How successful is your website? Do you really know how well it is performing for your business?
Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that the more traff?c they get to their website the better, and they work towards this end. It is better to focus efforts on bringing in targeted traff?c that will convert to sal?«s or enquiries. To understand more correctly how well a website is performing, and who is visiting the website, a good website statistics package is required, as well as an understanding of the data these website reports produce.
With many website host?ng packages fr?«e, website statistics are available. However, the information is not always easy to understand or doesn’t always give you the information in a way that is easy to understand.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a great application that Google provides absolutely fr?«e. It tracks all activity on your website, not just visits through Google. All you need is a Google Account, and FTP access to your website to insert a small amount of code in your website, and away you go. If you don’t already have a Google account, I encourage you to set one up as soon as possible! You can do so at: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount . Not only will you have access to Google Analytics, but having a Google account gives you a whole host of other tools.
Visitors
As a start, it is a good idea to find out how many visitors are coming to your website. Visitors are broken down into new and returning visitors. While it is great to attract new visitors to your site, you should aim to see a decent percentage of returning visitors as well, as this gives a good indication that people find your site interesting enough to come back to.
Depth of Visit
How many pages are viewed during a visit to your website?
Length of Visit
How much time do visitors spend on your website? If they are spending very little time on your site when you have an information-rich site, then you need to start looking at the navigational report to find out where you are losing them.
Keywords
The Keywords that people are finding your website through, are a good indication of what keywords are performing well for you in the search engines. Are the keywords that are displaying for you truly reflective of what you off?«r? If not, then it is time to revamp the content on your website.
Referrals
Which referrals drive the highest quality traff?c? This report lists activity coming via referrals from other websites. This is useful for tracking links that you cannot control. You can gauge the overall effectiveness and importance of PR activities, partnerships, etc. The referrals are compared to the number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average value per visit.
Navigation
Which navigation paths resulted in conversions during the visit? For each navigation path, this report shows conversion rates and the value per visit.
Exit Pages
From which pages do visitors commonly exit your site? This report shows the number of exits from pages on your site. If you notice a high number of exits for specific pages, it is time to seriously analyze these pages and try to improve them, because it is very likely that people are not getting the information they expect or want.
Conversion data
Arguably this is one of the most important pieces of information. Conversion data gives you a true understanding of how successful your site really is.
Conversional goals can be set up through your Analytics settings. Take time to think about what goals you want to track. These may be sal?«s or web enquiries you are receiving, or specific pages in your website that you want to focus on. Keep in mind that if your visitor contacts you by telephone or fax, this will not be reflected in the goal conversions. However, you can set your contact page as being a goal to get a feel for how many people are looking for your contact details.
By monitoring the changes in conversion rates for your primary goals, you can monitor the overall effectiveness of website changes, marketing roll-outs and other events.
What is duplicate content?
Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Most of the time when we see this, it’s unintentional or at least not malicious in origin: forums that generate both regular and stripped-down mobile-targeted pages, store items shown (and — worse yet — linked) via multiple distinct URLs, and so on. In some cases, content is duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or garner more traffic via popular or long-tail queries.
What isn’t duplicate content?
Similarly, you shouldn’t worry about occasional snippets (quotes and otherwise) being flagged as duplicate content.
Why does Google care about duplicate content?
Our users typically want to see a diverse cross-section of unique content when they do searches. In contrast, they’re understandably annoyed when they see substantially the same content within a set of search results. Also, webmasters become sad when we show a complex URL (example.com/contentredir?value=shorty-george??©=en) instead of the pretty URL they prefer (example.com/en/shorty-george.htm).Our users typically want to see a diverse cross-section of unique content when they do searches. In contrast, they’re understandably annoyed when they see substantially the same content within a set of search results. Also, webmasters become sad when we show a complex URL (example.com/contentredir?value=shorty-george??©=en) instead of the pretty URL they prefer (example.com/en/shorty-george.htm).What does Google do about it?
During our crawling and when serving search results, we try hard to index and show pages with distinct information. This filtering means, for instance, that if your site has articles in “regular” and “printer” versions and neither set is blocked in robots.txt or via a noindex meta tag, we’ll choose one version to list. In the rare cases in which we perceive that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. However, we prefer to focus on filtering rather than ranking adjustments … so in the vast majority of cases, the worst thing that’ll befall webmasters is to see the “less desired” version of a page shown in our index. How can Webmasters proactively address duplicate content issues?
Block appropriately: Rather than letting our algorithms determine the “best” version of a document, you may wish to help guide us to your preferred version. For instance, if you don’t want us to index the printer versions of your site’s articles, disallow those directories or make use of regular expressions in your robots.txt file.
Use 301s: If you have restructured your site, use 301 redirects (“RedirectPermanent”) in your .htaccess file to smartly redirect users, the Googlebot, and other spiders.
Be consistent: Endeavor to keep your internal linking consistent; don’t link to /page/ and /page and /page/index.htm.
Use TLDs: To help us serve the most appropriate version of a document, use top level domains whenever possible to handle country-specific content. We’re more likely to know that .de indicates Germany-focused content, for instance, than /de or de.example.com.
Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article. Even with that, note that we’ll always show the (unblocked) version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer.
Use the preferred domain feature of webmaster tools: If other sites link to yours using both the www and non-www version of your URLs, you can let us know which way you prefer your site to be indexed.
Minimize boilerplate repetition: For instance, instead of including lengthy copyright text on the bottom of every page, include a very brief summary and then link to a page with more details.
Avoid publishing stubs: Users don’t like seeing “empty” pages, so avoid placeholders where possible. This means not publishing (or at least blocking) pages with zero reviews, no real estate listings, etc., so users (and bots) aren’t subjected to a zillion instances of “Below you’ll find a superb list of all the great rental opportunities in [insert cityname]…” with no actual listings.
Understand your CMS: Make sure you’re familiar with how content is displayed on your Web site, particularly if it includes a blog, a forum, or related system that often shows the same content in multiple formats.
Don’t worry be happy: Don’t fret too much about sites that scrape (misappropriate and republish) your content. Though annoying, it’s highly unlikely that such sites can negatively impact your site’s presence in Google.
In short, a general awareness of duplicate content issues and a few minutes of thoughtful preventative maintenance should help you to help us provide users with unique and relevant content.
Wonder why some people get better marketing results than others? It’s because they tweak.
One rarely discussed marketing secret (except amongst rabid direct marketers or online marketers), is the arcane art of tweaking. Tweaking your marketing is literally the key to getting more response to any marketing activity you attempt.
Tweak means to adjust or fine-tune.
And this is exactly what people fail to do when it comes to their marketing. In fact, most do the opposite: They develop a web site and never change a pixel for years; they settle on a marketing message and never try anything new; or they give a speaking engagement and don’t try various “pitches” to get cards from participants.
The Science of Tweaking
Tweaking is what scientists do. They test something using an experiment. They get a certain result. Then they change a measurable variable and see what new result they get. They keep at this until they get the desired result (or not).
Good marketers are like scientists, but they have more fun.
Instead of experimenting on rats, they experiment on prospects. They try one marketing tactic at a time and measure the result. Then they change a measurable variable and see if the prospect responds differently.
Good scientists, if they are persistent, get grants to keep experimenting. Good marketers, if they are persistent, attract more clients and often get rich.
Let’s look at a few marketing experiments you can tweak.
? Ezine signups from a web site.
Growing a big eZine list is a great way to grow your business. Let’s look at the two main variables: a) home page of web site and b) eZine sign-up page of web site.
To conduct this experiment you must know:
a) how many people land on your home page in any given period
b) how many people click onto the sign-up page
c) how many people actually sign up
Using a simple web tracker that counts visitors and subscribers, you can get these statistics very easily.
So let’s say in a week, 100 people go to your home page. Of those, 40% click onto your sign-up page. And then 25% of those actually sign up for the eZine. That makes a sign-up rate of 10%.
Now you start tweaking.
You work at making changes to your home page so that more visitors click through to the sign-up page. You might improve the design, the graphics, the headline, the offer for the report you get with the eZine, etc.
Several tweaks might increase the number of people who click on the sign-up page to 50%. Now your total sign-up rate is 12.5%
Next you tweak away on the sign-up page. Perhaps you change the name of the report (more results-oriented), and you change the sign-up form (by making it simpler) and the placement of this form (you put it higher on the page).
Several tweaks of this kind may increase the number of actual sign-ups to 40%. Your total sign-up rate is now 20%. You’ve doubled your sign-up rate. And that’s how tweaking pays off!
? Your Audio Logo
When I use a problem-oriented Audio Logo: “I help Independent Professionals who are struggling to attract clients,” I get about five times the response than a solution-oriented Audio Logo: “I help Independent Professionals attract more clients.”
Go figure.
You don’t have to know all the reasons your tweaking changed the results, you just have to keep tweaking until the results improve.
There’s no getting around it. Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If your site is targeting the wrong keywords, the search engines and your customers may never find you, resulting in lost dollars and meaningless rankings. By targeting the wrong keywords, you not only put valuable advertising dollars at risk, you are also throwing away all the time and energy you put into getting your site to rank for those terms to begin with. If you want to stay competitive, you can’t afford to do that. The keyword research process can be broken down into the following phases:
Phase 0 – Demolishing Misconceptions
Phase 1 ??“ Creating the list and checking it twice
Phase 2 ??“ Befriending the keyword research tool
Phase 3 ??“ Finalizing your list
Phase 4 ??“ Plan your Attack
Phase 5 – Rinse, Wash Repeat
Phase 0 – Demolishing Misconceptions
Over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to work with a wide array of wonderful clients. And as different and diverse as their sites and the individuals running them may have been, many had one thing in common: they were self-proclaimed keyword research mavens right out of the gate.
Or so they thought.
One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research for a search engine optimization campaign is the belief that you already know which terms a customer would use to find your site. You don’t. Not without first doing some research anyway. You may know what your site is about and how you, the site owner, would find it, but it’s difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it.
This is due to site owners evaluating their site through too narrow of a lens, causing them to come up with words that read like industry jargon, not viable keywords. Remember, your customer probably doesn’t work in the same industry that you do. If they did, they wouldn’t need you. When describing your site or product, break away from industry speak. Your customers aren’t searching that way and if you center your site on these terms, they’ll never find you.
Another misconception is that generic or “big dollar” terms are the most important for rankings, even if the term you’re going after has nothing to do with your site. Imagine a women’s clothing store trying to rank for the term “google”. Sure, thousands of searchers probably type that word into their search bar daily, but they’re not doing it looking for you. They’re looking for Google. Being ranked number one for a term no one would associate with your site is a waste of time and money (and it may get you in trouble!). Your site may see a lot of traffic, but customers won’t stick around.
Phase 1 ??“ Creating the list and checking it twice
The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination of words to drive customers to your site, rev up your conversion rate and allow the engines to see you as an expert would easily give anyone a tension headache.
The trick is to start slowly.
The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like ‘shoes’ or ‘clothes’. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won’t drive qualified traffic to your site. Focus on words that are relevant, but not overly used.
If you need help brainstorming ideas, ask friends, colleagues or past customers for help. Sometimes they are able to see your site differently than the way you yourself see it. Also, don’t be afraid to take a peek at your competitor’s Meta Keyword tag. What words are they targeting? How can you expand on their keyword list to make yours better? It’s okay to get a little sneaky here. All’s fair in love and search engine rankings.
Phase 2 ??“ Befriend the keyword research tool
Now that you have your list, your next step is to determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You want to narrow your list to only include highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site.
In the early days of SEO, measuring the “popularity” of your search terms was done by performing a search for that phrase in one of the various engines and seeing how many results it turned up. As you can imagine, this was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Luckily, times have changed and we now have tools to do the hard part for us.
By inputting your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that term every day, how many of those searches actually converted, and other important analytical information. It may also tune you in to words you had previously forgotten or synonyms you weren’t aware of.
There are lots of great tools out there to help you determine how much activity your keywords are receiving. Here’s a few of our personal favorites:
Overture Keyword Selector Tool: Overture’s Keyword Selector tools shows you how many searches have been conducted over the last month for a particular phrase and lists alternative search terms you may have forgotten about. Our only complaint with Overture is that they lump singular and plural word forms into one phrase. For example, “boots” and “boot” would appear under one category of “boot”. This can sometimes cause problems.
Wordtracker: Wordtracker is a paid-use tool that lets you look up popular keyword phrases to determine their activity and popularity among competitors. Their top 1000 report lists the most frequently searched for terms, while their Competition Search option provides valuable information to determine the competitiveness of each phrase. This is very useful for figuring out how difficult it will be to rank for a given term. It may also highlight hidden gems that have low competition-rates, but high relevancy.
Trellian Keyword Discovery tool: This is a fee-based tool where users can ascertain the market share value for a given search term, see how many users search for it daily, identify common spellings and misspellings, and discover which terms are impacted by seasonal trends (mostly useful for PPC).
Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Google’s keyword PPC tool doesn’t provide actual search numbers for keywords. Instead, it displays a colored bar, giving users only an approximation. Still, it may be useful.
Google Suggest: Google Suggest is a great way to find synonyms and related word suggestions that may help you expand your original list. Thesaurus.com: Again, another way to locate synonyms you may have forgotten.
If those don’t tickle your fancy, we’d also suggest Bruce Clay’s Check Traffic tool, which estimates the number of queries per day for that search term across the major search engines.
Keep in mind that you’re not only checking to see if enough people are searching for a particular word, you’re also trying to determine how competitive that phrase is in terms of rankings.
Understanding the competition tells you how much effort you will need to invest in order to rank well for that term. There are two things to pay attention to when making this decision: how many other sites are competing for the same word and how strong are those sites’ rankings (i.e. how many other sites link to them, how many pages do they have indexed)? Basically, is that word or phrase even worth your time? If it’s not, move on.
While you’re testing your new terms, you may want to do a little housekeeping and test the activity for keywords your site is already targeting. Keep the ones that are converting and drop the losers.
Phase 3 ??“ Finalizing your list
Now that you have your initial list of words and have tested their activity, it’s time to narrow down the field and decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword list.
We recommend creating a spreadsheet or some other visual that will allow you to easily see each word’s conversion rate, search volume and competition rate (as given to you by the tools mentioned above). These three figures will allow you to calculate how viable that term is for your site and will be a great aid as you try and narrow down your focus.
The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not relevant to your site or that you don’t have sufficient content to support (unless you’re willing to write some). You can’t optimize for words that you don’t have content for.
Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. You’ll need both to rank well. Broad terms are important because they describe what your web site does; however, they won’t increase the level of qualified traffic coming into your site.
For example, say you are a company that specializes in cowboy boots. It may be natural for your site to focus on the broad search terms “boots” and “cowboy boots”. These words are important because they tell the search engines what you do and may increase your visitors, but the traffic you receive will be largely unqualified. Customers will arrive on your site still unsure of what kind of boots you sell. Do you offer traditional cowboy boots, stiletto cowboy boots, toddler cowboy boots, suede cowboy boots or women’s cowboy boots? By only targeting broad terms, customers won’t know what you offer until they land on your site.
Targeted terms are often easier to rank for and help bring qualified traffic. They also make you a subject matter expert to the search engines, since the targeted terms strengthen the theme created with the broader phrases. Sticking with our example, targeted terms for your cowboy boots site may be “men’s cowboy boots”, “blue suede cowboy boots”, “extra-wide women’s cowboy boots”, etc. Broad search terms may bring you the higher levels of traffic, but it’s targeted, buying-oriented terms like these that will maximize conversions.
Phase 4 ??“ Plan your attack
So you made your list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords, now what do you do with them? You prepare them for launch!
Chances are, if you did your keyword research right, at least some of the words on your list already appear in your site content, but some of them may not. Start thinking about how many pages you’ll need to create to support these new words, and how and where your keyword phrases will be used.
We typically recommend only going after three or four related keywords per page (five if you can balance them properly). Any more than that and you run the risk of diluting your page to the point where you rank for nothing. Make sure to naturally work the keywords into your content and avoid over-repetition that may be interpreted as spamming. Your content should never sound forced.
Your on-page content isn’t the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several other elements on your site:
?
- Title Tag
- Meta Description Tags
- Meta Keywords Tag
- Headings
- Alt text
- Anchor Text/ Navigational Links
You’ve spent a lot of time molding your keywords; make sure you use them in all the appropriate fields to get the maximum benefit.
Phase 5 – Rinse, Wash Repeat
Congratulations. Your initial keyword research process is behind you. You’ve created your list, checked it twice, made friends with the keyword research tools and are now off to go plan your attack. You’re done, right?
Unfortunately, no. As your customer’s and your site’s needs change over time, so will your keywords. It’s important to keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of your competition and keep moving forward.
Good luck!
Ten years may not seem like a long time, but at the pace of change in business, it sometimes feels like a lifetime.
For example: When Outsource Marketing first launched in 1997, outsourcing was not some trendy term for staffing CSRs and software programmers in India. It would be eight years before Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat was published and introduced people to the notion that the global economy had arrived.
Marketing has changed even more dramatically during the past 10 years than any other similar period in the past. Why? Technology and its incredible impact on how we access and process information.
In 1997:
* There were fewer than 500,000 Internet Web sites
* Google, YouTube, MySpace or the iPod didn’t exist
* Cell phones were just phones
Now there are more than 100 million Web sites, 35 million blogs, and cell phones are hand-held computers that can multitask phone calling, text messaging, photography, video downloading, digital music files and an endless variety of games. It was in 2004 O’Reilly Media coined the phrase Web 2.0–a group of second generation Web-based services.
A decade ago, high-tech acronyms such as CRM, PPC, SEO, MP3, DSL and DVR were yet to join the lexicon. Television consisted of sports, movies and shows you watched on a set in the living room and maybe on another in the kitchen or bedroom. Now TV programming–all 580 channels–can now be TiVo’d, recalled on demand or viewed on a laptop, MP3 player or cell phone. Cable providers now offer high-speed broadband, as well as local and long-distance phone services.
New tech, new media, new Marketing
What does all this mean for marketers? A change in the landscape, a whole new set of consumer and customer segments and a wealth of new tools that still must be smartly deployed and effectively targeted.
Marketing in today’s crowded, infoglutted world is more exciting than ever, but it’s challenging in new ways. Here are three key dynamics affecting small and mid-market businesses, and some new media strategies to connect customer with your message.
1. Marketing is now in the hands of the people.
As coined by Peter Kim, from Forrester Research in Reinventing the Marketing Organization, participation is now the fifth “p” joining price, product, placement and promotion.
Whether it’s blogs, consumer produced Super Bowl commercials or e-mail sharing, customers have never been in such control. Embrace that change. Give your customers opportunities to generate testimonials, feedback and suggestions for product improvements. Allocate time to listen to what they say and respond promptly and honestly. Product and service improvements start with feedback from your own customers.
Instead of being talked at, customers now expect being talked to. Wikis, e-mails, live chat, bulletin boards, texting and video sharing are just some of the ways the word gets spread. Start with the right product (that’s never out of date), couple it with good customer service, and you won’t need to be afraid of interactive communication–as much communication as you can handle.
American Idol and similar television reality shows are the epitome of the new customer participation model. Instead of just sitting back and watching shows, viewers are now choosing who they want to see by voting. Be creative and think about how you could develop your own company’s “fan base.” With the technology tools now available, you can deepen your relationships with customers and create the dialogue that leads to loyalty.
2. Online media are mandatory in today’s marketing mix.
The Internet continues to absorb more and more of the advertising dollar, leaving other media with less. Newspaper readership is declining. Network TV ratings have declined steadily over the past 10 years. With Internet search engines, consumers can find what they want, rather than be pushed toward purchases with advertising messages. In fact, 66 percent of high school students report that they get their news and information from Web portals such as Yahoo! and Google. More than one-half of U.S. broadband customers said that a recent purchase was influenced by an online message (36 percent by shopping sites and 15 percent by search sites), exceeding the impact of TV commercials (11 percent) and magazine ads (6 percent), according to a 2007 study by market researcher Media-Screen.
“Even the most intensive users of newspapers and magazines spend less time reading these publications than they do online or watching TV,” a 2007 Jupiter Research study confirmed.
While a Web site is a marketing “must-have” for today’s businesses, additional online presence is also required. E-mail newsletters, blogs, interactive Web elements (videos, podcasts, direct response tools) keep your site fresh and relevant. Targeted e-newsletters are a great way to provide inexpensive yet highly valued information of interest to customers and prospects. New tools now make it easy to personalize the messages and track e-mail opens and click-through rates.
3. Integration is the key to success.
Do all these new media seem like a bit much for any one customer? Possibly. Most people average more than 3,000 commercial message exposures a day, and the volume continues to grow. (Reality check: After you’ve bought your next $12 movie ticket, count the commercials and previews you have to sit through before the film begins). Creating clear, concise messages that are smoothly integrated is absolutely crucial to successful customer communications.
That’s because, despite all the new technologies, this marketing principle hasn’t changed: You must start with a relevant position, supported by consistent communications, to achieve a desired position with your target audience.
It used to be that companies could get away with broadcasting clever commercials that generated awareness, and even sales. Now, thanks to infoglut, your company and product and service positioning must be clearly evident across all media. Every customer contact point–how you answer your phone, your e-mails, your customer service and your advertising–need to project the reason why your company provides a unique, relevant value for your intended audience.
Ten years goes by quickly, doesn’t it? In 1997, Outsource Marketing started as a way to help companies get the best, most efficient marketing. Even as we strive to keep pace with evolving trends, that remains our most fundamental mission.
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