google analytics | Jason Palmer, CPA, CITP

WordPress – Claim Google Authorship for your Content

July 30, 2013 By Jason Palmer Leave a Comment

Google recently introduced a new way to identify, validate, and rank content called “Authorship.” This is accomplished by linking your Google+ Profile, which should contain a head shot picture, to the content (article posts) on your WordPress site.

By claiming ownership of your content, it enables Google to know that the article was presumably written by a real human being, you, as it is linked to a Google+ Profile. When your article appears in the Google search results, a picture of you will be displayed next to the search results.

The coolest things about the new Authorship search result are the two links: “by Jason Palmer” and “More by Jason Palmer.” When you click on the “by Jason Palmer”, you will see my Google+ Profile page. When you click on the “More by Jason Palmer”, you get a mini-Google Search engine of all my content which enables readers to find other articles that I have written.

Google has not yet fully disclosed exactly how the new Authorship link will improve your content position. One could assume that authenticated content will rank higher because it is from a real person instead of an anonymous source that could have simply plagiarized or copied it and republished it with erroneous attribution.

Another great benefit is that if you use Google Analytics, you will get additional activity statistics on your Google Authorship enabled content.

If you have the Genesis Framework, implementing Google Authorship can be accomplished in three easy steps: Find your Google+ Profile URL; Enter it in the Google+ box on your user profile page in WordPress; Add your site to your “Contribute To” section in your Google+ Profile. Rather than duplicate other great content, see this article at CopyBlogger.com “Claim Google Authorship for Your WordPress Website in 3 Easy Steps” for screen shots and an extended narrative on how to do it.

If you are not using the Genesis Framework, you can use a generic “Google Authorship” WordPress plugin to accomplish the same task.

Two of the more popular “Google Authorship” WordPress Plugin options are:
Google+ Authorship WordPress Plugin by WP-Buddy.com (Pro Version $8)
and
AuthorSure WordPress Plugin by Authorsure.com

Once you have this setup, you can test what your article search results will look like with the “Google Structured Data Testing Tool” available in the Google Webmaster Tools site.

If you are still not convinced of the value, again from CopyBlogger.com, here is another great article entitled, “10 Reasons Writers Should Claim Their Google Authorship Markup”

Google Webmaster Tools

June 30, 2012 By Jason Palmer Leave a Comment

Google Webmaster Tools provide you with detailed reports about how visible pages on your site are to Google.

Using Google Webmaster Tools you can:

See how Google crawls and indexes your site and see specific errors generated such as “page not found.”
Learn about internal and external links and which key word search queries bring traffic to your site.
Upload a Site Map file which tells Google which pages are most important and which URLs (pages) you want Google to index.

One of the most helpful aspects of Google Webmaster Tools is the “Site Health” area. Here Google tells you about Crawl errors. Google is extremely efficient and subsequently many sites have their generic sample posts indexed at Google. You delete them but Google still thinks they exist. The Crawl Error report will tell you the exact page location and the date the error was detected giving you the opportunity to investigate further.

Google has no way of knowing, without a little human intervention, if a “Page Not Found” is a technical problem, a page that is now behind a secure login, or has been removed. Once Google indexes a page or is told to index a page at a certain URL, it will keep trying until told otherwise. It is through the Google Webmaster Tools that you can mark these errors as “fixed” or permanently remove a URL from Google’s index.

Similar to Google Analytics, (Read my post on “Google Analytics for WordPress“) Google Webmaster Tools provides specialized traffic analysis focusing on and listing the search terms that caused your site to be displayed somewhere in the results listing of the query and its’ average position. And there are extensive reports on which sites link back to your site as well as how your site links to itself between categories and pages. Of course, Google+ activity reports are included showing search impact, activity, and audience.

The most important feature of Google Webmaster Tools is the Optimization Section. It is here that you can upload a SiteMap.xml file that tells Google about pages that it might not otherwise find during the Index Crawl and it gives you an opportunity to definitively tell Google about the content of your site. In a similar manner to the Search Engine Optimization discussed in my Post, “All in One SEO Pack for WordPress”, the SiteMap file can also provide metadata about the types of content on your site such as video, images or news. A SiteMap entry for a video might include the run time, category, and format information. For an image, the subject matter, type, and any license information. A SiteMap file can also alert Google to the last time of a site update and the frequency of change of or addition of new content to the site. (A future post will discuss how to create SiteMap.xml file.)

In short, using the Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard allows me to keep my site as “Google Friendly” as possible by alerting me immediately to any Indexing Crawl Errors, the status of my SiteMap.xml file updates, and it helps me determine which keyword searches are drawing traffic to my JasonPalmer.com WordPresss web site.

Useful Google Webmaster Links:

Google Webmaster Tools:
– http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Google Webmaster Academy – Everything you ever wanted to know about Google
– http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=checklist.cs&tab=1095542

Google Webmaster Tools Help:
– http://support.google.com/webmasters/?hl=en

Google Analytics for WordPress

June 28, 2012 By Jason Palmer Leave a Comment

Google Analytics for WordPress answers the age-old question, “I built it, did they come?” Every web server creates a log file that tracks details about the visitors to a web site. The challenge becomes getting access to that file and then having the tools to process the raw data to get meaningful information. It all sounds very complicated and it was, but not anymore. Furthermore, traditional web visitor log file analysis was very generic and not optimized for Content Managed Web sites such as WordPress.

Is there an easier way? Yes, Google Analytics for WordPress. (Note: Google Analytics can be implemented on any web site even though the scope of this article is specific to WordPress.)

Google Analytics for WordPress is a plugin that instantly reports back the activity on your site to the Google Analytics Engine for analysis and reporting.

Information includes Analytics on:

Content – The parts of the web site that had the most activity.

Social – Determines the interaction with Social Media platforms such as Google +1 and many others.

Mobile – Activity/Visitors using devices such as iPads, Tablets, and Smartphones.

Conversion – Response rate to Ad campaigns, direct response, and eCommerce – as applicable.

Advertising – How well social, mobile, search and display ads are working at bringing traffic to the site.

To view the information being communicated to the Google Analytics Engine, you need to sign up for a Basic Account, which is free, at the Google Analytics website at http://www.google.com/analytics. (If you already have a Gmail or other Google Site account, you can simply activate Google Analytics for your account.) Once you have an account, you need to perform a few simple steps to validate your web site domain (i.e. JasonPalmer.com ) to prove to Google Analytics that you are authorized to collect information on the domain. You can do this by manually entering your Google Analytics account number also called the “UA Code” in to the settings section of the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin. Or, if you are using Google WebMaster Tools, you can authenticate the site via an entry in the Zone file of the Domain Name Server (DNS) that is Authoritative for your domain. (Note: If you understand the term DNS, and you know who you are, this will be the easier method. For those that do not, Google WebMaster Tools will be discussed in another post shortly.)

Once everything is fully configured and connected, it may take up to twenty-four hours for Google Analytics to start creating reports from the collected visitor data. These reports will be extremely beneficial in helping you understanding the activity on your web site. The reports will break down your visitors by geography, language, location; are they new or returning visitors?; the frequency of their visits and how long they stay on the site; which web browser and operating system did they user – (Internet Explorer or FireFox or Safari) and are they Mac, PC, Android, IOS, etc.; source of traffic such as Google or a Social media site; analysis of the content for speed, page visits, page response time; internal search; and numerous other variations on the major reporting areas listed.

Learn more about Google Analytics for WordPress at:
– http://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics

The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin at WordPress.org:
– http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress