Updates Archives

GA4 Setup

Part 2 of many about GA4 and what is coming after UA

The next installments of the Analytics after UA, deals with detailed work you need to do to make sure you have access to GA4. Here is a step by step explanation of GA4 Setup:

Use the GA4 Setup Assistant to create a new GA4 property that collects data in parallel with your existing Universal Analytics property. There are no changes to your Universal Analytics property, and it continues to collect data as always. You can access both properties via the property selector or Admin screen.

Starting GA4 Setup

To use the GA4 Setup Assistant, you need the Editor role for the account.

1. 1. In Google Analytics, click Admin (lower left).
    admin at the lower left hand side
  2. In the Account column, make sure that your desired account is selected. (If you only have one Google Analytics account, it’s already selected.)
  3. In the Property column, select the Universal Analytics property that currently collects data for your website.
  4. In the Property column, click GA4 Setup Assistant. It’s the first option in the Property column.
  5. Click Get started under I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 property.
  6. In the Create a new Google Analytics 4 property pop-up screen, you’ll have one of the following options, depending on how your site is currently tagged:
    - Create and continue. Click this button to continue to the Set up a Google tag page.
    - Create property. If you see this option, this means that Analytics can reuse your existing Universal Analytics tagging for your GA4 property. Analytics will create a connected site tag between your Universal Analytics and GA4 properties. Select this option and skip to the Next steps with your new GA4 property section.
      Note for advanced users: This option implements standard data collection for your GA4 property. If you’ve implemented any custom tags for your UA property
  7. On the Set up a Google tag page, select the option that best describes your situation and follow the instructions to finish creating your new GA4 property.

Use the Google tag found on your website (Recommended)

Select this option to use the Google tag detected on your website to complete setup without making changes to your site’s code.
If desired, click Details to view your tag details.
Click Confirm to finish creating your new GA4 property.

Use a Google tag you already have

Select this option to reuse a Google tag that you already have admin access to. Click Choose a tag. You’ll see:

1. A list of tags you have admin access to.Tag IDs
2. Choose a tag labeled “On site” to complete setup without making changes to your site’s code. If you choose a tag labeled “Not detected”, you might need to install it. Select the Google tag you want to use, then click Confirm to finish creating your new GA4 property.

Install a Google tag

Select this option if you don’t have the Google tag installed on your website.

- Click Next to install a new Google tag on your website.
- On the Installation instructions page, you have 2 options:
  1. Install with a website builder: If you manage your site using certain website builders (or “CMS platforms,” like Wix or Duda), you can finish setting up your Google tag without making changes to your code.
  2. Install manually: Choose this option if one of the following is true:
    1. Your website builder/CMS does not yet support the Google tag (gtag.js)
    2. You or your web developer are manually tagging your website
    3. Your website is tagged with analytics.js
    4. You use Google Tag Manager

Option 1: Install with a website builder or CMS
If you manage your site using one of the platforms listed on the Installation instructions page, select your platform and follow the instructions to finish setting up your Google tag without making changes to your code.
If your platform doesn’t yet support the Google tag, you can use the manual installation option (below).

Option 2: Install manually
Choose this option if one of the following is true:

- - - Your website builder/CMS does not yet support the Google tag (gtag.js). Note: You’ll need to use your platform’s custom HTML feature
    - You or your web developer are manually tagging your website
      Your website is tagged with analytics.js
    - You use Google Tag Manager

How to manually install the Google tag
On the Install manually tab, you’ll see the JavaScript snippet for your Google tag. Copy and paste your entire Google tag in the code of every page of your website, immediately after the <head> element.

Your Google tag is the entire section of code that appears, beginning with:

<!– Google tag (gtag.js) –>

and ending with

</script>

Next steps with your GA4 setup

After you’re done with the wizard, you’ll see “You have successfully connected your properties” at the top of your Google Analytics 4 Property Setup Assistant page.If your Universal Analytics property name is “Example property (UA-nnnnnnn)”, your GA4 property name will be “Example property – GA4 (xxxxxxx)”, without a “UA-” prefix, and where xxxxxxx is a new property number.

GA4 Setup Assistant — GA4 Property setup assistant

We will continue with GA4 Configuration in the next post.

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Analytics after UA

Part 1 of many about GA4 and what is coming after UA

Hey there! Google Universal Analytics (UA) will sunset before you know it, and your analytics after UA will be dominated by Google Analytics 4 (GA4). I’m thrilled you’re joining me as we dive into the world of SEO analytics with GA4. GA4 is already emerging as the key to gaining comprehensive and user-centric insights into customer journeys across multiple devices and platforms. So, let’s dive in and uncover how GA4 can help us elevate our SEO game.

We might still be learning, but with GA4, we’ll be able to answer two critical questions: How do people find our website, and what do they do once they get there? The most significant change in GA4 is its user-centric approach to tracking and analysis. The new approach means we’ll look at the entire user experience rather than fragmented experiences on individual devices or mediums.

GA4 Events

Before we proceed, let’s familiarize ourselves with events in GA4. The platform is all about event-based tracking, simplifying the process of creating and customizing events, tracking conversions, and building reports. So, Events dominate the landscape of GA4. For example, in the table below, you can see that so many properties that we took for granted in UA are now specific events in GA4:

UA to GA4 — Google table describing some UA properties that are Events in GA4

Now, let’s talk about setting up events. GA4 automatically collects specific event data, but we should set up event tracking for the events that aren’t captured natively. This gives us significantly more data flexibility and empowers us by making it easy to design and personalize events.

event-based-vs-session-based — The difference between UA session-based model and GA4 event-based model. (Source: Rittman Analytics)

To make the most of GA4, we should start by auditing what our GA4 account is already tracking, understand the parameters we’d like to collect and think about the audiences and segments we’d like to build. We should also work backward to understand which events to track and consider event-tracking limitations when finalizing the list of custom events to collect.

In addition to defining events, there are a few GA4 settings we should be aware of. The native events are either web, app, or both. You can find a complete list of these events at Analytics Help.

One of the best things about GA4 is that it unlocks more powerful segmentation abilities, giving us better context around our organic performance. Segments are a subset of users, sessions, or events.

You can apply segments to explorations to focus on specific data sets. We can create segments based on users, sessions, and events, allowing us to ask essential questions and assess our SEO performance more effectively.

GA4 makes for better analytics

Google Analytics 4 is revolutionizing how businesses measure their online presence, and we’re learning about it together. With its advanced features and improved measurement capabilities, GA4 will help us better track and optimize our digital content to improve our SEO performance. So let’s keep learning and growing together!

Please remember, At the most basic level, you should extend the retention of user-level data to a maximum of 14 months as soon as we set up our GA4 property. Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics (UA) on July 1.

But don’t worry; many tools are out there to capture and store your UA data so you keep your historical UA data. Some of these tools host the event and will display it for you, and many more host it as google sheets.

In addition, you can use any number of visualization tools to access all of your historical performance data, giving you access to GA4 and UA metrics simultaneously for the same reports. If you need any help having your data retrieved or setup, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

SEO AND AI – Today

While writing another piece about the future of AI and Large Language models for our blog, it hit me: I need to address today’s realities more. So here is a piece on what we have on the relationship between SEO and AI, today.

Even though AI models like ChatGPT are exceptional at generating statistically likely text, there may be better choices for creative storytelling. However, AI-generated content serves a valuable purpose in functional content creation, which can benefit industries such as e-commerce, reference materials, and more.

To effectively utilize AI-generated content, consider the following action plan:

1. Identify functional content requirements: Understand the applicable content AI can efficiently generate, such as data-driven reports, event summaries, FAQ sections, how-to guides, news aggregation, job listings, legal documents, technical documentation, and directory listings. There are certain content types that AI excels at, and we recommend that you limit your functional content to the following:
  1. - Data-driven reports
    - Event summaries
    - FAQ sections
    - How-to guides and tutorials
    - Compiling and summarizing news
    - Job listings
    - Legal and policy documents
    - Technical documentation
    - Directory listings
2. Kickstart large-scale content projects: Leverage AI-generated content to quickly create a critical mass of content for projects like recipe collections or travel guides. Building on AI content can help you reach your content goals more rapidly while maintaining quality through proper SEO and content management practices.
3. Optimize keywords with AI: Use AI like ChatGPT to explore alternative keywords, questions, or concerns related to your content and rewrite sections accordingly. Using AI to optimize your long-chain keywords will help ensure your content is more engaging and relevant to your target audience.

For example, we worked with a startup founder to successfully use ChatGPT to generate his pitch outline to present his platform, resulting in a significant increase in interest and, finally, his crucial customer’s adoption of his platform.

In summary, to create a cohesive thought and action plan, you should focus on:

- Identifying the correct type of content for AI-generated content creation
- Utilizing AI-generated content to kickstart large-scale projects
- Employing AI for keyword optimization and audience engagement

By following this action plan, you can make the most of AI-generated content to enhance your content strategy and achieve your goals.

Risk Management and the Arts

Risk Management and security are one of if not the biggest issue facing art organizations today. Unfortunately, it is not just because it may prove daunting but because it is rarely taken seriously within the organization until trouble arises.

Gone are the days when acquiring a HiTrust Certification, SOC2 type 2 auditor’s report, or an ISO 27001 accreditation was enough to defend your firm appropriately. Many seasoned practitioners knew that such a milestone was never a reliable indicator of an organization’s security posture or maturity. And it appears that the rest of the world has finally caught on.

The security threat environment is expanding in tandem with legislative and governance needs. Attacks have become more numerous and sophisticated, the number of attack channels has increased, the attack surface for businesses has increased substantially, and the complexity of our digital footprint has increased even further. In addition, the severe shortage of qualified and available workers to fill security tasks, including Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), compounds the problem.
In short, GRC leaders face numerous hurdles in today’s firms. Yet, surprisingly, I hear little talk regarding the most efficient ways to run a modern GRC or risk management program. Because each firm is unique, there may be a variety of answers. There are, nevertheless, methods for modernizing your procedures.

Do you have a Risk Management Program in place?
How are you currently managing risk?
Why has technology changed so dramatically while GRC programs have remained the same?
Is there a more efficient way to manage today’s modern GRC program?

Before we begin discussing possible solutions, let’s review the basics:
Governance refers to an organization’s statutory or contractual obligations regarding security, risk, and privacy objectives. Noncompliance can result in severe fines and even criminal prosecution in some situations.
Risk refers to managing risk within an organization, focusing on security and privacy standards.

However, this merges with Enterprise Risk Management. Enterprise risk management (ERM) is detecting, analyzing, and treating a company’s risks based on an ongoing assessment by executive management. ERM includes examining the company’s exposures in financial, credit, fraud, strategic, and operational problems.

Compliance refers to an organization implementing security and privacy controls to meet governance standards and decrease risk. Internal and third-party external audits are a significant component of compliance.
My personal experience is firmly rooted in the NPO space, having spent the last 20 years helping many of our art clients with their IT audit and compliance. Based on that, I have some thoughts.

The sheer number of regulatory requirements a modern NPO must meet can be overwhelming. Similarly, managing organizational politics in an NPO is challenging, both for and against risk containment. Security, particularly GRC, has typically been viewed as a cost center rather than a value generator. And as I have stated in previous conversations, seen as a barrier to creativity.

Personnel shortages and burnout are at an all-time high, compounding the problem. According to industry analysis, this gap will continue to increase in the near term and will be a concern for quite some time.
Every day, we hear about one breach or another, and everyone is trying to move towards a more secure posture. However, these areas have financial consequences and criminal prosecutions due to a lack of monitoring and care.

In today’s environment, the message is clear: No matter what problems companies face, they must reasonably preserve the security and privacy of the data.

Running a Risk Management Program

A comprehensive alignment among the leadership is required to establish a more sustainable and scalable approach. Accepting “growing pains,” the additional initial costs, and facilitating cross-organizational working groups are all part of this. Everyone benefits from this arrangement, and key stakeholders must understand how they may help so that they can passionately buy in and be change champions.

To start the process, you must determine what regulatory obligations your firm should meet. The correct response would be, “Ask your auditors when they come in,” however, most auditors assign their most junior, fresh off-the-robe (just out of college) individuals to manage in-house audit interactions. So your best bet is for your Finance Officer to call one of your audit firm’s senior partners and obtain a summary of the regulations you must follow.

After defining the requirements, the hard work can begin, which begins with a thorough understanding of the organization’s environment. For example, what people, procedures, and technology does the organization have? What is the organization’s culture? What is the organization’s risk tolerance?

What is the organization’s risk tolerance? If you can’t answer these questions, you can’t assess compliance adequately. During this phase, we are attempting to piece together several essential views of the organization:

Purpose, vision, and operational needs
Lines of business
Organizational Structure
Key business processes
The digital and physical footprint
Assets
Data processing and storage

Traditionally, there are numerous emails, direct messages, and meetings. As a result, all parties involved experience duplicative manual processes, exhaustion, and dissatisfaction. It’s simple to “drop the ball” or “miss the mark” on even the tiniest of tasks in the traditional way.

You will need a SecOp person to gather the data and get the closest approximation of the organizational reality. This person must have sufficient power to assemble and distill the information for executive review.

SecOps is a relatively new concept that refers to security functions collaborating with DevOps teams (Development and IT) early and frequently and incorporating “paved roads” with “guardrails” into the process.

The teams that are continually maintaining the environment, deploying updates, and keeping the “lights on” are the stars of the show here (DevOps), and it is critical for modern GRC teams (SecOps) to collaborate and integrate with these teams. The most vital connection to cultivate for a modern GRC practitioner wanting to update their program is this one. Cross-training between GRC experts and technical teams is required. Both groups can be experts in the other’s field but must grasp how things function.

Gaining a rudimentary awareness of what tools and processes are in use with DevOps offers significant returns. When we understand how these tools interact, we benefit all parties involved. Therefore, in addition to our personal growth and development, we must teach these technical DevOps teams the fundamentals of GRC. The idea here is to keep it simple; just as a GRC practitioner can’t master complex deployment and troubleshooting, neither should our DevOps teams be expected to lead an audit.

At the very least, the audit should address any commerce, ticketing, change management, and collaboration systems utilized in the teams. A modern GRC practitioner benefits immensely from working with the tools that DevOps teams are already using. Working with DevOps provides those practitioners with the ideal perspective for evaluating organizational security and, as a result, compliance with your criteria.

At the same time, the DevOps teams need to gain an understanding of the following:

The forces influencing framework or standard requirements
The distinction between completing a requirement and meeting the requirement’s intent
How and why must we manage requirements from many frameworks and standards?

What happens during the audit process, why do we gather evidence, and what efficiencies can we put in place to make evidence collecting more consistent, trustworthy, and less impactful on engineering teams
Moving to the system(s) of the record is the final key in this method. Individual file sharing is a formula for disaster.

Can you envision a modern sales team organizing their activities through spreadsheets rather than a sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system?

Certainly not! So, why do we handle our GRC initiatives in this manner regularly? First, however, it is critical to note that there will likely not be a single system of record. That is why your GRC software must integrate with other sources of a critical system of record.

Critical systems to integrate include change management systems, asset management systems, document management systems (for rules and procedures), and ticketing systems.

In short, make sure your IT and development crew know their systems, bring in an outside security person to lead the SecOps effort, and keep complete records of every process, discovery, and solution.

Sources:
GRC: The Definitive Guide (https://riskonnect.com/resources/grc-guide/)
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GRC (https://tallyfy.com/guides/governance-risk-management-compliance-grc/)
Risk and compliance management made easier (Hitrust- MyCSF)
(https://hitrustalliance.net/documents/mycsf/mycsf_information/MyCSFRiskAndComplianceManagement.pdf)

Behnam Ataee, DWG CTO, has completed the HITRUST CSF Assurance Program certification. Certified HITRUST CSF professionals can deliver simplified compliance assessments and report for HIPAA, HITECH, state, and business associate requirements.

Update to Google Search Result Elements

Google is responding to changes in the search by boosting consumers’ capacity to analyze search results and discover diverse points of view.
Google is responding to change by changing and expanding the search result elements (announced March 28), and thus boosting consumers’ capacity to analyze search results and discover diverse points of view.

The a doption of AI necessitates modifications in the way search results are processed. Many AI enthusiasts believe that search will be obsolete soon, and Google is doing all its power to prevent this.

Google already gives substantially more accurate results than AI when measuring the value of shown material using E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust). But, with this new change, Google offers more relevant and significantly more complete information while maintaining its search features.

Just in time for the International Fact-Checking Day on April 2, Google stated this week that the following modifications are being rolled out to search results:

Introducing ‘About this author’

You may learn more about the background and experience of the authors whose content appears on Google Search by pressing the three dots on any search snippet. Google’s release does not mention where it obtained the author’s information. And as of yet, Google has not provided any further clarification. Nevertheless, this functionality will be available on English search results worldwide.

Easier access to an expanded ‘About this result’

Google’s “About this result” feature will be available in all languages where the search engine is available shortly. Visitors can learn more about the source of content and how Google’s computers judged its relevance by tapping the three dots next to search snippets. This background can assist users in determining which websites to visit and which results to believe.

Google is expanding its “About this result” function with a new section named “About this author.” Google is making it easy to find “About this page” information. Users can now enter a URL into Google Search and see information from “About this page” at the top of the results. The functionality is now available in English internationally.

Adding diverse perspectives to Top Stories

Google is launching a new feature called “Perspectives,” which will appear beneath Top Stories and display views from various journalists, experts, and relevant voices on searched topics. This section seeks to present various perspectives on news subjects in addition to the authoritative reporting available in Top Stories. A carousel will soon be available in English in the United States for desktop and mobile devices.

Advisories for information gaps

When a topic is quickly evolving, or Google’s systems lack high confidence in the quality of accessible results, Google Search will automatically provide content advisories. Google intends to expand these advisories to more languages in the coming months, including German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese.

In conclusion, Google’s commitment to accuracy and authoritative sources by giving E-E-A-T guidance and their desire to provide consumers with tools to analyze and comprehend search results is at the forefront of our search these days.

Users will get better answers and make better decisions about what they read online. By improving and expanding search elements and adding Bard (Google AI) into the search mix, Google aims to make the information more digestible and thus remain the inquiry destination of choice.