| Recent Articles |
The Buying & Selling Links Debate
At Search Marketing Gurus blog, Li Evans has a great collection of opinions on paid links from both the search marketer and publisher's perspective. She asked several people that work in the search marketing industry...
Trends That Signal The Future Of Online Retail
In the industry I work in, it's easy to get overly passionate about all of the new sites emerging every day that fit into this Web2.0 classification the...
SOHO As An Online Business Model
Sometimes to understand the future we have to have some historical perspective. We often forgot that before the 19th century, and prior to the industrial revolution, nearly all offices were small offices and/or home...
Improving The Odds Of Your Success In ECommerce
Technological advances have allowed a series of potential revenue streams in the world of ecommerce. Certainly the technological revolution has allowed brick...
Relationship Vs. Traditional Marketing
The difference between relationship and traditional marketing may appear to be trivial. However, at its core lie major theoretical differences that have compounding effects when practiced in the real world. Before we...
Traffic Building: Build, Talk, Welcome
Kevin Costner heard the now famous words, "If you build it, they will come," in the movie Field of Dreams. He had the notion that he should build a baseball diamond...
|
|
05.14.07
What Exactly Does Website Optimization Mean?
 By
Anil Batra
What does word "Optimization" or "Website Optimization" mean to you?
I asked this question a while ago on the yahoo web analytics group. The reason I asked this question was because I came across and article on Media post (Google Tries To Redefine Optimization ) where author was questioning the name of the tool that Google was calling "Website Optimizer". According to the author "Website Optimization" means making sites naturally position well in Google and not a tool for doing multivariate or A/B testing.
I thought I had a clear idea of what an optimization or Website optimization mean but after reading this article I was not sure if everybody has the same definition of Website optimization. Just do a search on Website Optimization on Google and you will see what I mean, you will find that this query yields paid searches from Search Engine Optimization companies, A/B Testing companies and company which allows optimizing load time of your site.
According to Merriam Webster dictionary Optimization is an act, process, or methodology of making something (as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible; specifically : the mathematical procedures (as finding the maximum of a function) involved in this
So in terms of website it translates into an act or process or methodology of making a website as fully perfect, functional or effective as possible. Website optimization is a continuous process of improving a site to achieve business goals while delivering a great user experience. Web Site Optimization includes:
1. Serving websites faster and uptime of the site
2. Search engine optimization (SEO)
3. Campaign optimization (media optimization, A/B testing, multivariate testing)
4. Landing page optimization (A/B testing, multivariate testing)
5. Conversion rate optimization (A/B testing, multivariate testing)
6. Website design
7. Usability
As you can see all the above aspects are managed by different people (or organizations). Depending on who you ask you will get a different definition of Website Optimization. Their role in the organization influences how they think about optimization which results in different definitions. All the people are correct in their definition however each definition alone is too narrow
The people responsible for different pieces of website optimization do not understand the complete picture and are locked in their own definition of website optimization. The writer of this article (Google Tries To Redefine Optimization) probably had SEO background and hence he had a different definition than a web analyst would have. I can see how then name Website Optimizer can be confusing to a lot of people since it covers only one aspect of website optimization.
As a web analyst you should be aware of (and involved in) all the aspects of website optimization and only then you can develop a continuous process to improve the site. By being involved does not mean you have to actually do it but you have to make sure the web analytics data is driving the decisions. It should also be your responsibility to educate all stakeholders about how best to optimize the site based on the data. You have to act as glue, connecting different aspects of optimization.
Sidebar: Here are the response I got from the yahoo web analytics group users
Comments
About the Author:
http://webanalysis.blogspot.com
Anil work at ZAAZ and has over 10 years of experience in Consulting, Business Intelligence, Web Analytics, Online Advertising and Behavioral Targeting. Prior to joining ZAAZ he was working at Revenue Science, leader in Behavioral Targeting. He worked with Revenue Science since it was called digiMine, a web analytics vendor. He has worked with several fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Business Objects, Dowjones, ESPN. Anil holds a B. Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from India and an MBA from University of Washington, Seattle.
|
