Why I Don't Care Much About DATA...
Today I am going to give you some insight as to how I personally approach DATA...and how I think people overuse meaningless data to the point of paralysis.
I am sure you have all heard the cliche, "paralysis by analysis". This means that overanalyzing something can lead to “inaction”...which can be detrimental to your success. Yes, looking at too much data too often can kill your success!
I want to first explain what my personal take is on data then I am going to explain how I use it in a way that is advantageous versus being intrusive to productivity.
OK...let’s rock and roll...
Over the years I have been one to shy away from too much data. I didn’t buy keyword tools (I am a strong proponent of Jaaxy.com now), I was a late adopter of analytics and other traffic analysis tools,but without all of this data at my fingertips, I was still able to achieve success! But how?
Because I focused on things that built my business.
- creating content
- building web pages
- building sites
- research keywords and niches
- understanding my audiences
Traffic behavior is secondary, but first you need traffic before you can start to analyze it. You are not going to be able to determine much by looking at 10, 50 or even 100 clicks to your site.
The ACTION was my focus. Whether this is a lead or a sale, this was my initial focus when it came to understand metrics. If I got a 10% conversion rate, I was happy....if I got 25% of people to sign-up to my list I was happy. If I got a 1st page ranking in Google, I was happy.
"I rarely look at metrics unless I have loads of traffic where I can refine a campaign."
Data is killing businesses and preventing people from creating success...one person at a time.
An obvious example of this is "rankings in Google".
I see every day people reporting that their article or their content has moved from page 10 to page 30 or has increased 2 pages in rankings. Page 1 or 2 and that is it. Who cares if it is on page 4 or page 100. It is meaningless after the first 2 pages and if you are sifting through data after that point you might as well be on Facebook posting a picture of your latest meal.
Another thing I see a lot of is "watching" over "building". TV's are for watching, not campaigns.
Looking at data as watching. It is like playing a sport but sitting on the sidelines...you simply don't get it if you are not on the field catching the balls or stepping up to the plate. I want to be the person out there trying to hit a homerun...not the person up in the box recording the stats and trying to make sense of them, in particular when using meaningless data.
So what is the important data then?
It is simple. Data that validates what you are doing. Data that implies what you are doing has worked. Trying to get a ranking in Google, check to see if you got a ranking on the 1st page. Don’t see it, then continue on OR try something to help get it ranked. Then check it works.
It is easier to write 10 pages of quality content that is "not quite" perfect and get several of them ranked than it is to try to perfect one page.
Another thing that you may find hard to believe is that I DO NOT look at competition. They are likely doing something wrong. Something careless and chances are they may be on their way outs of the search engines. Just because a page is ranked #1 right now, doesn’t mean that Google isn’t lining them up in the cross heirs waiting to SNIPE them with the next panda or penguin update.
People get lost in how many backlinks, how many words, what density, what images...they are data mongers. It is what is taught out there by many I suppose, but I can tell you through experience that the more data you are looking at, the more you are trying to copy what you see working, the worse for wear you will be from any Google Panda or Penguin. The people you think are doing brilliant things to get rankings, may in fact be gaming Google in a way that is going to get slapped right out of the rankings.
Focus on your content...focus on your readers...and focus on building your own business, not emulate someone else's.
When I look at data?
I start to carefully consider data when I have enough traffic to make it worthwhile. I don't make assumptions on data though, I will test something new and compare it to the data to see if it improves my campaign or makes it worse.
What you test could be a number of things, to the anchor links you are using, to headlines, to images, to ad copy, to different types of copywriting, to offering your email address within the page (which can increase conversions BTW!).
Once I have enough data, it is a matter of refining that campaign to make it perform better. The worse thing you can do is to try to refine and improve upon a campaign before you have this data because you are making "assumptions" which may not always be correct.
What is my biggest concern?
EARNINGS. If your campaign is not earning any revenue and you have traffic, then you need to look into data and see what is going on. If it is earning some money, but not the best, it may be time to optimize your campaign (look at traffic, top click-throughs).
People are strange and their behaviours online are often times not all that predictable. Without comparative data it is tough to make assumptions and you simply shouldn’t. Run tests when you have data and work to improve your "conversions" that lead to revenue.
So...
Your initial focus. BUILD.
Your secondary focus. TEST.
Your last focus. REFINE.
If you take this approach you will save yourself a ton of time looking through data which won't benefit you...time in which you can dedicate to building your campaigns up to a point where you will have enough data to truly benefit from. :)
Recent Comments
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I am So Glad to hear you say this, Kyle. I feel the same way & I Don't Want to get caught up in all the analysis. I remember Travis Sago talking about a woman who was very "green" with affiliate marketing, did A Lot of things Wrong and yet, still was making $100,000 a year! She might be on to something.
I think people get caught up trying to do everything "perfect" when in fact you do not need to be perfect to create a good deal of success online. Your content will never be perfect for everyone but it will become more perfect by "doing"...not analyzing. You learn how to fail and succeed by doing more often and this is a critical component o success.
I totally agree with this Kyle. I often see a lot of newbies get hooked up in all the data & metrics to something they're doing. A lot of its just common sense & doing it. I think most people make Internet Marketing much harder than what it really is. Backlinks is a good example. No need to tutor me over backlinks ;) but I see a lot of people spend a lot of there time looking at the metrics behind the backlinks they have going on, when it reality it really doesn't matter that much.
A lot of this also has to do with what is being taught out there (the misinformation). People are only looking at back-links and trying to use this data to determine why their competition is ranked higher because it is something they have been taught.
I agree with everything you said, people overthink things and dig into data and focus on metrics that simply do not matter. Hopefully this post will help some people that are in this situation. Thanks for your perspective Seth, always appreciated.
Thanks another great post, I totally agree I rather play the game than sit on the side and watch :). I have to remind myself if the task I am doing is moving me towards my goal/building my business or is it just a time waster, checking your email more than 1 or 2 times a day is wasting time and taking focus away from building your business same thing with checking rankings.
And so is checking your Facebook account...but we all have our flaws and inefficiencies throughout a day. 8-10 hours is a of time and you can accomplish a lot in a fraction of this time if you are able to remove a lot of the inefficiencies and time sucks.
Like you said, it is good to categorize things into different buckets. Priority tasks and "once a day" tasks (like email, facebook, etc).
4 hour work week is a good book on this topic, how to remove the fluff we do everyday and get down to core biz. Reading the book is one thing getting it done another lol.
Well now, that's a breath of fresh air. I never was very good at the analytical side of things anyway, have always been more drawn to the creative side. So thanks, I am only going to focus on creating and giving. No sense trying to analyze something that's not there.
Exactly...and this is the problem with most keyword tools. They give you a bunch of data that means nothing and people spend days looking at metrics that don't mean a thing. Your approach sounds like a good one, creating and giving!
It is something I am just getting to grips with. How much of the last 2 years here at WA have I spent looking at figures and not producing content!
Don't beat yourself up over it...just make changes NOW that will benefit you going forward. I think if you can get your "data" activities down to a couple hours per week you are going to see a significant increase in your bottom line.
I get caught up in analysis all the time where is my page ranked where is my last article ranked how many views etc etc it eats into my time badly. Its a habit I will have to break as my development has been side tracked badly. Thanks for the info Kyle I will try and stay focused.
Yeah, I think on occasion it happens to all of us. You just can't let it be a regular occurrence or it is going to dip into your productivity. Time is the only thing that we cannot create more of and if you are inefficient from the get go you are going to have a difficult time building a sizeable campaign.
I have to agree with your Title (loud applause). As a 28 year veteran in media placement and other aspects of advertising and Marketing... I found when we relied too heavily on the numbers, we died by the numbers. Fortunately, I learned that lesson early on. Fast forward to today... If one builds their site to make Google happy, it's likely their customers won't be entertained or impressed... after all when you try to write to accommodate Google, you're writing for "bots". Google is trying to force all of us to lay out our pages in a similar way, place our keywords similarly... in other words, they want us to be "bots" too. Thank You Kyle for the reminder.
I agree, sometimes we need to take the "process" out of it and add the "human" to the equation. I have always taken the approach that if you focus on the user, the search engines will follow and this has always been the best approach to get rankings and retain rankings in search engines.
Google is chasing users...users are chasing quality content, you want to deliver what the users are looking for and you will never run into issues. Sometimes we tend to approach this entire business as some sort of robotic procedure...there is still a massive HUMAN element in all of your activities.
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Hi Kyle. So glad you wrote this - it should be compulsory reading for WA members old and new. I was beginning to think I was a bit odd because I have never focussed on data for my sites (partly because I'm rubbish with figures) but also because I have spent lots of time building lots of quality content.
Thanks Beverley. I also think that everyone should read this as this is probably the biggest factor (beside not doing anything at all) that leads to failure. I almost think that sometimes it is a fear thing, people would rather look at data because they fear creating something. Hopefully this will help people get in this situation get over that hurdle.