First off, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more said about the comparisons between Google Analytics and WebTrends. When Google acquired Urchin back in 2005 and suggested they would be giving the tool away for free, I thought WebTrends would last no more then another 2 years. But I’ve been totally wrong. They’ve still been able to ask for thousands of dollars for the privilege of using their software. I thought it was about time that we really compare these two popular tools and the data they report.

Ok, so Google loses on the matrix of features but let’s go into this a bit deeper.

Bot Traffic: Advantage WebTrends. If you absolutely need to know what bots are hitting your site then go with WebTrends because Google just can’t report that data.

Real-Time Analytics: Big Advantage to WebTrends. Real-time reporting requires investing an a substantial amount of server power. Sure Google has that power but they haven’t put it behind Analytics yet. My guess is you’ll see this in the future but right now the win goes to WebTrends. In my opinion, it’s the sales team that needs to know about real-time visitor activity and there are plenty of tools out there that can do a better job then WebTrends at reporting real-time activity.

Hits: For real? Who still uses this as a metrics and why? Slight Advantage to WebTrends.

Tracking Advertising: This can be accomplished in Google but it’s a bit of a hack to get it working. WebTrends is more eligant in it’s approach towards tracking advertising.

Animated Graphs: Advantage Google. I’m a data visualization junkie and I can easily lose hours working in the visualization tool; however for the majority of marketers this is overkill.

So, how does that data compare?

Total New & Returning Visitors

This data is comparing a 1 year time frame by monthly totals.

Referral Traffic Counts

Six months of data from Jan 1st, 2009 and June 30th, 2009

Page Views

Six months of data from Jan 1st, 2009 and June 30th, 2009

Verdict

To each their own. I personally can’t justify WebTrends to our clients. Google’s feature set is 95% of what is available in WebTrends and the few features that stand out don’t justify the hefty price tag. I’d love to chat with someone who feels WebTrends is superior to Google, I just haven’t found that person yet.

These are not valid metrics of the health of a website. These are numbers that executives like to hang their hats on, and they are shortcuts to thinking and in-depth analysis. I love metrics, no doubt, but it’s time to start telling stories of user-interaction. Hard numbers lack context; and therefore often send poorly informed decision makers down the wrong path. Let’s go over a few of my favorites.

Absolute Unique Visitors
This number is by far the most used metric of site success but it needs to be framed in the context of goals & objectives. Look at the weekly trend below. It’s a capture of our traffic pattern on supportdetails.com. Support Details is a one-page site that captures browser specs and sends them to a targeted contact via email.

Simply showing this graphic and looking at an absolute number doesn’t tell the story of what the users are doing on this site. When this graphic is supported by referral sites, repeat visitor trends and normalized for spikes then the numbers begin to talk.

The numbers are telling me the spikes in traffic have helped to create product awareness, overtime this increased awareness has led to increase usage of Support Details on a regular basis. By utilizing the visualization tools that Google Analytics has to offer the trend becomes pretty apparent.

Pageviews
More pages clicked is counter-intuitive to the rational of a good site
information architecture. So why is it valued as a positive metric? If someone is clicking on more pages it can either mean they aren’t able to find content, or it could mean they are deeply interested in the content. I usually suspect it’s the former.

Bounce Rate
Measured by a visitor coming to one-page of the site, then leaving. This isn’t necessarily an indicator of a problem. It could be a measure of excellent content. If a visitor is searching for information and they find it without clicking around, then wouldn’t this be considered success? When this metric is used in the context of goals, then it becomes important. As a standalone number, it’s a useless metric.

Time on Site
What does this really mean? Does increase time mean the site is difficult to navigate. Is it hard for me to find what I’m looking for, or am I engaged in reading the content. In-depth analysis would compare the objectives of the site, with the type of content, then the average stay on a particular page.

I could continue offering alternative views for just about any of the major metrics, but my point is it’s time to look at the bigger picture. We need to be asking questions rather then looking for shortcuts that make for pretty charts and reports. Dig deep, give real analysis into what’s perceived in reading the numbers; that is were the art & skill of analytics pays off.

I’d like to hear more stories of useless analytics that you’ve encountered. Please share the info.

They did it to Netscape, and they are trying it again on Google.

Microsoft is stealing what works and refining it to suit their needs with just enough modifications to make it marginally unique. This time their effort is called Bing.

If you missed the announcement earlier this month, Microsoft Live Search is now Bing.

Search Engine Watch remarked about the first week trend data which showed Bing stealing a 6% market share from Google. My guess is much of this traffic was related to the search engine freaks like myself who tested the system during the first week rather then use our the default favorite, Google. However, I’m fairly confident that this 6% reduction in Google’s market share is a sign of times to come.

Earlier today I spoke to Greg Davoll, VP of Marketing at Worksoft and fellow tech junkie. We’re both in agreement that something is different about Bing that makes us both feel that this new attack on Google might actually have traction.

Let’s break down a few reasons why:

1. Bing is visually refreshing
   The homepage image rotates out daily. By contrast Google’s white background gets old fast. It’s a minor difference but it’s enough to add life to the engine without adding complexity.
2. Is this AdWords?
   The is almost no difference in the placement of the paid-ad results. As a lifetime hater of Microsoft AdCenter this new development has caused me to rethink using AdCenter as a viable alternative to AdWords.
3. It’s about the Width
   Bing has a wider default layout then Google. When measuring the “related searches” on the left, space given to natural results and the ads on the right, Bing is 955 pixels wide. By comparison Google measures a measly 1990’s standard minimum width of 630 pixels. This added real-estate allows Bing to offer user-friendly related searches, along with the user’s recent search history. As the user mouses over the natural results a light gray vertical line appears with a centered circle. Mousing over the gray line previews text from the destination homepage to the right of the results. This gives the user a quick way to evaluate a site, without actually clicking through.
4. Results are just different enough
   I use search engines multiple times during the day, it’s the nature of our industry. During my 1 week switch to Bing I found I only needed to use Google twice. In both occasions it was for local search or mapping related queries. Otherwise, I found Bing’s results to be as good as Google’s. Many times the Top 20 results were similar in content but sorted / prioritized differently by each engine.

I’m about as big of a Google fanboy as they come. Yet, despite my love for all things Google I’ve got to say Bing is certainly a viable challenger. I’ll be making the switch over to Bing for a few more weeks to see if I can live & work without Google. I’m sure I’m not the only one looking for something different.

It’s called charging people a monthly fee.

Why are so many web-services scared to charge their user base? Especially when the service kicks ass like Facebook or Twitter. TechCrunch is saying that 1 in 5 people on the web have accessed Facebook. I’m sort of thinking that there is something of value there for that many people have an interest. Why then are these companies still looking for a way to make money when the answer is in their face?

Charge us!

Facebook is struggling with ad supported revenue and Twitter is anyone’s guess. Their customers are asking to be charged and would gladly pony-up some cash if it meant a better service.

Facebook and Twitter set bad examples for start-ups by not charging. It creates the impression that all web-services must be ad-supported. This simply isn’t a good approach to building a long term sustainable service. Locally, I try to attend the monthly Boulder / Denver New Tech Meetup, and I’m continually heartbroken by all the startup founders looking for ways to capture VC funding when they already have a fairly nice service to offer. It’s as if everyone is trying to cash in on building the ‘next big thing’ by growing fast and selling to Google.

I fully understand giving a service away in the beginning in order to draw in the users, but have a clear plan to stop the free services and convert to a paid model. The “try before you buy” model isn’t used enough. Facebook could charge for users who’ve been on their services for over 1 year. Twitter could easily charge by volume of Tweets.

I can already see the comments coming in about how charging will diminish the social / community value of these services. Yet, I would be MORE likely to use these services if I was confident they would be here in the future and not sold off to Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.

We did it back in 2002, but here is how we’d do it again in 2008 on a shoe-string, bootstrap or sandal-thong budget.

Let’s assume you are starting a company because you’ve either been laid-off, had it with the boss or decided to pursue your dreams. My guess if you are like most Americans then you likely won’t be able to give more then $1,000 to the cause. Let’s be real, you are likely not going to receive a bank loan anytime soon.

1st.
Pick a company name and register your business with your State’s Secretary of State. I’d recommend using LegalZoom to setup an LLC, especially if you have business partners. The LLC let’s you get up and running quickly with minimal costs. As your business matures, then decide if another corporate suffix is better for you. You’ll be able to afford fancy lawyers at that point.

Cost $149

2nd.
Find a domain name. Good luck with this one! It’s the main reason why you see so many companies with funky, misspelled names these days. If you aren’t the most creative person use a services like NameBoy to toss around word variations. Once you find one which works, register it on GoDaddy.

Sure I’ve ranted about GoDaddy in the past but their service is still pretty darn good.

Cost $20

3rd.
Buy a Synology NAS with two 1TB internal drives. If there is only one thing I would suggest you spend money on, it’s this. The Synology NAS will give you RAIDed network file storage which can be shared with other co-workers as your company grows. It’s especially nice because the Synology NAS allows for FTP services for those co-workers which are connecting to you remotely. I’m figuring you haven’t closed on that fancy first office just yet.

Bonus: Synology can run FTP, SSH, DDNS and Apache so you can use it to run your web site while you start figuring out your business plan.

Cost $550

4th.
Using GoDaddy as your DNS server, point your email hosting to Google Apps and run your domain name using GMail. You’ll get a free email service which kick the crap out of spammers.

Google Apps also contains Google Docs and Spreadsheets but there is just something nice about having files on your a Synology NAS as opposed to in Google. Once Google develops a way for me to download a backup of the data then I might reconsider this.

Cost $0

5th.
Download and install OpenOffice. I don’t care if you are running Mac, PC or Linux. The OpenOffice team deserves a lot of respect for building a kick-ass free alternative to Microsoft Office and this desktop download won’t disappoint. It will allow you to create spreadsheets, word docs, presentations, drawings and simple databases. You might even consider keeping it as you grow.

Cost $0

6th.
Setup chat, AIM, Skype and any other of the plethora of instant messaging tools. This will help you resist the need to purchase land-lines from the blood-sucking telcos.

Cost $0

7th.
Setup YouMail. This service will give your cell phone some class. I’m guessing it’s going to play double duty between your home life and your new business identity. YouMail takes your cell phone voicemails and emails them to you as MP3s. It also let’s you personalize the voicemail greetings so you can filter the call for a more professional greeting depending on which client or prospect is calling in. Goodbye generic voicemail messages!

Cost $0

8th.
Purchase a real accounting package like Quickbooks. Yes, I know there are tools like BlinkSale and others which you can generate invoices with, but Quickbooks is time-tested and at the end of the year your accountant will thank you.

Cost $180

9th.
Lastly, use BaseCamp to setup a collaborative environment between your internal team and your customers. BaseCamp is free to manage your first project on, after that you’ll have to pay a minimal fee to add more projects and features.

Cost $0 (at first)

There, that’s it! This is how we’d do it again in 2008. The combination of these tools and services will give your new start-up the legs it needs to move forward as well as a polished image which will hide the fact that you are poaching wireless internet and working in a nearby coffee shop.

Good luck and don’t let this shitty economy get you down!