Moogs
2012-01-30, 12:35
OK, so this is my fault for not being more on top of things from the start and trying to do the Wordpress Web Master thing by the seat of my pants.
I have a lot of good content on my site, it's all free and I get a lot of compliments on stuff, but statistically my Google Bounce Rate and Engagement stats are lousy. There appear to be a few different reasons for these problems. The former is easier to recognize and attempt to fix.
Better Bounce Rate - Where Did I F up?
1. I have not made enough use of excerpts. Too many posts are shorter, "read it on the front page and leave" type situations. Have fixed several of those.
2. I did not have "track PHP" active when I first opened my Analytics account because I wasn't using WordPress at that time. I never went back and added the setting once I started WordPress. That was... two years ago maybe? Long time so I don't know now that I've fixed the setting, if Google can retroactively "see things that happened" WRT to PHP pages, but I doubt it. Will have to track carefully from here.
3. I was not using YARPP or similar code to add "related links" to the end of each post. Have added today. Seems to do a reasonably good job of finding the related stuff or stuff people might find interesting.
Better Engagement Numbers, or "0 to 10 Seconds WTF?!"
Given that my blog is PHP and I had some of the above issues which are related, and then reading this article about a flaw in Google's measurement approach (http://briancray.com/2011/04/12/time-on-site-bounce-rate-get-the-real-numbers-in-google-analytics/), my question IS: can I add function the code he shows in that article ...
(function (tos) {
window.setInterval(function () {
tos = (function (t) {
return t[0] == 50 ? (parseInt(t[1]) + 1) + ':00' : (t[1] || '0') + ':' + (parseInt(t[0]) + 10);
})(tos.split(':').reverse());
window.pageTracker ? pageTracker._trackEvent('Time', 'Log', tos) : _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Time', 'Log', tos]);
}, 10000);
})('00');
... AFTER my Blog Tracking Code, but before the </script> end-tag below? IOW Can I combine them in the same script and not fowl things up for Analytics?
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', '############']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>
Multiple JS functions between tags should be fine, right? Moreover does The Brad or other gurus agree with the article premise above? Seems very logical to me but I know nothing about how Google handles its updates or algorithms. Maybe that issue is long since resolved? Hoping not based on my numbers, and that it is a big part of the cause. :lol: :wtf:
(FWIW I will also try some Minify options and the like to speed up page loads. But my site has been pretty fast to load all along so that's probably a small % of the 0-10 second "effect").
I have a lot of good content on my site, it's all free and I get a lot of compliments on stuff, but statistically my Google Bounce Rate and Engagement stats are lousy. There appear to be a few different reasons for these problems. The former is easier to recognize and attempt to fix.
Better Bounce Rate - Where Did I F up?
1. I have not made enough use of excerpts. Too many posts are shorter, "read it on the front page and leave" type situations. Have fixed several of those.
2. I did not have "track PHP" active when I first opened my Analytics account because I wasn't using WordPress at that time. I never went back and added the setting once I started WordPress. That was... two years ago maybe? Long time so I don't know now that I've fixed the setting, if Google can retroactively "see things that happened" WRT to PHP pages, but I doubt it. Will have to track carefully from here.
3. I was not using YARPP or similar code to add "related links" to the end of each post. Have added today. Seems to do a reasonably good job of finding the related stuff or stuff people might find interesting.
Better Engagement Numbers, or "0 to 10 Seconds WTF?!"
Given that my blog is PHP and I had some of the above issues which are related, and then reading this article about a flaw in Google's measurement approach (http://briancray.com/2011/04/12/time-on-site-bounce-rate-get-the-real-numbers-in-google-analytics/), my question IS: can I add function the code he shows in that article ...
(function (tos) {
window.setInterval(function () {
tos = (function (t) {
return t[0] == 50 ? (parseInt(t[1]) + 1) + ':00' : (t[1] || '0') + ':' + (parseInt(t[0]) + 10);
})(tos.split(':').reverse());
window.pageTracker ? pageTracker._trackEvent('Time', 'Log', tos) : _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Time', 'Log', tos]);
}, 10000);
})('00');
... AFTER my Blog Tracking Code, but before the </script> end-tag below? IOW Can I combine them in the same script and not fowl things up for Analytics?
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', '############']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>
Multiple JS functions between tags should be fine, right? Moreover does The Brad or other gurus agree with the article premise above? Seems very logical to me but I know nothing about how Google handles its updates or algorithms. Maybe that issue is long since resolved? Hoping not based on my numbers, and that it is a big part of the cause. :lol: :wtf:
(FWIW I will also try some Minify options and the like to speed up page loads. But my site has been pretty fast to load all along so that's probably a small % of the 0-10 second "effect").