| LED Digest 2519: Where are the Female Designers? |
|
|
|
================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. October 23, 2007 Issue no. 2519 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> --== Where are all the Female Designers? ==-- ~ Shelly Cole "...females are *seriously* under-represented in the industry..." --== Dayparting PPC Campaigns ==-- ~ William Waites "...are the real 'shoppers'...more apt to do their online shopping on weekends?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Stay Away from Google Analytics? ==-- ~ Maty Matyszak "Before you can measure conversions for example, you have to define a visitor." <Moderator Comment> "It's sometimes eye opening to segment out bounces from conversion rate." =========== NEW ================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, Following up on the "Ask an Expert" special issue coming up -- all questions have been submitted to the volunteers. I'm still collecting the responses - hope to have them all by end of week . (Note to answer panel members -- if you haven't sent in your responses, try to get them to me by Thursday). Look for the special edition of LED next week. -Adam ---------------- From: Shelly Cole Subject: AListApart Design Survey - Female Designers > First is this somewhat amazing survey of the > Web design and development community at A List Apart: > http://www.alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2516 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1928/190/ I actually took part in that survey. I answered many of the questions as best I could (as they said in the results, some of them were not very well-worded). Prior to seeing the results, I guess I lived in my "own little bubble" on my status in this industry. I belong to *two* very active networking lists that involve about 99% women, and both lists have hundreds of members. My inbox every day is filled with information from these women - some of them are well-known names. So "my little bubble" consisted of the firm belief that I was just trolling along in my job, just like anyone else, and that there were plenty of women and people my age doing exactly what I do. Every now and then, I'd be surprised by a comment of "never finding female help in the industry." But when I saw the survey results - and know that I don't see this as a definitive and perfect survey, but more of a "guideline" to how things are (and a loose one at that) - I could not express the *shock* at what I saw. Not only because females are *seriously* under-represented in the industry, but also because probably 80% of what applied to *me* alone fell in the very low percentages of the questions. So my reaction to these results went a little on the "personal" side for me. It made me ask a significant question to myself - one I haven't found the answer to yet. Because of my obvious uniqueness in this industry (as set by this one particular survey), do I hinder myself and the progression of my business, or is it a boost? Like I said, I haven't found the answer, but I'm an optimist - so I look at it as a boost. Chances are, you ain't gonna find *anyone* like me! But now the question becomes, if it *is* a boost, how do you market that? Anyway, it was just really interesting - and I'd love to see other perspectives on the survey. Shelly Cole http://www.brassblogs.com ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Autumn Leaves Must Fall, But Not Your PR Seasons change. How about your site's copy? When was the last time you added or updated your content to make it more end-user useful and search-engine succulent? Customers and search bots want fresh meat. www.GetWebContent.com/LED, we deliver the beef. ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic --------- From: William Waites Subject: Adwords Timing (Dayparting) I wonder if any of our colleagues have any answers to or insights about this question. We try to time our adwords exposure to the times when "shoppers" - we are a retail site - are most likely to be on the web looking for our product category. In the past, everything we have seen suggested that the busiest time was between 1 PM and 3 PM on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. As a result we would back off on weekends. I suspect that pattern was a result of surfers at their workplace using the boss's computer because the connection was more likely to be high-speed. Whereas, at home they were just as likely to be creeping along on dial up servers. With the increase in high-speed servers to private homes, however, and the increasing vigilance of bosses to prevent personal business on company time, I'm wondering if the situation isn't reversing. Even though the traffic holds up on those 1-3PM weekdays, are the real "shoppers", with time at home to delve into their search and high-speed connections to serve their needs, more apt to do their online shopping on weekends? Anecdotally, I know habitual eBay sellers say the best time to end an auction is Sunday evening. Could there be a correlation? William Waites Eyewriter ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Maty Matyszak Subject: Google analytics My own feeling with web analytics is that there's a lot of variables built into the traffic. Caching, outfits like AOL which can use multiple servers and therefore multiple IPs for a single visitor, even people who download a lot of the site and look at it on their own hard disks all distort visitor numbers, and that before you discount bots, spammers looking for a good forum to hit, and other net flotsam. So the bottom line is any package is inaccurate, simply because the nature of what it is measuring is imprecise, and some of the definitions are vague. Before you can measure conversions for example, you have to define a visitor. Does someone who hits your front page for 3 seconds count? Our own approach is that while we can never say exactly how many visitors we get (to stick with that example), what we can do is stick with one web analytics package and the same parameters for our metrics, and measure variation within those statistics. That is, if we got x for a particular metric, and the next day we get x+2% we can feel safe that this is a solid increase, even if x remains uncertain. We run google Adsense and this is a useful control. Having a large amount of traffic means that our CTR (clicks to impressions ratio) should not shift by more than a fraction of a percent. If this goes out of kilter, its time to check the logs and find what's going on. Maty Matyszak www.knowyourcat.info <Moderator Comment> Great post, thanks Maty. I especially liked this: > Before you can measure conversions for example, > you have to define a visitor. Does someone who > hits your front page for 3 seconds count? That is a critical point. It's sometimes eye opening to segment out bounces from conversion rate. It can make a big difference in the results. -adam (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Look with favour upon a bold beginning." - Virgil |
