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SEO

November 16, 2011 By Tom Gimer

An overview of web analytics

Harness the power of website analyticsWhen we talk about website design, web marketing and well, web-anything on this site, we sometimes forget who we’re talking to. Some of our visitors begin reading one of our posts and quickly realize that the information is over their head. When we use advanced terms and concepts in our discussion, we ruin everything. We may as well be speaking a different language. To be of any value to most readers, we probably have to do things differently. So in this post we’ll try to give a basic overview of website analytics.

Analytics are a big part of the SEO (search engine optimization) services we provide our clients. They are a way for website owners (or hired consultants) to keep track of visitors to their site. By gathering and analyzing visitor data, businesses can get a feel for how well their website is performing. Access to the information gathered is incredibly important. It is so important that we believe every business website should be using some sort of analytics.

Although there are many different analytics providers, the most popular one out there is Google Analytics. I read recently that more than half of the Forture 1000 use Google Analytics to track their visitors’ data. It’s not surprising. After all, Google Analytics is powerful and free. The only requirement for using it is that you open an account with Google. (If you use Gmail, you already have one.) And because Google is constantly updating its features and improving the online dashboard used to review and analyze the data, for the foreseeable future it will remain an easy choice for businesses. There are more robust solutions out there (most being of the paid $ variety), but we believe Google Analytics would suffice for 99.9% of our business customers.

So how does it work? Well, you may be surprised to learn that the desktop/laptop/tablet you are surfing the web with right now can be uniquely identified from other devices. Without getting too deep into this, let’s just say your device has a number associated with it, kind of like the car or truck you drive has a tag number. When you visit a website with analytics installed, it records your tag number. It also puts some temporary code on your computer (a “cookie”) which help to identify when and how you got to the site and whether you are a new visitor or a returning visitor. As you move around the site’s pages, the analytics software continues to record your activity.

In order for analytics to work, every web page (every one you wish to gather visitor information from) must have a little snippet of code included in it. Visitors don’t see this Javascript code because it is buried in the background of the page. When a visitor lands on the page, this code gets triggered and it sends a signal to Google. Devices which don’t run Javascript (many smartphones and web enabled cell phones) don’t trigger the code. Google also controls which types of visitor information is included in the data (this happens to be a rather contentious issue at the time of this writing), so analytics won’t reflect 100% of your visitor traffic.

Anyway, now that you know the purpose of analytics software and how it works, let’s get to the good stuff.

Wouldn’t it be nice to learn:

  • visits — how many visits your site had
  • visitors — how many different people visited your site
  • pages/visit — average number of pages per visit
  • traffic sources — which page was the last page visited
  • landing pages — which page did your visitor land
  • exit pages — which page was the last viewed by your visitor (and perhaps the reason they stopped reading!)

While these figures are important to follow over time to measure activity on your site, none of these data points (referred to as “metrics”) will help you measure the how your website is performing (the goal we identified at the beginning of this post). How valuable your website is to your business is what we want to know. And because none of these metrics relate to contacts, leads, sales or other online actions which create value or revenue, we need to dig deeper into the data…

But first we need to tell Google what are the valuable actions that visitors can take on our site (“Conversions”) so that Google can give extra attention to them. These are different for each business. When someone does something important (like buys something, signs up for a newsletter, fills out a lead form, or does something else valuable enough to be identified by us as a Conversion) we can figure out what inspired that action… such as

  • What was the original source of the lead? Not just the latest visit but the first contact with your site. Most businesses will place the most importance on how the visitor was introduced to them.
  • Was the visit the result of a search on a search engine and, if so, which terms were searched for? Did the visitor search for your business name or was this a true organic lead? This is incredibly important.
  • Was the visit inspired by a pay-per-click ad and, if so, which ad? This helps you identify your best performing ads and campaigns and which are not performing.
  • Which landing page pushed the visitor down the funnel to his or her contact or purchase? Again, this helps you identify your best performing landing pages.
  • Where did the visitor go before completing the transaction? Which page or pages were influential in the visitor’s decision to fill out the form, make the contact or purchase something?

Are you beginning to see the power of analytics? All of this data (and more) is in your hands for free to do what you will with it. And we’re here to help you get started, become proficient with it, and use it to your business’ advantage. Are you ready to harness the power?

So what do you think? Did this overview help you to understand the basics of website analytics or are you more confused than when you started? Your feedback is welcomed below….

Related posts you might like:

  1. Custom landing pages and tracking your marketing results
  2. SEO is no longer a foreign concept
  3. Websites are a thing of the past (said the fool)

Filed Under: Web, Misc Tagged With: SEO, analytics, marketing

September 21, 2011 By Tom Gimer

Websites are a thing of the past (said the fool)

With social media marketing being the focus of so much attention of late (deservedly so), we’ve heard some interesting things from small business owners when we talk about website design/re-design and optimization.

“Our Facebook page brings us lots of business.”

If you’re getting business from Facebook, that is great news. It probably means you’ve got a business that people frequent, “like” and like to talk about. But if you think that traffic from Facebook is eternal, I’ve got something for you to think about: MySpace. Seems like only a couple of years ago, MySpace was the king of the social hill. No longer. Does MySpace even exist any more? I don’t even care to confirm this because they’re irrelevant! So, don’t put all of your eggs in the Facebook basket. They may not hatch.

The above applies to any traffic source you rely upon. It could go belly up tomorrow and poof there goes your traffic.

“We built a nice website through our hosting company.”

This one always cracks us up. Folks, you get what you pay for. Unless you are a designer and SEO specialist, any website you built for free using your host’s WYSIWYG editor is going to be seriously lacking in terms of not only its visual appearance, but search engine optimization (SEO) practices. And if your site isn’t optimized it may as well be hiding under a rock!

“Websites are a thing of the past.”

Presumably this fool didn’t understand that the domain name is perhaps the ONLY asset your business can depend upon always owning (as long as it is renewed). It is the only asset that you can drive traffic to and always reap the rewards from, through increased search engine rankings and the organic FREE traffic which results. Choosing not to create an appealing, optimized website is a huge gamble.

Do you have any good stories about bad internet marketing decisions? We have more but let us hear yours!

Related posts you might like:

  1. SEO is no longer a foreign concept
  2. Custom landing pages and tracking your marketing results
  3. Your corporate identity is important

Filed Under: Design, Web, Misc Tagged With: SEO, marketing, online

July 7, 2011 By Tom Gimer

Custom landing pages and tracking your marketing results

I briefly touched on some of our web and SEO (search engine optimization) services in a prior post. Today I thought I would wet business owners’ appetites a bit more by discussing one facet of our web services in a little more detail. It’s actually a combination of several actions we take, when used together, that make a huge difference for our clients. These are: 1. building effective custom landing pages (sometimes referred to as “squeeze” pages); 2. tracking valuable contacts, goals and conversions; and 3. fine-tuning the marketing campaign.

First, a few important points about marketing:

1. As a business owner, if you don’t know which marketing is working and which is not, you are wasting tons of time, energy and, most importantly, money.

2. Successful marketing is all about experimentation and fine-tuning. It’s rare to get it perfect the first time.

3. Since you’re going to change your marketing a bit over time, you need to be able to accurately track the effectiveness of your campaign changes.

valuable contactsYou’re in business to make money, and if your website is going to help this cause it needs to make your potential clients do something “valuable.” Depending on your business, “valuable” could be any one of a number of things. Yes, an order is great but other things have value too. A visitor might subscribe to or make a comment on your blog, join your mailing list, request a quote for your services, or even make that easy online order. They might also bookmark your site for later use, share a page with a friend, or even better, share your link on a social network. Or, they could do something crazy (!) like pick up the phone and call you or visit your business in person. These are all valuable contacts, and it’s important to figure out what caused them. We help businesses by identifying the source of each valuable business contact, giving credit where credit is due, and using this information to fine-tune future marketing.

But wait… I got ahead of myself. Let’s back up and talk for a minute about landing pages. A website isn’t limited to having a single “homepage”. It can have an infinite number of pages that visitors find first when searching the web, visiting your site as a result of receiving a postcard, or following a URL. What we do is help you create and structure your landing pages so that once someone does find you, they are directed (or squeezed) down the desired funnel. This isn’t particularly easy! More about that later but do you know what is easy? Pressing the “Back” button! So the landing pages we create must catch the attention of your visitor, send the right message to the visitor and provide an appropriate call to action. Once we (yes, we’ll actually work with you to get things working right) are all satisfied with how the landing pages look and behave, then we’ll monitor what works and what doesn’t. This is done on the “front end” through customized URLs and on the “back end” using analytics. We’ll track which landing pages are leading to which actions by your visitors. This is incredibly valuable data. This is the stuff we’ll be using to fine-tune your marketing efforts over time.

If you’re new to some of these concepts, it all might sound a bit complicated. But don’t worry. When you entrust your web and SEO projects to us you can just keep doing what you’re doing…. running a successful business!

Related posts you might like:

  1. Solutions to benefit your business
  2. SEO is no longer a foreign concept
  3. Your corporate identity is important

Filed Under: Design, Web, Misc Tagged With: SEO, analytics, marketing

June 16, 2011 By Tom Gimer

SEO is no longer a foreign concept

will these search engines find your business website?SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Many people know this now, but just a few short years ago the concept of SEO was something only a small percentage of people had even heard of, much less understood. Even some of the most computer-illiterate business owners now understand that it is extremely important to be able to be “found” on the web and that good SEO practices are crucial to making this happen. Websites that cost tens of thousands of dollars to design, develop and maintain can now be created for a fraction of this. Thanks in large part to the development of web content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, websites with better functionality and the capability of being maintained and updated by persons with limited computer skills are within the reach of every small business. Not every business can afford (or even has a need for) a full-time in-bound marketing expert, but every business should have an effective web presence, and to be most effective they need to follow good SEO practices.

I’m not going to bore you with terminology or instructions today. This is not an SEO lesson. Instead, it is an invitation for you to reach out to us for a free, 30 minute consultation on how you can take your small business website to the next level without breaking the bank. We can work with you to design it and then create it (and host it) for you for way less than you’d imagine. We’ll do keyword research; we’ll write keyword-rich text and set up your page elements properly; we’ll create an easy-to-navigate framework and give the site a pleasant look and the functionality you require to interact with your customers and potential customers. All of our optimization is through “white hat” techniques, meaning they’ll continue working because they are considered by search engines to be fair. And once we create your new site, you won’t have to depend on us to update your content. We’ll show you how to make edits and add content through your admin panel. This could be a one-time expense; and it just might be the best investment you ever made in your business.

We do all of our design work using the WordPress CMS and the Genesis framework from StudioPress. The beauty of this is that both are constantly being improved, and updating to the latest code is a one-click operation. We keep on top of the latest SEO strategies, and our SEO best practices produce great organic traffic for our customers over time. Organic traffic is the true key to success on the web, but it doesn’t happen overnight. However, when used in conjunction with pay-per-click advertising campaigns (such as Google Adwords), custom landing pages, goal conversion and tracking (stay tuned for a future post on this), our SEO services can help your business can go from lost to found on the web in no time!

When you’re ready to talk, please call us at 202 362-8399 or drop by the shop.

Related posts you might like:

  1. Your corporate identity is important

Filed Under: Design, Web, Misc Tagged With: SEO, marketing, online

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