Form-Field Errors

After a form-field’s validation runs, you are able to capture errors using Google Analytics, Omniture or Performable. Whenever an error message appears, whether it’s client-side or server-side, you can create an event in your visitor-tracking tool of choice to keep track of each time this occurs.

Often, visitors will hit stumbling blocks on forms where users are attempting to create new accounts, log into the site, or check out. If you find a form with high exit rates or possibly one that has high traffic but low uniques, you can tell that people were trying to come back to reuse the same page and that there may have been a problem when they did so. From here, you track an event each time the user encounters an error message:

_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value)

For incorrect password submissions upon log in:

<script type=’text/javascript’>
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Error', 'Sign In', 'Incorrect Password']);
</script>

If you store the error messages as variables, you can use event tracking to call the variable and you can change the variable’s text as time goes on and A/B test the different error message versions:

<?php
$message = ‘Incorrect password’;
if ($message) { ?>
<script type=’text/javascript’>
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Error', 'Sign In', '<?php echo $message ?>']);
</script>
<?php } ?>

If the user can get more than one error on the page at a time, you can store the messages within the same event tracker. You can concatenate them into the same variable you’re calling in the event tracker or you can use an array. When you see that users are skipping many fields in the same form, it could mean that the user is trying to see which of those fields are required. Using the same event to track multiple missing fields can tip you off if this is happening. But you might want to begin by tracking the events separately because you may need data from having tracked individual errors over time.

404 Error Tracking

Even if you already know the number of times your 404 page is viewed, you may not be aware of the referring URLs or the pages the users were trying to access. You can see both of these things by adding tracking codes to 404 pages:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Error', '404', 'page: ' + document.location.pathname + document.location.search + ' ref: ' + document.referrer ]);
</script>

Using Google Analytics to Track Errors

If you have tracking code set up, you can go into Google Analytics under Event Tracking (under Content) and you will find a list of your errors. By choosing the Categories link, you can sort by error types.

If you want these reports readily available on your dashboard, you can use the Add to Dashboard button. This is helpful with 404 errors because you then have a reference point for when new 404 errors come through as you log in.

You can use the Intelligence section to figure out if error messages are spiking by attaching an alert to a specific metric. You can set custom alerts which will email you when certain events exceed a certain level by a set percentage from the day or week before.

Analyzing Errors

Once you are aware of the times and places that error messages are occurring, you are able to figure out where your site’s common stumbling blocks happen and why. Knowing the types of problems your users encounter will help you make smart decisions about how to alter your site to make the UX flow better.

If your site has a traffic spike, you may want to look for groups of users who are getting certain types of error messages because there might be something unique about that segment of your user base. If you’re looking at traffic coming in with new visitors, these people are seeing your site fresh. They are unaware of the navigational flow or which fields in your forms you have set to required. If a visitor is returning, they might be more familiar with the layout and structure of your site and how to navigate it, so these people might not encounter error messages as much because they already know which parts of the site caused them to receive errors in the past.

You can set segments like new visitors and returning visitors in your error event listing so that you only see those you’re working with at that moment and it makes it easier to analyze that particular data set.

You can also use the filter event setting in the search bar in Google Analytics to check referring sources for 404 pages. This is helpful when you’re searching for errors on pages within your own website.

You ca then prioritize which errors need to be fixed right away. If you look at which errors are affecting the largest set of people, you can fix those first before moving on to errors that are only affecting a small portion of your users. After that, you can determine which are fixed most easily and work on those first to get them out of the way, making time for more involved error repair projects. After you’ve prioritized your first round of error repairs, you can track your errors for another week to see what is happening and then reprioritize again. If you’re seeing the top errors change from where they had been, you can fix those and move on to the errors affecting the next largest group of users.

Improving the design, layout, and text of your error messages when the user sees them can help to eliminate a lot of the problems associated with your users having repeat encounters with the same error message. If you make sure the message is clearly written and highly visible, you may drive down your repeat error alerts in your tracking. You can do this by A/B testing the messages you’re sending out to see which ones work best for the users and then measure each one’s effectiveness.

In Google, when you search for a something, it will usually show part of the meta description below the website URL in search results. See the picture on the left to see what I’m talking about. The text that shows up is the text in the meta description for Giant Concepts.

By complete accident, I recently overwrote the default setting for the Meta Description on one of Giant Concepts websites. This careless mistake led to a dramatic drop in organic search traffic for this website. The website has over 2000+ pages indexed in Google, and all of them lost their Meta Description. I certainly don’t check that my Meta Descriptions are in place on a daily basis on all our websites, but I do periodically check my analytics to look at current trends on all the websites that we maintain. It took nearly two weeks for me to notice that this website had significant drop in organic search engine traffic (it actually only affected Google traffic, as Bing and Yahoo remained consistent). The graph not only shows how quickly and dramatically the traffic dropped but how fast it came back once it was re-implemented.

If your website is not performing as you’d like it, try adjusting your Meta Descriptions. It is a reminder of how important properly worded Meta Descriptions can be for your overall search engine marketing strategy. Here are a few suggestions for properly worded Meta Descriptions, not a complete guide but enough to get you on your way:

• Meta Descriptions should be between 145 – 165 Characters.
• Should NOT just be a bunch of keywords separated by commas.
• If you are doing ecommerce, each of your products should have a different meta description.
• Each unique page that is search relevant (non search relevant pages would be: contact forms, privacy policy, etc) should have a meta description.
• If you have one or two specific keywords you are targeting, you might want to use those words 2 or 3 times in your meta description.

Despite the ex-boyfriend’s mommy’s complaints on her son’s behalf and the subsequent removal of these allegedly copyrighted photos from the offending host servers, the images held steadfast to Google’s index, refusing to budge.

Here’s the thing – even if the images seem to be gone from the sites to which they were posted, the pages are still returning 200 status codes instead of the “page not found” status necessary for removal from Google… which means they’re not going anywhere.

Might want to check that the lover you’ve scorned isn’t an evil memetic mastermind next time… unless you want to face a reputation management nightmare that could follow you the rest of your life.

When and if this happens to you or your employer, you might find yourself calling a reputation management company like us!

Bing claims they are a decision engine, and they help their users make better decisions through their search. My question is this – is utilizing their users’ data to fill in the gaps in their own search engine stealing or simply improving upon their own search results by helping their users to find what they are looking for through utilization of the data that they collect?

How do you feel about Microsoft utilizing this tactic?

The Internet is a wonderful marketing tool, but because of people wanting instant gratification and the speed at which information spreads around the world rapidly populating search engine results, it can be just as good of a tool for anyone looking to give you or your company a bad reputation! The reality is that in the course of a normal day, people are talking about you, your products, and your company. Are the things they are saying ruining your chances at a job? A business deal? A new client? Increased sales? Perhaps a new boyfriend or girlfriend? – Search Reputation matters and it should matter to you.

Luckily, there are are two ways of handling this problem:

Reactive Reputation Management

• Beg and plead with the person who wrote the content to remove it.
• Threaten legal action against the responsible party and/or try to get Google or their hosting company to remove it (good luck with that).
• Hope that the news doesn’t go viral, creating hundreds or thousands of negative references to your business.
• Figure out how to get that nuisance website ranked lower for all those search terms.
• Contact Giant Concepts to learn more about Reactive Reputation Management services and what we can do for you.

Proactive Reputation Management

• Control a good portion of the search engine real estate for your name, company or brand.
• Populate and optimize content that helps control search engine rank of a term.
• Control strategic domains ahead of time so that they can be deployed quickly.
• Contact Giant Concepts to learn more about Proactive Reputation Management services and what we can do for you.