins and page indexing played a main role

So, why are we sharing this story? Because we’ve witnessed firsthand the remarkable transformation of one of our clients. Hego’s Milano, an online boutique, achieved significant improvements in website indexing and traffic, despite modest financial investments. Insightland people make magic on a daily basis, and the results are worth nominating for the European Search Award!

Hego’s Milano DNA vs keywords

The main goal of the whole makeover was to bolster traffic to the Hego’s Milano website, and enhancing keyword positions served as a crucial element of the strategy. Acheving this was possible only thanks to unlocking service potential by fixing urgent technical issues.
Hego’s Milano distinguished itself by its keen focus on emerging trends, offering a curated selection of high-quality products sourced from renowned brands. Moreover, their appeal extended to a discerning audience of female consumers who were not only fashion-conscious but also sought after novelty in their footwear choices. By aligning our strategies with these brand attributes, we ensured that our efforts resonated with the core values and aspirations of Hego’s Milano’s target demographic, thereby maximizing the impact of our digital initiatives.
We wanted to increase the keyword positions for keywords related to brands and keywords from the lower sales funnel level to reach the targeted audience, so knowing well the brand identity was a must.

Creativity followed by implementation

With the stage set, Insightland unveiled its arsenal of technical prowess. Firstly, a meticulous audit revealed the presence of hidden adversaries – content duplication across 2 million pages, concealed within server configurations.

*We love working remotely, but physical presence is still something we cherish. Our team meets often in our office, where all of Insightland’s strategies are created.

Yet, our mission against duplication did not stop at the surface level. Recognizing the need for well-established digital defenses, Insightland erected a formidable barrier against the upcoming scourge of duplication. Through the implementation of advanced safeguards and protocols, they fortified Hego’s Milano’s, ensuring that the specter of duplication would be banished.

It’s time to share a secret:

We wouldn’t be fully honest without sharing at least one secret. Which errors from Google Search Console did we correct?

• Server errors
• 404 errors
• Duplications errors

We corrected it by adding 301 redirects to related pages from 404 errors and improved the internal linking. The server configuration was checked and corrected due to compression settings (gzip) and the correctness of server-side scripts.
With surgical precision, Insightland optimized URL indexation, rectified server errors, and erected digital defenses against the encroaching scourge of duplication.

Conclusion: a triumph beyond measure

An astonishing increase in revenue stands as a testament to the efficacy of our approach. With each percentage point representing tangible growth, it’s clear that Insightland’s intervention has propelled Hego’s Milano to unprecedented heights.
But the impact extends beyond mere numbers. It’s about the stories behind those statistics – the newfound visibility, and the influx of delighted customers discovering their perfect pair of shoes with ease.
In the end, it’s not just about optimizing URLs or rectifying server errors; it’s about crafting narratives of success by unlocking the potential, where brands thrive and customers find exactly what they’re searching for. And in this tale of triumph, Insightland emerges as the unsung hero, steering brands towards digital glory with unwavering dedication and unrivaled expertise.

Our holistic approach makes success stories, because good SEO and analytics are only means, not the final goal. Final goal is a client’s ultimate success. What’s combining those two seemingly disparate specializations? Insights, priceless insights that allow us to build data-driven strategies that give great results, like it was this time!

The post From keywords to revenue: Unlocking potential with Insightland’s expertise. appeared first on insightland.

Given the ongoing economic context, the dynamics of shopping are constantly changing. In fact, nine out of ten Polish consumers admit that they have modified or plan to modify their usual shopping routine.^[1] Some of the new shopping strategies identified include:

• e-shopping – making purchases online out of a belief that better prices/deals are available online,
• hunting deals – shopping by hunting the bargains, e.g., on Black Friday,
• quality shopping – based on trust in recognized, high quality brands,
• low-risk shopping – making purchases with easy returns and deferred payments,
• belt-tightening – buying only absolutely necessary goods,
• ASAP shopping – seeking to make purchase prior to inflationary price increases.^[2]

At the same time, the nature of today’s changes in shopping processes compels e-store owners to be more vigilant about the users’ behavior within the website. This includes analyzing potential customers’ navigating through the purchase path, using analytical tools such as HotJar, Clarity or CrazyEgg. With these tools, not only is it possible to verify the website’s pain points (i.e., components that potentially negatively affect the purchase path and “block” users from making a purchase), but also to determine at what stage of the purchasing process the user is. User behavioral analysis also entails store owners to revisit the purchase path within the website, thus enhance the chances of conversions made online.

The current economic situation also contributes to the extension of the purchase path due to in-depth offer research. Consequently, the product information, its quality, potential returns, and entire purchase process should be optimized for users’ needs and matched to the appropriate stage of the sales funnel.

Stages of the purchase path and its specifics

The purchase path falls into three stages:

• TOFU – building awareness

TOFU which stands for “Top Of the Funnel” is the starting point of a user’s purchase path. At this point a potential customer recognizes the need to purchase the product but is often missing specific details about the product or brand. TOFU focuses on building awareness, so the user should receive information about the product, for example from blog posts like topic teasers, performed tests and case studies showing the product’s advantages, but also all kinds of analysis. The aim of these materials is to provide a potential buyer with the information necessary for them to decide and complete a purchase.

• MOFU – deciding on opportunities

Having built awareness, the user moves to the decision-making stage, i.e., the middle of the sales funnel: MOFU. At this point, their expectations concerning the product are already more defined, but the brand remains an unknown. The potential customer is thus making comparisons between products available on the market that are relevant to their needs. MOFU is therefore a stage of in-depth research, where the user needs specific data on goods. Accordingly, relevant content of their interest includes comprehensive blog posts or tutorials and how-to videos or those with reviews, as well as ready-made merchandise comparison engines.

• BOFU – a decision

BOFU is the decision and action stage, which is the last moment to win the customer’s attention and convince them to make a purchase. At this point, social proof, meaning proof of social validity, will work well. This includes past customer reviews, merchandise ratings, and visual product comparisons which clearly indicate the advantages of the product on offer.

How to analyze the purchase path?

There are diverse ways to streamline the e-commerce shopping process, depending on the industry, the specifics of the e-store and its website, and specifically the target audience. Before starting to optimize the purchase path, however, it is necessary to identify potential improvement areas. To this end, it is worth using analytical tools such as Google Analytics, which provides access to the Bounce Rate data on rejection levels, as well as to Conversion Rates. These metrics can serve as a starting point for optimizing the website in terms of making purchases.

Tools like Clarity or HotJar can be used it the next steps. They allow for verification of the most frequently displayed sections of a page, as well as tracking the exact navigation moves of users (with the GDPR in mind) during a given session, thus giving a chance to indicate improvement areas. In addition, it is also worth considering A/B testing of specific solutions on given sub-pages, such as changing a button color or the placement of specific elements, to decide on the optimal solution.

Mechanisms for influencing the purchase paths

Matching content to the intents of search phrases in each stage of the purchase path and trends

Equally important, however, is the keywords’ intent in the context of the purchase path stages. It is particularly significant about the earlier-discussed diversified purchasing strategies of consumers, which imply a variety of the purchase moments for the goods in question, which are non-uniquely correlated with the trend. This includes changing the user concept depending on the shopping stage they are in.

For example:

A user plans to buy autumn/winter boots but does not yet have specific expectations. So, they type the phrase “$gender boots” into the search engine. Following the initial research, they decide to buy insulated boots. Thus, the next time they approach their purchase, they type “$gender insulated boots” into the search engine and expect to get specific results relating strictly to the keyword they used.

Based on this example, matching keyword search intents in the context of different sales funnel stages is crucial not only because of the peak of key phrase searches. – For the sake of the above example, let’s assume that the highest volume of searches for the phrase “boots” takes place in September. – Online stores also need to keep in mind the moments before and after the maximum surge of interest in a product, so as to address the expectations of a wider audience who could potentially change their buying strategy and make a purchase under “hunting deals” or “belt-tightening,” categories i.e., when the goods are no longer in the sales peak, but the buyer necessarily needs them at a given time.

It is also worth mentioning Google’s increasing focus on phrase intent and the “relevance” of the website content to the user, including the recent Helpful Content Update algorithms (initially only available in English-speaking markets). This consists in creating sub-pages focused on a given phrase intent, for example, for the phrase “women’s black boots,” there should be a separate sub-page linked from “women’s boots” page. With such a process, Google’s bots can more easily match our dedicated sub-page to a specific phrase, thus increasing our chances of getting to top rankings in search results.

Making the website display more attractive in organic results

Regarding the above example, e-stores should also pay attention to displaying their sub-pages in organic results.

When typing in a search phrase of interest to make a purchase, the user expects to get maximum specific results with product details and preview visualization, e.g., as images under the search result (screen below).

The visualization above is based not only on the work done by website owners to make the results more attractive, but also on the site’s evaluation by Google bots. When a website has a clear navigation structure with categories and subcategories as well as optimized graphics, the chances of displaying it in organic results as in the above examples goes up. This increases the odds of catching the user’s attention, which in turn leads to them going to the website and potentially making a purchase.

Looking after the product creation – social proof

Once the user’s interest is gained and they go to our website, it is necessary to maintain their interest. The worst possible scenario is for the user to get lost on the site, get annoyed and abandon it. This can be caused by unintuitive website menus, long page loading times, errors on the website, inadequate product range or lack of product information, which the user looks for, for example its size.

So, in terms of appropriate product creation, it is worth considering communicating both the product details, as well as the materials used or size.

Example: auroria.pl

The merchandise presentation also includes a suitable visual format of the product like photos. The product images should show the product from all sides, preferably also on a model, to make it easier for the user to visualize the product with specific styling. On top of that, it is worth mentioning that at the recent Search On conference Google hinted at a planned implementation of 360 graphics in organic results. Having on-page photos from every angle will certainly be an add-on value in the near future.^[3]

Example: deezee.pl

Another component of product creation involves cross-selling, which affects the average shopping cart value and direct navigation of the consumer within the website. At the same time this serves as an example of reaching out to users by pointing out complementary products in cross-selling, thus making shopping easier.

Example: wojas.pl

Social proof also falls within the scope of product creation, which positively influences the user’s purchase path. This means guiding the user to the opinions of other buyers about the product, to reassure them that their interest in the product is justified, as there are a number of people satisfied with their purchase.

Example: wojas.pl

User experience along the purchase path

The purchase path includes not only the product creation methods and mechanisms demonstrating the qualities of a given merchandise. It also serves as an adequate and clear message to the user about the products’ delivery, the possibility to make a return and the difficulty level of this process, as well as the available payment methods.

Naturally, in order to meet the users’ expectations, access to the said information should be as easy as possible, while the information needs to be comprehensive and answer questions which the user has not yet asked. Plus, to enhance the user’s experience along the purchase path and facilitate the buying process, payment and delivery options should be broad, so that the buyer has a choice of the most convenient one.

Example: deezee.pl

The same applies to making returns. Since online shopping is subject to uncertainty as to whether a product will turn out to be the right size, material, and comfortable to wear, a way to reassure users is to allow free returns, for example.

Example: wearmedicine.com

At the end of the day, the right level of purchase path optimization holds the key to a satisfactory sales process (right next to attractive product range and pricing, of course). There is no perfect mechanism, however, which will do its job for every target group, every industry, and every website, and in addition will operate with the same efficiency in the long term. By the same token, bear in mind that optimizing a website for both SEO and users’ purchase path is an ongoing process which will evolve with the needs and buying habits of visitors. Thus, the key to success lies in continuous analysis of competitors’ activities and users’ behavior within the website.

^[1] “W Kryzysie Do Ecommerce Raport 2022” – https://eizba.pl/app/uploads/2022/08/W_Kryzysie_Do_Ecommerce_Raport_2022.pdf

^[2] ibidem

^[3] https://searchon.withgoogle.com/

The post How to improve the e-commerce shopping process? appeared first on insightland.

What’s the most used concept in web analytics?

I bet that if you asked this question around, “session” would be one of more common answers.

It is universally acknowledged that session is one of the key concepts in web analytics and it is very useful in a variety of applications. In certain situations though, we need to consider something more general, don’t we?

In some cases we’d like to analyze interactions over longer periods of time and across many sessions. Marketing attribution is one of the important use cases requiring such a multi-session approach. In an attribution problem, we analyze the traffic sources leading to a conversion and evaluate the impact of each source (basically saying, which sources were essential for that particular conversion and which were redundant).

Certainly, to do so we need to define which sources are even taken into account in the first place! We need to define a user path leading to the conversion.

Attribution is not the only area where the user paths are essential. Think about the possibilities! Behavioral analysis…across many sessions. Identifying pain points…across many sessions. These seem like very powerful tools to enhance the business and they do require finding user paths as a preliminary step.

 So, how do we do this in a data-driven way? Let’s dive in!

The Dataset

We’re going to assume the Google Analytics data model, since this is the industry standard. We’ll go ahead and use the GA4 data as Universal Analytics is deprecated anyway.

We’ll need to access the raw data to see the parameters which are obscured in the reports (like clientID), hence the Big Query link is a must.

 To illustrate the method, we’re going to use the sample GA4 dataset provided by Google:

Though Google warns us that the data is obfuscated and the internal consistency of the dataset might be somewhat limited, we can work with that for the sake of the illustration.

Let’s get to it and grab some data! All we really need for now is:

• Unique client ID
• Unique session ID
•  Timestamp of each session start
• Label for the converting sessions

GA4 data model is strictly event-based and session is more of a derived concept  – unfortunately this means that we won’t be able to get all the data we need right away – we’ll have to work a bit harder for that.

Let me just state the query first and explain the details below:

WITH TMP AS
  (
	SELECT
  	user_pseudo_id,
  	ep.value.int_value AS session_id,
  	event_timestamp,
  	CASE WHEN event_name = 'purchase'  THEN 1 ELSE 0 END AS purchase
	FROM `bigquery-public-data.ga4_obfuscated_sample_ecommerce.events_*` e,UNNEST(event_params) ep
	WHERE
  	_TABLE_SUFFIX BETWEEN '20210101' AND '20210131'
  	AND ep.key='ga_session_id'
  )
SELECT
  user_pseudo_id,
  session_id,
  TIMESTAMP_MICROS(MIN(event_timestamp)) AS session_start,
  SUM(purchase) AS transactions
  FROM TMP
  GROUP BY
	user_pseudo_id,
	session_id

So, if you examine the GA4 data model you’ll notice the user_pseudo_id column which will work fine as the unique clientID. sessionID, on the other hand, is somewhat hidden – it’s available in the nested array called event_params.

The array contains key-value pairs of all parameters given for a particular event – we’re looking for the int_value of the ga_session_id parameter.

Since we’re working on the event-level data, we don’t have any session-level statistics – we’ll have to calculate them ourselves.

That’s why we’re creating a temporary table TMP first – we select all events along with their timestamps and use a CASE WHEN statement to distinguish the purchase events representing transactions.

 Once we have all that data, we can summarize the temporary table grouping by user_pseudo_id and session_id to get the desired session-level results.

Last but not least, mind the condition for the _TABLE_SUFFIX in the WHERE clause. GA data is stored in table shards (one for each day) – this condition is going to select the data from January 2021 yielding around 120’000 sessions – for the sake of the experiment, this kind of volume will do okay; moreover, the resulting table should be small enough for you to save it as a local CSV file.

Introducing Breakpoints (transactions)

Now that we have the session data, let’s define our user paths. To do so, we’ll find the breakpoints – the moments when one user path ends and another begins.

 It’d be just splendid to do this in an objective way that’s universally true, but in reality this would prove very difficult if not undoable. What we’re going to do is create a model based on some assumptions.

 To find our first assumption, let’s rephrase the problem first. A user path is a collection of sessions leading to the conversion, right? This means that alternatively we could call it a conversion process. So, when does the conversion process end? When the conversion occurs, of course!

Well, in reality this might not be exactly true. Imagine the situation when a customer buys an item and returns an hour later to buy a related item – in this case it would be reasonable to include that follow-up transaction in the previous user path.

But again, a model is a simplification of reality based on some assumptions. While one could consider a more nuanced approach to the breakpoints which would result in a more complex model, this time we’re going to assume that a conversion definitely ends a conversion process.

Let’s illustrate this with an example! For instance, check out the person with user_pseudo_id = 27488559.4267170544. Let’s call them Alice for convenience. Of course I’m using Excel, by the way, why wouldn’t I?

There’s a bunch of sessions and two transactions associated with Alice. Let’s plot this on the timeline – since we had two transactions, there are two separate conversion processes for this user (I marked the transactions in orange):

Breakpoints revisited

Alice’s conversion processes look rather reasonable but there’s one thing that could raise an eyebrow. These two sessions in the very beginning don’t quite match, do they?

See, a lot of time passed between session number 2 and session number 3 – it’s been more than a week! Typically sessions within one customer journey have been more clustered together. Wouldn’t it be sensible to exclude those first sessions and treat them as an entirely separate customer journey?

This observation leads us to the second key assumption of the model. We’re going to assume that prolonged inactivity ends the transaction process.

This, on the other hand, raises another essential question: when does a period of inactivity become prolonged? Which basically means: how do we decide that a transaction process has failed due to inactivity and should be discarded?

 To do it we’ll empirically find the distribution of the waiting times and then test each waiting time against it. We’ll say that a waiting time longer than a certain quantile of this distribution ends the current user path. The choice of the breakpoint is up to us – if we want to promote longer customer journeys, we might allow longer inactivity periods and vice versa.

 Let’s plot the normalized histogram of waiting times along with a couple of quantiles:

We can see that if a user is going to return at all, it’s most likely to happen within the first couple of hours. Also, we might have been right about Alice’s sessions – the probability of return within the first week is more than 90% so the period of inactivity between second and third session seems a bit excessive.

Let’s include the breakpoints due to inactivity in Alice’s session history; we’ll take the 90% quantile as a inactivity limit (5.79 days, no less).

Now we can plot Alice’s sessions on the timeline again (converting sessions are marked in orange, detected inactivities in red):

Indeed, we can see that the first two sessions have been separated as intended!

Do note that the breakpoints due to transactions are completely independent from the breakpoints due to inactivity. In fact, two breakpoints can occur simultaneously – in this case, the session is going to be orange and red at the same time!

Let’s illustrate this for Alice’s sessions. This time we’re going to set the inactivity limit at 75% quantile (1.79 days):

In this case session number five becomes an isolated one-session customer journey!

Take notice that breakpoints of different types affect the customer journeys in different ways: breakpoint due to inactivity affects the current session (“if inactivity has been detected, start new user path right now”), breakpoint due to conversion, on the other hand, affects the next session (“if transaction has been detected, next session will belong to a new user path”). Be sure to take this into consideration when you put all the elements together!

Summary

This about concludes this lengthy blog post, thanks for sticking around to the very end! I hope that you found it interesting and educational (at least a little bit).

In my opinion, the concept of a user path is essential in modern web analytics since grouping sessions in larger building blocks is the “Step 0” in many advanced analyses.

Today, we’ve created a data-driven model of user paths which takes into account behavioral patterns of our customers. We’ve also learned how to change the model parameters to promote longer or shorter conversion processes depending on our preference.

Now that we’ve completed the “Step 0”, we can use this newly acquired knowledge and dive into further analyses. For instance, we can use our custom user paths to build more sophisticated attribution models – even a simplistic position based approach (not to mention the actual data-driven and machine learning models) will benefit from this added layer of complexity.

 We can also expand the behavioral analyses. We won’t be confined to a single session anymore! Instead, we’ll be able to analyze the interactions spanning across all sessions on the user path. This way, we might be able to identify the early pain points which are likely to cause the conversion process to fail.

 We’re going to discuss these subjects in more detail in the dedicated blog posts. See you next time!

The post User Paths – A Data Driven Model appeared first on insightland.

2 steps ahead of the biggest peak

An invariable principle followed at Insightland is to analyze trends at least several months in advance. This analysis will not yield a comprehensive picture of the situation, as many trends emerge from day to day, which will not be reflected in the data from past periods. However, in many industries, it helps to better understand the seasonality of products and to set priorities so as to intensify efforts during the most lucrative period for the business. A good example is the footwear industry, where seasonality is an important factor, especially for stores offering products in a geographic area with a variable climate, such as Poland. In our country, the boundaries of the seasons are somewhat blurred, but the type of footwear that is typical of each season remains constant. One example is the “women’s boots” category which, according to Google Trends, sees the biggest peak in interest during the autumn period, especially from late September to mid-October:

By juxtaposing this knowledge with the data analyzed in Google Analytics and Google Search Console, we are able to plan activities in such a way as to achieve the highest positions in search results at the peak of interest, which will translate into an increase in ROI. The effects of activities performed in accordance with the results of the trend analysis are phenomenal, which is perfectly illustrated by the following charts. The first chart shows changes in interest for the selected seasonal phrase:

By preparing the strategy in advance and carrying out activities focused on maximum increases in the period from November to December, we achieved high values not only for the phrase being analyzed, but for the entire group of keywords associated with the positioned landing page.

In the chart below, we see data that relates to a single phrase only, also visible in the chart above. This means that the benefits to the customer (derived from positioning the entire landing page, not just one phrase) were much greater than these figures demonstrate.

Looking at the data captured in Google Analytics, one can’t help but notice that a year earlier, when the trend-based strategy was not implemented, the site reported 3 times fewer sessions for the analyzed landing page than in the year when the strategy was executed. Focusing on trends is a good approach, especially if the analysis is enhanced by the user’s journey and intent.

Locating the user on the customer journey

Effective planning of activities to not only improve Google positions, but also to increase the number of sessions and conversion rate is based not only on trend analysis, but also on user intent analysis. Aligning search results to what the customer wants to see when typing in specific keywords is essential to guide the customer encountered on the path to purchase through the stages of the sales funnel and lead to a transaction. The customer journey can be broken down into three stages: TOFU, MOFU and BOFU.

The first of these, TOFU (top of funnel) is the broadest, because at this level the user becomes aware of their needs and does their first online research. That’s why it’s so important to position blog and generic phrases with the greatest potential, because you can use them to extract a group of initially interested users and build brand awareness among them.

The next stage is the MOFU, or middle of funnel. This is the point at which the customer narrows down the search and considers a few pre-selected options.

BOFU (bottom of funnel) is the final stage reached by the most determined buyers. They are one step away from making a decision, they already have their preferences and needs clearly defined, and they know what products will meet their expectations. By knowing and analyzing the keyword phrases typed in by users, it is easy to locate the user and guide them through the customer journey. How users perform searches is illustrated in the chart below:

By analyzing keyword phrases in terms of intent, we can tailor the landing pages being positioned to what the user wants to see and what effect they are looking for. Focusing on the phrases through which viewers enter the website and determining their intent is very helpful – it improves the site’s visibility and conversion.

What if there is too much competition on Google?

The two approaches discussed above will work perfectly for online stores with a recognized brand. However, these solutions are unlikely to succeed for smaller sites. Gaining a competitive edge can consume more time and money than e-commerce business owners might expect. That is why in such situations it is a good idea to rely on increased visibility for niche trends and ongoing monitoring of current interests in order to tap into their growing potential as quickly as possible. A thorough analysis of the available products and extracting the groups on which it is worth building online visibility, as well as checking them in tools that enable recognition of evolving trends will be very helpful in your SEO activities. A good example of using a niche trend in a clothing store is cargo pants, which have seen very strong growth over the past month:

The potential of this phrase surged from 6600 to 49500 from month to month, indicating a huge increase in interest in this product group recently. Capturing changes and responding quickly by focusing your efforts around particular keywords helps websites grow faster and build brand awareness among consumers. By taking a broad, holistic approach to trends, detecting nuances and space to improve positions, you can stand out and outperform your competitors in Google results for profitable, though not always obvious, key phrases. This measure should not be overlooked if the SEO strategy is supposed to bring real benefits to the business and translate into increased interest and product sales.

The post Building an SEO strategy based on trends appeared first on insightland.

A new product launch, especially such with high sales expectations both in the offline channel as well as on the Internet, should always be preceded by a thorough analysis of the customers’ needs and opportunities to reach them. Once we know what a prospective customer is looking for, we can lead them to a product through advertising or guide content.

As the product visibility increases, so does interest in it, followed by sales. The growth dynamics depends to a great extent on the intensity of the activities performed.

The process is somewhat different for fashion products, as it is driven by fashion trends inspired by world designers. Once a product is presented at a fashion show or during Fashion Weeks, it generates interest. The trend is soon picked up by large brands leading the market, followed by the smaller ones, oftentimes held by celebrities and bloggers, who are keen to capitalize on and showcase the new trend before their competitors do. Based on the “fashion phrases” examples, let’s take a look at how such a trend develops and then suggest how to properly plan online activities, which will help achieve top search results at the peak of trend’s popularity.

Fashion trends in the context of search queries

Here are a few examples from the fashion industry that perfectly demonstrate a new trend’s life cycle.

Trend: “square-toe shoes”

There was already a visible interest in this type of footwear at the end of 2018, when the first trends came to light at the Fashion Weeks events, especially in Bottega Veneta’s label collections. Since then, it has grown steadily, reaching its first popularity peak in late 2018. Nowadays, this trend is attracting ever-growing interest.

Trend: “chain shoes”

This trend strongly prevailed at the fashion shows featuring the Spring/Summer 2021 collections, which translated directly into the number of searches for this type of footwear. Models with chain detail featured, for example, in Versace’s collection at Milan Fashion Week in late 2020. Apparel brands have successfully adopted this trend, increasing the popularity of chained sandals and moccasins, followed by chained ankle booties and boots in the autumn season.

Trend: “dopamine dressing”

Dopamine dressing is an exciting example of a trend’s life cycle, having taken over the shows at Copenhagen Fashion Week in August 2021. From that point on, the trend known as happy hormone-boosting fashion has seen a gradual rise in interest. As the New Year dawned, virtually all fashion websites accentuated this trend heavily, which translated into a significant increase in take-up. Thus, using this concept to promote fashion ranges online can have a significant impact on sales.

Trend monopoly or how to outperform the competition in search results

One of the greatest challenges facing today’s e-commerce business is figuring out an effective way to gain a competitive advantage. The more competitive the market in which we operate and the more the product has to compete for customers’ attention, the more difficult this task becomes. In terms of position building in the free search results, it means that we need to target our efforts based on our website’s visibility on key phrases with a high number of searches, and compete for a top 10 rank. The battle is waged not only against our direct business competitors, but also other sites, blogs or platforms offering video content. Being newcomers to the market, it can be a difficult and time-consuming task to keep up with the competition. Imagine, however, that our product is a complete novelty. We have just come back from Fashion Week and we discovered a trend there, based on which we want to launch a new product. Provided we succeed in manufacturing a product range relatively quickly, at the same time we can prepare for the growing interest in the novelty and thus render it more difficult for competitors who start later.

Let’s start with the content. Because we can create and publish it on our website whether or not we already hold a product ready for sale.

 Phase 1: Developing information content

During the first life-cycle stage of the new fashion trend, consumers’ interest will still be low and potential audience will first look for basic information: “how to wear…”, “what to combine with…”, “how to create a look with…”, “celebrities + <trend>.” So let’s make our website the first and maybe even the only search result. To this end, we can develop a dedicated landing page or sub-page within our e-store. Fashion groups in social media or online forums, where users engage in discussions about the trend, can serve as inspiration for valuable content from the perspective of those interested.

Make sure that the content includes key phrases related to the trend and various trend descriptions, even though at this stage they will not have the search potential. They should appear:

• in the body of paragraphs,
• in the title and headings,
• in the alt attributes of images,
• in the title and description metadata section, which is displayed in search results.

Doing this quickly will give us the opportunity to become a reliable source of information. Importantly, our content will be distributed naturally, which can give us additional benefits in the form of high-value links.

Phase 2: Content update

Keep in mind that as the trend evolves, an increasing number of related issues will arise. Thus, it is very important to update our content regularly with new information. Aside from using phrases closely related to a given trend, at this stage it is also worth extending the content with:

• key phrases as questions – the relevant ones are most likely to be found in user discussions on internet forums or social media groups,
• complementing queries in the Google search engine that is using the Autocomplete feature: once a given phrase is entered into the browser, its extensions based on queries of other web users will be prompted.

Phase 3: Product announcement and increased likelihood of conversion

Information and guidance content alone, however, will not be sufficient to ensure that the user will be returning to our website once the product is available. Thus, let’s make sure that we maintain their interest or, to put it bluntly, make them loyal and bring them closer to purchase by sustaining their interest. To this end, we should enrich the content with the following elements:

• newsletter subscription box – once we have added a user’s email address to our database, they will be able to receive our regular updates relating to the category of product we intend to develop and in which they have been initially interested,
• ‘waiting list’ sign-up box – which informs the user directly about the upcoming product release date and its availability.

Analytics: the key to understanding e-commerce users’ behavior

With the perfectly developed content published on the website, we can start analyzing its effectiveness. To this end, we will need to set up a suitable analytical tool, such as the popular Google Analytics, which will allow us to monitor the following metrics:

• the number of sessions and users, which will tell us how large an audience our content reaches and how this number changes over time,
• the Bounce Rate, which reflects the percentage of the website visits that end in visitors leaving the site without exploring it further,
• the average time spent on the website informs us whether the content is appealing to the user.

You may also benefit from configuring the tool to track events such as:

• page scrolling,
• hovering over a given element (e.g. a graphic),
• downloading a file (e.g. a graphics or pdf document),
• video viewing.

With all of these, we can gain knowledge about user behavior on our website. We will then be able to modify the communication accordingly to make it as relevant to the audience as possible.

Building visibility

As the trend popularity grows, so will the competition in search results. This will include not only sites providing fashion or lifestyle content, but also other e-commerce sites that have managed to launch a new product faster. Measures to help you gain a competitive advantage include:

1. Working with fashion / trendsetting websites to publish guest articles featuring our brand linked to a particular product.
2. Working with bloggers / vloggers who will present and promote our product, produce a review or share with their followers discount codes for its purchase.
3. Publishing sponsored articles with links to our website.

Putting these measures in place will definitely have a positive effect. The brand or specific product information will be spread beyond our website. In addition, we obtain high value external links to our website, which will help us maintain high search results ranks for phrases related to our content, and later on – to the product.

Be all the rage in the peak of interest

All of the above measures are aimed at establishing our reputation in a given field and strengthen the website’s search results ranking for phrases closely related to a particular trend. At the height of the trend, users start to explore the internet more intensively, looking for reliable information on a given topic. At this stage, there will certainly be many other online sources besides our content. This is a time for us to keep a close eye on what our competitors are doing, so that we are able to act in good time on any sign that we may be losing ground to them.

What will help us to analyze?

• We track search results regularly (at least once a week) and monitor what sources come up for our key phrases.
• We research topics for articles that can be linked to a particular trend.
• We analyze user behavior on the website.
• We analyze the competitive websites’ content and continuously expand our content with issues that are missing and related to the trend.

Summary

Every single industry has its own specifics and a specific product life cycle. It is important, however, to be well prepared in advance for trends that are yet to come, to be able to spot them and effectively convert to your advantage before they become obvious and widespread. This approach provides an opportunity to become an expert and leader in your industry, stay ahead of the competition and be the first to start selling.

Some of the examples we have pointed out are illustrative of the fashion trend life cycle, showing the dynamics at which interest in a particular concept grows over time. Being aware of the underlying mechanics of trends and knowing how to map them out over time will allow you to be prepared in advance to launch a product that is not yet popular, so that when it is at its peak, you can achieve high ranks in search results, bringing converting traffic to your website. In the fashion industry, but also in any other segment, e-commerce requires not only flexibility and dynamic creativity. It also calls for a long-term, forward-looking view of the business landscape as well as detailed and informed analytics to help build brands and boost sales. Do not forget that sales happening here and now starts often many months before with a good decision and informed, responsible planning.  

The post Trend life cycle vs. SEO efficiency: How can you make e-commerce ready for the incoming sales? appeared first on insightland.

It has also been an interesting year for us, full of challenges and growth. A year that strengthened our position not only in the Polish market, but also in Europe and the United States. A year that has shown that combining advanced analytical skills with SEO expertise and a holistic view of the business is the most effective way to support our e-commerce clients.

Irena Zobniow, SEO strategist & co-founder at Insightland recaps 2021. What has happened in the SEO world, how has e-commerce dealt with the pace of changes in the pandemic reality? What developments have had the strongest bearing on the industry? What tools and technological innovations have emerged in the market? And most importantly, what challenges will we face in 2022?

SEO and e-commerce seen through the eyes of a practitioner – read on to find out more.

What interesting developments has the industry seen in 2021?

I believe that the most important event in the SEO sector this past year was crossing the threshold of 50 thousand online stores operating in Poland. This almost symbolic and round number is important from the point of view of building organic traffic, as well as maintaining our performance. The arrival of new players on the market may mean an increase in budgets for SEO activities and even greater commitment to systematic analysis of competition and trends.

In terms of business, the entry of giants such as American Amazon or Swedish Klarna into Poland was certainly a significant factor. The Polish debut of Klarna, offering “Buy now, pay in 30 days” option, can be considered a game changer in the e-commerce sector. Of course, it is not a new payment model, as such a service has already been introduced on Allegro’s marketplace. Klarna payments, on the other hand, are available from a fintech app for purchases in virtually every online store in Poland. Popularization of BNPL can translate, on the one hand, into increased sales volume and shopping cart value in e-stores, and on the other hand – have a positive effect on the store’s image and build trust among customers. The Polish e-commerce market has entered a phase of stable growth. It is not an extremely fast or spectacular growth, but even monthly data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS) confirm that e-commerce’s share of the whole Polish trade has been rising at a steady pace. The fact that despite the presence of many local entities with a really well-established position on the Polish market, it is still an attractive place for global players shows that a lot is still to happen here and that the real, fierce fight for the consumer is still ahead of us.

Key trends of 2021.

One of the notable trends in 2021 was the marked expansion of domestic e-commerce businesses and the promotion of Polish brands. As consumers, we are increasingly interested in buying local products, thus supporting Polish entrepreneurs. This is illustrated by the growing popularity of such queries “Polish online stores” in Google. In 2020, it was searched 30 times per month on average, while in 2021 the average monthly number of searches ranged between 100 and 200 (data obtained with KWfinder).

The number of stores offering online shopping with in-store pickup also increased in 2021. During the lockdown, such solutions were offered by large home improvement retail chains which, in order to meet their customers’ needs, enabled them to pick up the purchased goods at a given store without the need to wait for their outlets to open. In the past year, many grocery stores, even small ones operating in local communities, used this solution. They can offer and sell their products online, and the customer can then pick them up at the store. Not only does this reduce the risk of contact with a potentially infected person, but also significantly reduces shopping time and increases comfort. It appears that the trend toward investing in online sales, even among smaller, local vendors, will increase in importance in the coming year which, for e-commerce consumers, translates to even more opportunities to shop in a quick, convenient and safe manner.

What has the pandemic changed in the SEO landscape in 2021?

Changes in consumer needs and habits, on the one hand, and the increased number of new online stores, on the other, have created certain challenges. For many e-retailers, this entailed a review of their sales strategies, taking into account the fact that customers were more cautious about spending money on products that were not associated with satisfying their essential needs or maintaining their standard of living. At the same time, they were more likely to buy everyday household goods, but also to invest in home entertainment in case of another lockdown. Many owners of online fashion stores have decided to expand their product range to include so-called home categories, such as homewear, home & living, decoration or games and entertainment. This way, they were able to at least fill the sales gap resulting from reduced popularity of clothing and footwear products. In turn, along with the arrival of new players on the e-commerce market, the competition and fight for customers has intensified, forcing store owners to invest more in search engine activities – both focused on SEO and paid campaigns.

Three words I will associate with 2021 in the e-commerce world.

Google algorithm updates – 2021, like no other year so far, was packed with a huge number of updates to Google’s search engine. This engine is what promotion in e-commerce is based on. The updates caused quite a stir, both among online retailers and SEO professionals. This is because not only did it mean major changes in page rankings, but also the need for much more involvement from SEO service providers. They had to react to the updates almost on the fly, making adjustments to their websites – not only product pages, but also strictly sales pages. The instability of key phrase positions resulting from these updates had a significant impact on organic traffic. This, in turn, affected the implementation of SEO strategies by e-commerce businesses. On the one hand, this created the temptation to react quickly to possible position drops and to change the approach to current activities. On the other hand, it confirmed that in most cases it was better to just wait until the fluctuations calm down, rather than change the strategy too hastily. Altogether, this had a huge impact on the execution of sales plans by e-commerce retailers, especially from free traffic, if they were based on the seasonality of a particular category. The effects of even a single update could have a major impact on reaching the projected sales target.

HOT or NOT? Successes and disappointments in 2021

HOT: Allegro’s introduction of deferred payment options. This solution will offer a great convenience for many users of this largest marketplace in Poland. The option to pay after receiving and checking the products is gaining popularity in e-commerce because, among other things, it increases the sense of security among shoppers. With Allegro, the accompanying factor is the scale and a huge, almost limitless range of products that can be purchased by consumers with the “buy now and pay later” option.

Disappointment: Amazon Prime’s offerings. It seemed that their terms would be much more competitive. Meanwhile, financially, or cost-wise, this service is very similar to Allegro Smart. So, it’s hard to talk about a noticeable competitive advantage for Amazon that customers were hoping for. Offering access to Amazon’s streaming platforms at the price of the service may be an important factor for some of the users when making their decisions. However, from the market perspective – it was not a game changer, and Amazon, in its efforts to win customers, will have to focus on the product range – offering products that are not available on Allegro or the same products, but at more attractive prices.

SEO industry events worth attending.

Without a doubt, the most important industry event was the SEO Festival in Katowice, organized by Artur Strzelecki. The event is very popular not only among SEO specialists, but also among owners of websites or online stores who want to acquire knowledge and learn practical tips in the field of search engine optimization.

Another important SEO event was the semKRK conference organized by DevaGroup. During 12 lectures, the experts shared their expertise in SEO, SEM and analytics. Participation in both events is a great opportunity to exchange views with other attendees and speakers and to learn about interesting case studies from the industry.

WHAT DOES 2022 HAVE IN STORE FOR US

Top challenges facing the SEO industry in 2022

Google Desktop Page Experience Update

Google’s announced update is expected to be fully implemented by the end of February 2022. As a result of these changes, the user experience when interacting with a website on desktop devices will be one of the key ranking factors. For site owners, this will entail revising their websites and adapting them to the existing Google search engine requirements. From an SEO point of view, the challenge will be not only to conduct a detailed audit that takes into account such elements as page load speed, proper HTTPS implementation or any other aspects that affect user experience, but also to implement changes quickly enough to minimize the risk of possible loss of organic traffic.

The effect of boom in e-commerce

Another challenge facing those responsible for both SEO and SEM in 2022 is the increasing competitiveness among online stores. According to Business Insider, as many as 51,000 online stores were registered in Poland in mid-September, up nearly 14% from the end of 2020. Not only major brands but also smaller players compete for position in organic results and in paid ads. Therefore, 2022 will be a test for the effectiveness of the strategies adopted and a period of intensive efforts aimed at building quality, converting traffic.

Regular technical optimization of websites

The year 2021, or rather the number of Google updates we had to deal with, proved that regular, ongoing technical optimization is basically the only way to meet the changing requirements of the search engine and thus not only not lose the SEO results achieved, but also to consistently improve them. In 2022, we can expect further updates from Google, which will require a great deal of involvement not only from technical SEO specialists, but also from developers who will have to ensure the smooth and correct implementation of the proposed changes.

What will the e-commerce sector face in the coming year 2022?

Given the growth rate of the number of online stores in 2021, as well as disturbing economic trends related to inflation and rising product prices, it may be a challenge for the e-commerce industry to maintain its sales growth rate at a satisfactory level of profitability. This is even more so as these factors increase the unpredictability of consumer behavior. This task will be easier for store owners who have invested in SEO in previous months or even years, as the visibility of their products in top search engine positions will result in free traffic and thus increase the prospects of building the assumed sales volume. However, this will also depend on the pricing policy adapted to the customer’s financial capacity, as well as the attractiveness of the offering, which should meet the customer’s current needs. It can be expected that many customers will be more reluctant to make spontaneous purchases and will focus on investing in essential products for everyday life. In the case of luxury, non-essential goods, or those related to entertainment, we can expect lower growth in sales. To address this challenge, it is first worth conducting an in-depth analysis of the store’s customer behavior over the past year, based on both the number of visits from different channels and the quality of those visits, including abandoned shopping carts. By focusing on top converting categories while adjusting pricing to the new realities, we will be able to design an effective sales strategy.

Let’s conclude with some technology innovations relevant to the SEO industry that are definitely worth following in 2022

• Boostsite.com

The end of 2021 marked the launch of development of a tool called Boostsite.com, and its creators are promising major improvements in 2022. It is a tool for automatic SEO analysis that combines the functionality of several existing separate tools available on the market. Thanks to its functionalities, it allows to significantly accelerate the process of website optimization or even automate it in some cases. Hours of work previously spent by SEO specialists on creating, among other things, technical analyses, audits or content recommendations will be reduced to a minimum thanks to Boostsite.com. The functions already offered by the tool make working with the website much easier.

• New Page Experience report in Google Search Console

SEO professionals will appreciate this fact, given the importance of the various elements of the report for building visibility in Google. This is because the data contained in the report can be extremely helpful in optimizing pages for search engine algorithms, especially Core Web Vitals.

• Launch of Brave Search

The arrival of a new privacy-focused search engine on the market is certainly a fact worth noting. Brave Search has already replaced Google as the default search engine in the Brave browser, providing users with results based on an index created from scratch. The things that are supposed to set Brave apart from other popular search engines are the lack of tracking of user queries, searches or clicks, and the absence of ads (at least in the initial phase of the engine’s development). From an SEO standpoint, this could mean new challenges in understanding how these algorithms work and thus adapting websites to guidelines that may be different from those used by Google.

The post Summary of 2021 in e-commerce and SEO – Irena Zobniów appeared first on insightland.

Google has delayed the “cookie apocalypse”, and attributes its decision to do so to the need to work more closely with regulators. This is because it wants to develop technology that would replace third-party cookies in advertising, since, after all, it makes money on advertising. By removing trackers, Google – no matter what alternative it offers – will harm advertisers, potentially reducing its own revenue. However, there is no other choice. Cookies that – according to not only users but also regulators – are highly intrusive, expose Google to criticism that has been ringing louder and louder lately.  

Banning third-party cookies will certainly be a challenge for marketers that will affect, among other things, their remarketing efforts and generally make it harder to recreate their customer journeys. But… the ban can also be a blessing. Rather than relying on users’ implicit consent for tracking, marketers will finally focus on capturing first- and zero-party data, i.e., data for which users give their informed consent. Such data, while harder to obtain, is much more valuable. 

Tomasz Tołłoczko, Head of Analytics, Insightland, shares some more thoughts on the future of cookie-free e-commerce. 

Tomasz Tołłoczko
Head of Analytics
Insightland

The absence of cookies presents two major issues for e-commerce businesses: first, it will make it very difficult to run remarketing-based campaigns. Such efforts are based on reading third-party cookies implemented on our website and using them to target specific groups of Internet users. This means that one of the primary marketing activities will no longer be possible. 

The second issue is related to the fact that it will be very difficult or even impossible to analyze the complete customer journeys across multiple sessions, often using several devices (attribution analysis).  This problem is not only related to the issue of 3-rd party cookies, but also to limitations in identifying devices.

However, the situation that we will face depends largely on the solutions adopted by the largest players – Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft. At this point, these companies have offered various tools/solutions that, while addressing the privacy needs of Internet users in one way or another, will also meet the expectations of the advertising market. That’s why it is a good idea to follow the discussions and debates on the various solutions that have been proposed – FloC, FLEDGE, Clean Rooms, Fingerprints – to get ahead of the changes. More new solutions or modifications (triggered by criticism from the community) will surely follow. Some are already in the testing phase. 

How to get ready for a cookieless future?

It is certainly useful to collect user data: both First party and Zero party data. First party data is collected automatically, generated on the basis of user behavior on the site – data about what they buy, what products they browse, where they come from. Zero party data is data collected on the basis of information that the users themselves decided to share with us – by filling out forms, answering surveys or quizzes on the website. All the data collected in this way should serve to get to know the needs and desires of our customer. Research shows that 84% of internet users are willing to share information about themselves provided they can have a say in what happens with the data and provided that they can expect to get something in return. Better offerings or services tailored to their expectations provide value to every consumer. But data alone is not enough…

I recommend implementing solutions based on marketing automation – knowledge about users is one thing, the other is the tools that allow you to capitalize on it. That’s why you need to implement solutions to turn the data you collect from your customers into a benefit for them – and ultimately for us.

This, in an environment where the ability to create precisely targeted campaigns will be severely limited – creating a customer relationship based on a genuine and personalized experience – can become a critical competitive advantage.

The post How to get your store ready for a cookieless future? appeared first on insightland.

In this article, I will share with you:

• Why data-driven decisions are better for your business
• How data visualization can help in decision-making
• What are the benefits of data visualization
• What tools you can use to visualize your data.

So, let’s get into data visualization and its benefits for your business! 

Data-Driven Decisions Make Your Business Better

Data-driven is a really trendy phrase nowadays. It stands for collecting data, measuring goals, analyzing patterns and derive insights into the particular process or project in the company. Moreover, it helps in making better business decisions, like to develop a new strategy for one of the services your business provides. Or, to remove a few products from your offer because they do not drive interest and sales.

The essence of a data-driven approach lies in consistency and willingness to grow wisely. 

Thanks to it, companies can create new opportunities for themselves, optimize current actions, produce more revenue and predict future users’ behaviors and trends. Moreover, it allows your business to be more flexible. Companies that incorporate a data-driven approach usually treat information as a valuable asset and thrive better than their competition.

Data Visualization in Making Decisions – How Does It Help?

All kinds of visualizations like pictures and graphs make everything easier to comprehend. That is the reason behind creating data visualizations. They allow analysts to derive more and better insights. A great variety of information forms can complement each other in graphic form. Thanks to them we can easily identify patterns, point out the areas with potential, indicate the weakest spots, and most importantly recognize the best formulas. Your business can benefit a lot with well-created data visualizations. 

To make the most of data visualization, you need to take care of a few important aspects:

• The data must be shown with the background information that puts the graphs into context – that is how everyone will be able to understand everything easily.
• Data visualizations should present key data in a way that indicates the clear course of actions.

When data visualization includes these aspects, analysts are able to put insights into action.

Extra Benefits of Data Visualization

Above all, data visualization, beyond making better decisions, can improve many aspects of work in your organization.

1. Fast Response Times

Data visualization gives the data to the users’ allowing them to quickly identify issues and improve response or reaction times. It is a major advantage for companies that want to save time and react faster being more flexible.

2. Improved Work Simplicity 

Visualizations allow users to get the big picture and allow them to see the details at the same time. When users interact only with relevant data, their work is simplified. They are able to focus on what is important at the moment.

3. Easy Patterns Recognition

Try to find a pattern while checking hundreds of lines in an Excel spreadsheet or a few different data sets. It is just almost impossible, and it takes a lot of time! When you have a visualization of data, you can better absorb it and easily recognize new paths. As a result, you are able to identify patterns, new trends, and even predictions. 

4. Improved Collaboration Between Teams

When all of the teams at your company can see the same data visualizations that are easy to understand, they are more often on the same page regarding the insights conducted by the data. As a result, it makes collaboration between teams smoother as they are starting with the same knowledge of collected data. Therefore, they can decide on the next steps and discover solutions more quickly. 

5. Combining Data from Various Sources

And last but definitely not least, data visualization allows you to see data from various sources. It is difficult to see if your Facebook and Instagram campaigns are successful-looking only at Facebook Business Manager analytics. So if you would like to compare them with data from your CRM, Google Analytics or other sources, it is best to see them on a well-done and easy to comprehend data visualization.

Data Visualization Solutions

You know already that your business needs data visualization to make better decisions but you are not sure how to incorporate it into your company. There is a great variety of different solutions and tools you can use. Most of them are easy to access, therefore you can start using them really soon! Let’s see what solutions your business can acquire. 

Tableau Software

Tableau is an interactive data visualization software. It allows you to simplify raw data into an understandable format. You can create data visualization in the form of dashboards and worksheets. It is commonly used in the Business Intelligence Industry. Although the tool is not free of charge, it is worth the investment. Moreover, Tableau encourages you to join its community and learn even more about data visualization. You can share your visualizations online or on the server – you can choose if it is public or not. If you are not convinced, take a look at our data visualizations created with Tableau.

Microsoft Power Bi

Power BI is a business analytics service provided by Microsoft. It allows you to create interactive visualizations. What is more, it provides business intelligence capabilities with an interface simple enough for end-users to create their own reports and dashboards. Power Bi is not a free tool but it allows you to create a lot for a reasonable price.

Google Data Studio

This is a free tool provided by Google. Data Studio gives you everything you need to turn your analytics data into informational, easy to comprehend reports through data visualization. The reports are easy to read and share, customizable to each of your clients if you work with more than one company. Moreover, you can choose how you want to showcase the data – bar graphs, charts, line graphs, etc. You are able to change fonts and colors and brand the reports with the logo. It is one of the most common tools analysts work with nowadays. In addition, if you want to know more about Data Studio, check out my blog posts on this tool.

Qlik

Qlik is a business intelligence and visual analytics platform you can try for free. It is an interactive data visualization tool that enables users to import and aggregate data from different data sources. They can further use the data visualization tools of the software to shape raw data into meaningful information. The two main products QlikView and Qlik Sense serve different purposes running on the same engine. In QlikView, the users pursue their day-to-day tasks, analyzing data with a slightly configurable dashboard, most of the data is somehow “pre-canned”. On the other hand, Qlik Sense allows associating different data sources and fully configuring the visualizations, allowing to follow an individual discovery path through the data. The company’s official definition is “QlikView is for guided analytics; Qlik Sense is for self-service visualizations”. 

D3.js

If you want to have full control of your data visualization or your application, d3.js is a perfect choice. It is the best data visualization library. D3.js runs on JavaScript and uses HTML, CSS, and SVG. It is an open-source and applies a data-driven transformation to a webpage and allows you to create quickly beautiful visualizations. D3.js combines powerful visualization and interaction techniques with a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation. Therefore, it gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers and the freedom to design the right visual interface for your data. It also provides great features for interactions and animations.

Python as a Data Visualization Tool

Python is a programming language commonly used by data analysts. You can create with it amazing data visualizations. What is more, it is designed with features to facilitate data analysis and visualization. This programming language offers multiple great graphing libraries that come packed with lots of different features. No matter if you want to create interactive, live or highly customized plots, Python has an excellent solution for you and your business.

To get a little overview, take a look at a few popular plotting libraries:

• Matplotlib – it provides lots of freedom;
• Pandas Visualization – it has easy to use interface, built on Matplotlib;
• Seaborn – it has a high-level interface and has great default styles;
• Ggplot – it is based on R’s ggplot2 and uses Grammar of Graphics;
• Plotly – using it you are able to create interactive plots.

Incorporate Smart Data-Driven Approach to Your Company

Data visualization enhances analytical thinking, deriving insights and making quick data-driven decisions. It is just a wise way to improve a lot of aspects of your business so it can thrive better. Data visualization is essential nowadays. Especially, if you operate in a highly competitive market or industry. If you are not sure about it yourself, seek for the analytical partner that can introduce you to data visualization. Just do not neglect the power of data visualization and its benefits! 

The post How Data Visualization Leads to Making Better Business Decisions appeared first on insightland.

These platforms are undisputed leaders that give the user excellent data processing capabilities and create unique dashboards.

However, can their position be threatened by Data Studio created by Google? We have three arguments supporting this thesis that can convince you.

Started at the bottom, now we’re here.

Data Studio has been on the market for several years, and we have been observing its development from the very beginning.

Starting from the most straightforward charts and a small number of connectors, to the possibility of blending data from many sources, visualizations, and connectors created by external suppliers, calculated fields allowing for more and more advanced calculations, to the latest addition in the form of parameters.

Data Studio is becoming an increasingly powerful tool, which, in several cases, has a significant advantage over other data visualization solutions.

#1 – It’s free

The simplest advantage – the price, or exactly the lack of it. Although Tableau has a free public version, and Power BI can be used without paying for the desktop version, Data Studio stays free without almost any restrictions.

You only need to pay when you use connectors that are provided by third-party sites. In any other scenario, you don’t need to take a credit card out of our wallet.

This is a massive advantage of the tool created by Google – other platforms can cost a lot.

Here in Hexe Data, we believe that the paid version of Data Studio will arise in the future. Of course, no one is talking about it yet, but such a development may seem logical.

When we look at what happened with Google Analytics and creating its paid version for users with more significant needs and more data, such expansion of Data Studio could occur.

Additional functions and faster data processing could appear for an additional fee. It would be a natural step for Google to become more competitive with other data visualization tools.

#2 – It’s Google

The second reasonably obvious argument that makes Data Studio beat the rest of the visualization tools is its mother brand – Google.

If your company mainly uses the tools of this provider, you have nothing to think about. The choice is simple. Google Analytics, Google Sheets, Google Surveys, Google Ad Manager, Google Ads, Google Cloud Storage, Google Search Console…

It’s easy to find their common factor, right? Therefore, no other program will provide the same data connectivity from these sources as Google Data Studio.

This is especially true when you use data from Google Analytics. Other platforms extract data using the API and are therefore limited in the number of dimensions and metrics you can use at once.

Data Studio provides unlimited integration with Google Analytics, including the ability to sync the segments you have created in your web analytics tool panel view.

#3 – It’s simple

Using Tableau or Power BI, we can create mind-blowing reports. Stunning charts, the ability to add custom elements, perform complex calculations, animations, and give the recipient of our report the ability to explore data by clicking on various places and filters in the dashboard.

But, all these fantastic features of advanced tools often remain useless. Even when creating the most complex dashboards, we most often use standard bar charts, line charts, or scorecards.

Data Studio is intuitive. It does not require any complicated implementation or involvement of the IT department.

Leonardo da Vinci was probably right when he said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. After all, data visualization aims to show information and numbers in a way that is easier to understand.

Sometimes the most straightforward solutions are simply the best.

David vs. Goliath

So is it possible for Data Studio to beat tools like Tableau or Power BI? Does simplicity have a chance to win over complexity?

At first glance, it might seem that the Google tool will be crushed like a little ant. This tool is currently not adapted to work with large data sets.

There is no desktop version, sometimes it processes data for a long time, after applying a filter at the view level, sometimes we have to wait even a few minutes to see the changed statistics.

But, if we look at the three incredibly important arguments we wrote about earlier, we can imagine a situation when Data Studio is announced the winner. We will follow this fight in the future.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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At the height of the pandemic, online shop owners took various steps to drive traffic to their eCommerce sites. It was a period of intense changes in both consumer behavior and average basket value – and these forced online shop owners to take on completely new challenges and deal with a truly large number of obstacles – both in the area of invested budgets and competition. Promotional activities depended on the scale of the business and its potential during the pandemic. This also applies to the steps taken in organic traffic acquisition, or SEO. And in many cases it turned out that investing in this channel was the right choice – provided, of course, that the implementation of activities was based on a well-thought-out, long-term strategy, excluding randomness and succumbing to temporary trends. SEO is an area of eCommerce that is often one of the most important sources of traffic (and ultimately sales), so in order to reap ever-increasing profits from free traffic from search engines it is worth paying special attention to. Below, an overview of SEO activities is presented, divided into those that an online shop owner can confidently carry out on their own, and those that are better left to experienced experts.

Technical SEO
As the name suggests, it involves technical knowledge related to the structure of the website’s code, but also knowledge about how crawlers behave on the website. While some elements belonging to this area can be analyzed by the shop owner themselves, and sometimes even repaired by themselves, the lion’s share of the technical audit can only be performed correctly by so-called technical SEO.

As SEO is like a closed book to many people, let’s start with those activities that, with a bit of will and focus and regardless of the level of knowledge or skills, every eCommerce owner can do on their own.

Page load time
From the SEO point of view, this is an extremely important element – page load time is a ranking factor, which in practice means that Google ‘promotes’ sites that serve their resources quickly to users. We can check the page loading time using the online tool pagespeed. This tool evaluates the loading of the page according to a score: from slowest to fastest, and a fast site can get a maximum score of 100. A score below 50 should prompt action to improve the aspects identified in the tool. The speed improvement itself, however, should be entrusted to a specialist who is able to make the appropriate improvements directly in the code of the website or in the server configuration.

Indexing of subpages
Another important element is the degree of indexation of the web shop’s subpages, i.e. enabling them to be displayed in search results so that they are visited by both users and search engine robots. All website owners want potential customers to be able to find the home page of their shop, the subpages of categories, subcategories and available products in a search engine and therefore it is these subpages that should be indexed. It is important to ensure that users do not land on pages that return a 404 error or subpages for discontinued products. Such site locations should be blocked from indexation. What the shop owner can do here is to analyze the search results themselves and check whether the search engine displays exactly the subpages they want to ‘serve’ to users, and also whether unnecessary or outdated records have appeared in the results. To do this, type the command ‘site:ourshopdomain.com’ into the search engine, inserting the correct domain name in the example. This allows for checking whether the search engine index lacks valuable subpages and which of the existing links should be de-indexed. Having a list of such subpages ready, the shop owner can hand them over to a specialist, who will use appropriate directives in the source files of the website to sort out the indexation.

Making it mobile-friendly, i.e. Mobile-First Indexing
Adapting the shop to the requirements of use on mobile devices is another important issue. It is worth knowing that Google promotes websites friendly to mobile users, i.e. those using the search engine on a smartphone or tablet. Importantly, it is the accessibility and mobile-friendly interface that becomes more important to search engine robots than the desktop version of a website. What does this mean for eCommerce shop owners? Above all, the need to adapt their services for mobile searches. To verify whether an online shop complies with the Mobile First Indexing guidelines, simply go to https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly and enter the address of the online shop in the box visible there. If the result indicates that the website is mobile-friendly, the shop owner can breathe a sigh of relief. If, on the other hand, a message indicating errors in this area appears, the support of a specialist will be required to help eliminate these problems.

The area of technical SEO covers many more elements. Everyone who cares about a full analysis of an online shop and elimination of all errors that make it difficult for search engines to ‘understand’ a given website should use the services of professionals. They will carry out a full technical analysis of the shop together with recommendations for implementation or improvement.

Content
Website content, and in particular on-page text, has a significant impact on the visibility of a website in search results. Its proper optimization, i.e. saturation with key phrases used by Internet users to search the web for information of interest to them, is essential to achieve high search engine positions. This, in turn, translates directly into generating traffic from search engines and, ultimately, into sales.
Placing appropriately matched key phrases in the content of product descriptions, categories, headings and metadata will increase the chances that the online shop will be visible in search results for users interested in the goods available there. Owners of eCommerce sites can do some of this work themselves, based on available online tools and their own experience and knowledge of customer interests.

Analysis of popular key phrases
The first step here is to find the keywords most frequently typed into the search engine by users when they want to purchase an item. These will primarily be any words that literally describe the product, such as ‘women’s shoes’, ‘swimwear’, ‘natural cosmetics’, etc. However, in some industries, such generic phrases may not be enough to increase a shop’s online visibility, due to their highly competitive nature. You should then go one step further and look for keywords that more closely define these products. These will be, for example: ‘women’s shoes for summer’, ‘two-piece swimwear’, ‘women’s natural cosmetics’. If appropriate, it is certainly advisable to deepen the search for phrases and use different variants and configurations of words. Again, free versions of dedicated tools, such as https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/, can help with the analysis. With the free version of the tool, you can perform several queries to check the potential (average monthly number of searches) of specific phrases. Simply enter a generic phrase relating to your business or offer, and the tool will suggest other keywords worth including in your strategy for targeting organic traffic. Another inspiration for finding key phrases by which users can get to the online shop is the Google search engine itself – by entering a general phrase in the search field, it prompts us with other popular queries. However, if the shop’s range is extensive and the offer is highly competitive, it is worth performing an in-depth keyword analysis, using paid tools or engaging an SEO specialist.

Once you have created a list of popular phrases, you can proceed to optimize the various sections of your shop according to them.

Content optimization for key phrases
This should begin by reviewing the individual subpages of the online shop, checking whether they contain the right amount of text and whether it is sufficiently saturated with key phrases. Make sure that subpages of categories, subcategories and products have unique content – this, in addition to valuable information for the potential customer, will also indicate to search engine robots which key phrases they should appear for, determining how users get to a particular subpage from organic traffic.
What can be done here without the help of a specialist is to prepare a list of subpages that require content creation or those with content that needs to be enhanced: expanded, rephrased or saturated with keywords. It is the shop owners who know their product range and its specifications best and who have the most reliable and complete knowledge of the products on offer. So if they are able to prepare the necessary content themselves, this will certainly bring many benefits. On the other hand, the saturation with keywords, their placement in the content, in headings, in metadata and other text elements, should be consulted with an SEO specialist. This is because the effectiveness of this action and full use of the potential of the key phrases used will largely depend on it.

Blog writing
As far as online shops are concerned, one of the most effective ways to use content is to maintain a blog, where the shop in question will share with users interesting facts, information and advice about the products it offers. Blog articles should be optimized for key phrases, but here it is important to skillfully match them to the topic and not duplicate them with those used in the optimization of sales subpages (categories, subcategories, product pages). While the content itself can be prepared in-house, the selection of appropriate key phrases or even topics in accordance with seasonal trends should be consulted with a specialist. This ensures the creation of valuable content for users and, with its help, makes it possible to increase the shop’s visibility in search results.

Link building

Link building is the acquisition of links from other sites that lead to the online shop. As this is an extremely important part of the operations, it should be carried out closely under the guidance of an SEO specialist. Incompetent execution of a link building campaign will not only result in a lack of effects but may even harm the shop’s domain.

Links from partners’ websites
One way to increase the number of links leading to the online shop is to ask partners (wholesalers, suppliers, resellers) to place a link to the shop on their websites. If a given partner expresses willingness for such cooperation, it is worth using the help of an SEO specialist who will indicate how, in what form and where on the website such a link should be placed.

Links from blogs
If marketing activities include campaigns with bloggers or influencers, it’s worth ensuring that they link to the client’s shop as part of each such activity. As with links from affiliate sites, the support of an SEO specialist will be extremely helpful.

Paid links campaign
One of the most important elements of the SEO strategy for an online shop should be a regular link building campaign, which enables building a link profile that is valuable from the point of view of search engine robots and the link profile. Both in Poland and abroad, it is common practice to obtain paid links from services offering the possibility of buying them from another domain, for example in the form of a mention in an article that is related in terms of topic to the shop. However, this should be done very carefully, as the temptation to buy a large number of links that can accelerate the effects of SEO activities may prove disastrous – at best, you will end up spending a lot of money on links that will not contribute to the increase of phrase position, organic traffic and ultimately sales; at worst – feeding the domain with inappropriate links, which will lower the value of the domain for search engine robots. In order to make sure that the link building campaign will be carried out in accordance with the best SEO practices, it is worth entrusting it to a specialist to select appropriate websites – taking into consideration their quality, relevance and the so-called ‘SEO power’ they can provide to the domain.

Building a strong position for an online shop in organic results requires a properly prepared and implemented SEO strategy, including technical, content and link building aspects. To a large extent, online shop owners can diagnose areas for improvement on their own and, without the help of a third-party specialist, take care of it themselves. However, in order to derive maximum benefit from SEO activities and to fully exploit the potential of the shop, it is worth consulting a specialist in this field on an ongoing basis, and to entrust part of the work to them entirely. This will ensure that the money and time invested will result in real benefits and generate more profit.

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