I was thinking about my last post Mining Keyword Data for Financial Acquisitions and felt I had not really gone nearly as far as I could with the data in my keyword referrals that's being stored in Google Analytics. In a way, I'd prefer to focus on this kind of information as opposed to regular SEO, which I find boring.
For example, looking at buyer or acquisition behavior I'd look for phrases that contain "buy", "bought", "sale", "acquire", "cost", "price", "pricetag", "behavior", etc. Here's what I came up with from Google Analytics:
1. Keywords containing "buy" that might indicate buyer or acquisition behavior:
| 42. | 3 | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
| 446. | 1 | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% | |
| 447. | 1 | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% | |
| 448. | 1 | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% | |
| 449. | 1 | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
| 489. | 1 | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
So…who is going to buy Visual Sciences? Someone wants to know; there were 3 visits, one on July 12, August 19th and August 26th. The landing page visited (which shows the page on my site that comes up when someone executed that query in a search engine (probably Google):
| 1. |
/2006/09/visual_sciences_superior_web_a.html
|
3 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00 |
And the "Locations" where people came from:
| Network Location | Visits | Pages/Visit | Avg. Time on Site | % New Visits | Bounce Rate |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |
dynamic ip pool cht-bas-002
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
| 2. |
road runner holdco llc
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
| 3. |
telewest hsd platform
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
The locations, in this case, wasn't that helpful so I looked for the city each search came from:
| City | Visits | Pages/Visit | Avg. Time on Site | % New Visits | Bounce Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Croydon
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
| 2. |
Encinitas
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
| 3. |
London
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
It's all foreign visitors, so whoever wants to know who is going to buy Visual Sciences, it sure isn't anyone I know and they probably don't live around here; however they were all "new" visitors, meaning they're not regular readers (RSS Subscribers) or people who visit my site regularly.
Microsoft buys hopstop was a search that happened on August 28th but it resolved to a page I wrote about Hopstop:
| 1. |
/2007/05/hopstop.html
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
Hmm… I think I got something here….. HopStop, which I said Google should buy earlier this year:
"..Transit planner HopStop
, however, takes on these larger metros, providing coverage for Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., and several cities in New Jersey. For each city, HopStop will plot directions and estimate travel time by foot and public transit (bus / subway) between two or more addresses. It also comes with some other really useful features. You can choose which travel method you would prefer more, walking, busing, subway, or a combination of the three. Also, since you don’t always know the street address of your destination you can pick it from a map. "
When I went to the Etsy.com party in Brooklyn a couple of months ago, I used HopStop to get directions - and they were pretty good. "
Someone is wondering if Microsoft will buy HopStop… question is ….who? Is it someone from a Financial Institution?
| 1. |
pfs web
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
It looks to me like www.Pfsweb.com is a Fortune 1000 Global Outsourcing firm and it's not really clear if this is in someway related to purchase behavior or if it's some kind of study, that suggests maybe Microsoft should buy HopStop. The individual who searched was located in Addison, Texas, at the Corporate Headquarters.
| City | Visits | Pages/Visit | Avg. Time on Site | % New Visits | Bounce Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Addison
|
1 * | 1.00 | 00:00:00 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
Let's say it's just that ….. in someone's mind, just knowing that might be valuable information. For example, it's known that Google is beefing up on local search using public transportation, but it appears they are building that capability themselves…at least, it looks that way to me, else they'd have bought HopStop..but they didn't. Maybe Microsoft would want to buy HopStop….and if I were a broker or speculator …. maybe I'd put some money on it (both that they will, and that they won't).
Now, all of this is public information, I have every right to it, they came to my blog from a keyword search. But what if I worked at the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or Associated Press…think of the data I'd be sitting on.
I wouldn't even need to be anyone high up on the food chain, I could be a "web analyst"…. I could pull this data. Question is…would I know enough to know what to do with it … is it enough information to be actionable.
Probably not….there's probably not enough actionable data here to take any action, except if you were someone who knew enough about how markets work…that data might then lead to further inquiries that might lead to an action…and action one might not take otherwise.
I think there's an awful lot of valuable data, "gold", in Referrer Logs and in Local Search Query Logs too, but it takes a bit of datamining to get at it. However, I think this is much more rewarding and some companies are specializing in datamining precisely this information.
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