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How the Internet Works: URL’s, Linking, Structure, Social

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Framework

PURPOSE The purpose of this deck is educational. With more social and campaign work being taken on by The Bloc, this deck aims to highlight the basics of digital campaign tracking.

KEY AREASTO EXPLORE

Basic Terminology Building a Custom URL Link Shorteners Root vs. Deep Linking Basic Metric Foundation

PROCESS 1. Discover key terminology in the space to lay foundational awareness of relation of technology, process and metric goals

2. Breakdown custom URL builders, fields of note and mandatories vs. optional parameter fields

3. Discover key terminology to gain underlying insight into metric foundations and campaign goals

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How Packets of Data Travel Hops

‒ The longer the distance between content servers of origin, the longer it takes for data to be recalled

‒ The longer the distance between content servers of origin, the more hops take place to recall data

‒ The more hops along a route, the more likely it is for that data to be corrupted, sniffed or lost

‒ The vast majority of public facing Internet traffic occurs on publically accessible transmission infrastructure

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Securing Packets of Data

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Tip of the ‘Berg

The vast majority of the web is protected, only accessible via closed password protected channels

In terms of The Bloc and the websites and URL structures we create, our content lives within the surface and deep web.

A good portion of the digital platforms we create are within the deep web, allocated so to meet security criteria set out by legal mandates like HIPAA.

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Basic Terminology UTM

‒ Also written as UTM Parameters, UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitor) are URL parameters used by marketers to track audiences. The parameters enable marketers to analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns across traffic sources and media. By adding UTM parameters to URLs, web analytics software (e.g. Google Analytics) reports show which domain source and which campaign name is referring traffic to a website. When a person clicks a link that contains a URL with UTM parameters, the web analytics software of the destination website interprets the parameter information and attributes it to the person's website session.

Domain‒ Domain names are used to identify one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com

represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html, the domain name is pcwebopedia.com.

IP Address‒ An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer)

participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing. Its role has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."

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Breaking Down the URL URL

‒ A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), commonly informally termed a web address (a term which is not defined identically) is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), although many people use the two terms interchangeably. A URL implies the means to access an indicated resource, which is not true of every URI. URLs occur most commonly to reference web pages (http), but are also used for file transfer (ftp), email (mailto), database access (JDBC), and many other applications.

http://video.google.co.uk:80/videoplay?docid=-7246927612831078230&hl=en#00h02m30s

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Breaking Down the URL

http://video.google.co.uk:80/videoplay?docid=-7246927612831078230&hl=en#00h02m30s

Protocol

Subdomain

Domain Name

Port

Path

Query

Parameters

Fragment

Protocol – HTTP, HTTPS. Can include FTP, POP, SMTP, IMAP, Mailto, Data etc. How communication takes place between the web browser and the web server being called upon.

Subdomain – A sub division of the main domain. Sits within and under the primary domain. Domain Name – A unique reference name which identifies a website. Always includes a TLD. Port – Rarely seen in a URL, but always there. It is the end point communication location of an OS. It is always associated

with an IP address and the protocol type. Multiple port #’s exist in operation. Path – A file or directory on the called upon web server. Query – Query string. It is found in dynamic URL’s (generated from a DB or user content), used to recall specific information.

Parameters – Acts as a tool to delineate information to search engine spiders. Ex: can be used to tell Google to distinguish

between country pages dedicated to consumers from different countries. Fragment – Acts as an internal page reference. It specifically refers to a section within a web page.

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Building a Custom URL

Website URL in question to be tracked.

Required. Use utm_source to identify a search engine, newsletter name, or other source. This is the source of

where traffic will be coming from.

Required. Use utm_medium to identify a medium such as email or cost-per- click. This tells Google what kind of

source traffic is coming from.

Used for paid search. Use utm_term to note the keywords for this ad. Defines the keyword term for a paid ad.

Used for A/B testing and content-targeted ads. Use utm_content to differentiate ads or links that point to the same URL. Defines content description for a paid ad.

Required. Used for KW analysis. Use utm_campaign to identify a specific product promotion or strategic

campaign. Defines name of the campaign.

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Building a Custom URL

Website: www.healthnucleus.com

Source: September 16th, 2016 newsletter

Medium: email

N/A for campaign type

N/A for campaign type

Name: sept16-newsletter-update

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Building a Custom URL

Protocol: HTTPS (even though it is not listed) Domain: HealthNucleus.com Query: ? Parameters: utm_source=september16-2016-nl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sept16-newsletter-update

**Not every URL will contain every possible URL field of entry

Once the Google campaign tracking link is created, the link will automatically show up in the specified Google Analytics account

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Building a Custom Shortened URL

Used: https://goo.gl/ Multiple shortener tools are available online: https://bitly.com/, http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url, http://bit.do/,

http://tinyurl.com/ The Google link shortener tool comes in handy because it seamlessly correlates with GA

The shortened link should be used for social campaigns to cut down on character length and to track link campaign activity

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Best Linking Practices Concerning Content Theme

The basic premise is a question: Do you build content off of a driving directive or do you build links to bridge gaps between existing thematically relevant content?

Purpose

‒ Aids in website navigation‒ Defines the architecture and

hierarchy of a website‒ Distributes page authority and

ranking power throughout the site‒ Guides user along a

predetermined, thought out path with an ending goal in mind

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Commandments1. CREATE CONTENT WITH PURPOSE

2. BUILD NATURAL ANCHOR TEXT

3. LINK DEEP AND WISE

4. NATURAL CONTENT, NATURAL LINKS

5. RELEVANCY IS KEY

6. BUILD FOLLOW LINKS

7. REASONABLE INTERNAL LINKS

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URLs, Linking and Social Linking to a brand or content publisher’s website is an integral part of any successful campaign Links on social allow brands to extend the user’s journey and potentially convert them into leads or

customers URL shorteners such as Bit.ly or Po.st provide a two-fold benefit for brands and audiences:

‒ 1) They look more user-friendly and can be customized (vanity links) to encourage higher click-through‒ 2) They allow brands to track and analyze data based on user engagement with the links

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URLs, Linking and Social: Getting Granular The Big Three – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – all allow for linking with a different

set of parameters within the user experience FACEBOOK

‒ A virtually limitless character count means that brands and businesses can use full or shortened links.

‒ An ugly link is still an ugly link. This should never be seen in a FB post: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/19/health/gallery/former-olympians-where-are-they-now/?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion

‒ Shortened links tend to be more inviting to users and offer deeper analytics from clickthroughs‒ If page visits and brand awareness are high-level KPIs, brands can remove URLs from a post

and still have the page’s content generate for audiences to engage with TWITTER

‒ The 140 characters available in a tweet is cut down to 117, meaning all links, shortened or not, equal 23 characters

‒ Adding in media (photo, GIF or video) brings the character count down to 93 with a link included, so media is worth 24 characters

‒ Twitter auto-truncates all URLs, so the sole benefit of using a shortening service is for deeper analytics

INSTAGRAM‒ Brands and users cannot link out to anything in an Instagram post or in a post’s comments‒ The accepted workaround is to place the single URL in the account bio and provide messaging

in posts for users to check out the bio‒ Short or shortened URLs will perform best for clickthroughs