Now I am thinking about multi-colored spandex and a black-tiled room full of overweight men working out… ah the 1980s… All Olivia Newton-John song references aside (although I am sure you are singing it in your head), Google Analytics is a free website analysis tool that generates detailed traffic reports for websites. These traffic reports “talk” to us in a sense, by listing important website statistics that are useful in many ways.

DDA, a search engine marketing company, uses Google Analytics on websites that we are not hosting, but are enrolled in the SureThing Optimization Program. By adding a piece of tracking code to each page, we are then able to track our progress of website optimization by viewing the improved traffic to the site.

We find that being able to view traffic reports is an important part of website optimization. We can see which keywords potential customers are using to search for a website’s services and can then point out which terms need focused optimization to improve rankings. This software can show how visitors find a website and how they interact with the website’s content.

Being a search engine optimization specialist, I find it important to be able to view a website’s visits and pageviews, new and returning visitors, and also which search engine the visitor is coming from.

When I think of cookie cutter, I think of the dictionary’s definition… a device, usually of metal, for cutting shaped forms, as circles or stars, for cookies from dough that has been rolled flat. This is probably because I love baking!

Baking was one of my all time favorite things to do with my Mom. She baked all of our elaborate birthday cakes and always had cupcakes ready for us as a little surprise on holiday mornings. I have taken her recipes and secret tips and continued the baking tradition. From cakes to cookies, cupcakes to cobblers she taught me how to do it all. Over the years, I haven’t had as much time to bake and at times have resorted to running to the store to pickup something from the bakery section… but this weekend I was back in the kitchen and baking cakes, cupcakes, and making sand pudding.

In today’s world, cookie cutter has come to mean the footprint/shape/base of something that is the same and repeated over and over.

Cookie cutter is probably used most often to describe website design. Other website design companies are using templates to create websites. DDA knows better!

Search engine optimization could also be considered to be cookie cutter by having the same meta tags on each page etc. At DDA, a search enging marketing company, we take the time to focus each individual page of an optimized website on a specific topic. We treat each of the sites that are enrolled in our SureThing Optimization Program like we are baking them from scratch, in a sense, making sure that each site has the proper ingredients to increase their website rankings on Google. And when the timer has gone off… our client’s websites have achieved numerous rankings on the first page of Google.

At DDA, we leave the cookie cutters at home!