Digital Insights

Today, I was chatting with a client about some information architecture changes to his website. The changes were being proposed to create a better user experienced and the organize content that had professional value that we buried in a blog.

It is generally the same tale. A client has taken down an old website, and doesn’t bother to redirect any of the old pages or redirects every page to the homepage.  There is a lot of value in creating redirects.  

This information graphic shows the big three reasons why you should create redirects for your old website.

There was news that Google Data Studio was globally released this week. However, I think the bigger news was that there were some upgrades to the features available including an improvement to the filters and the additional of custom segments from Google Analytics.

Let’s step through the filter updates first.

In a usability study we did for a client pitch in 2009, we queried users how they looked for auto repair vendors. We didn’t ask them how they ‘searched’ for these repair shops, so we got answers like “I ask my dad” or “my husband picked a place”  . . . a pretty typical scenario.  

We further asked them, what factors they ultimately used to make the selection.  Where location and distance from home/work a factor? The resounding answer was YES.

If you haven’t been looking at Google Data Studio to create great reports and sleek dashboards, you have been missing out.  For those of use who have been slathering ourselves in the sleek functionality, we have only been held back by the restriction of creating only 5 reports per profile.

Yes, it hearkened back to the days of Analytics Profiles and Goal Creation in Google Analytics.  However, Google Announced an early bit of love it is spreading by lifting the 5 report limit in Data Studio.