eConsultancy, an online publisher of internet marketing research and reports, has just released information about their recent SEO roundtable briefing. The monthly group discussions, which cover various topics in online marketing, include some major companies and employees within the UK SEO market. It makes very interesting reading and I would recommend anyone interested in the UK SEO market to go and download a copy.

Some key facts…

• :: The UK SEM market was worth an estimated £1.41 billion in 2006
• :: The UK SEO market was estimated to be worth about £98 million
• :: Spend on SEO services represents 10% of the overall market for Search

It’s a good time to be a UK SEO. There is a lack of expertise in this area and currently demand is outweighing the supply. This is certainly going to benefit a lot of the seasoned pros, as more and more set up internships and conferences in order to increase the UK offering.

SEO is now widely recognised as an essential requirement for any web project and more and more marketers now understand what it is, and how important it is. I remember a time when client meetings involved educating those in the room about how the search engines work and why you cannot simply build a site and expect people to find it. Those meetings are now far more progressive; a client will often ask “have you seen this new development?” “Would this work on our site” “I notice a title tag changed the other day” etc. This is obviously a far more positive way of working, the more that is known about SEO, the better the project progresses and overall goals are achieved.

The main reason a clients interest and excitement increases in SEO is obviously down to the measurable ROI. Often when a project is 6-10 months in and the ROI is being measured, clients will often see that due to keyword inflations and click fraud concerns, that SEO is much stronger than PPC. More emphasis is then placed on the organic optimisation and interest grows in what results can be achieved.

The future also looks bright for the UK SEO market with social media optimisation, personalisation, localisation, content, vertical search and mobile search all playing a major role in the future of the engines. As more and more spam is found and removed from the SERP’s, the power of ethical white hat SEO increases. This is great for the white hats out there and can only be a good thing for the consumer as the SERP’s become cleaner and clearer.

My only concern for the future is with the amount of cowboy, fly by night companies that keep popping up who claim to be SEO experts. As the demand increases, more and more “so called” SEO experts suddenly appear offering “Number 1” placements. I just hope this doesn’t effect the reputation of the rest of us.

We’re moving servers at the moment (eek!). Every single website that we currently host will be moving across to a new location (more on that soon). Included in our server move is an update in the web analytics which we provide to our clients.

At the moment we offer a free inhouse solution which we host internally. The old server which it all sits on is about to collapse and it would cost quite a bit to buy new hardware solely for analysing web logs. I have decided instead to look for an improved analytics solution for all of our clients.

I will try to provide as much information as possible during this buying process…

I am looking for two types of analytics software:

1. 1. A free tool. This will need to be set up as standard when we launch a new website and will either need to be accessible through web based reporting or through our customer gateway.

1. 2. A more advanced solution for the clients which I provide with SEO and internet marketing services. I will need a tool which is relatively low cost to begin with but also has options to upgrade to more advanced features. This tool will be used on ecommerce websites and will therefore need to successfully provide accurate conversion analysis with the ability to run custom reports.

The Free Tool

My options are quite simple; use a web log solution and host it inhouse or use a web based tool. I have used awstats and Stat Counter in the past, both tools work ok on a low cost site and when analysing spider visits but I have found them to be restrictive and fairly inaccurate. The other tool which is completely free is Google Analytics. I have been using Google Analytics for a while now and it is head and shoulders above the other free tools. The data seems to be accurate, it works really well along side an Adwords account and even provides a free site overlay tool. I have therefore decided to set up all clients with a free Google account.

I am in the process of setting up about 30 sites on one Google Analytics account. Other clients with white label and sub domains will be set up on their own Google account. Each site requires some Urchin code to be placed on every page, in our case it will be added to a php template and then set up within the account on Google.

The whole process took about half a day and was relatively painless, after 24 hours each profile was receiving data.

Advanced Analytics

The selection process for the paid for program has been a little bit more difficult. There are so many solutions available, all offering very similar tools but all with their own USP. After some careful research and talking to other SEO’s I have decided on a shortlist of these two services:

Click Tracks

Click Tracks offers “intuitive, insightful analysis of your web site. It shows you campaigns, site navigation patterns, PPC, SEO and ROI stats instantly”. I have seen a demo of the product and I must admit it is pretty special. The user interface is extremely friendly and it provides really in depth and accurate data. The main reason I looked at this product was due to a couple of our clients completely redesigning their website this year. I wanted to be able to do some multivariate testing on two designs. Click Tracks is able to show you both versions of a page and analyse what was clicked and what converted more successfully. The SEO and PPC campaign data is also very impressive and allows you to see exactly where your referrals are coming from and which are converting most successfully.

Index Tools

I have heard a lot of great things about Index Tools. Mainly from other SEO’s who have told me its extremely powerful, not as expensive as its competitors and is fully customisable. Index Tools “provides e-business leaders accurate, insightful and timely intelligence about the effectiveness of their Web efforts, thereby helping them to increase sales, reduce marketing costs and provide a higher level of service to their customers and partners”. The screen shots which I have seen look very nice and data is provided by adding a javascript file to the root of your site and placing a small piece of code on every page which requires tracking.

I have been set up with an demo which I am sure will help me with my decision.

I will now be trailing both services over the next few days and will make a final decision next week. I will post my thoughts on both packages with details of my choice next week.

Which analytics package are you using?

The Financial Times reported last week that Brighton is gaining a reputation as the hub for IT, creative and media industries.The main reasons it gave for this expanding creative cluster were:

• Trendy Reputation
• Younger population than the national average
• Well educated workforce
• University graduates not wanting to leave
• Fastest Growth of output goods and services

Brighton is beginning to get the recognition it deserves as a leading media City. It comes as no surprise to me, someone who was born in the City, that it is becoming more and more popular with young and creative media types. I hope Brighton will be able to sustain this growth in the future, the news of more high profile companies moving to Brighton would suggest that it will.