Look how much these people love your website! Thank you web metrics!!

With so many web metrics tools out there, it’s not easy to understand or choose how to measure your web success. If you feel like you need a dictionary to even get started, you’re not alone. Plenty of bloggers and websites out there are saying the same thing.

Successful businesses know their markets and the people who interact with their brand. Learning exactly how people are interacting will better assist you in the marketing of your business.

When considering web metrics, here are 6 key important considerations that should not be overlooked.

1. Know the variety of metrics available to you.

If words like Web Counter, Hits, Browser Platform, Pageviews, Visits, or Operating Systems mean nothing to you, then the time has come for you to learn. Web metrics will help you to understand where your site visitors are coming from, how their search led them to your site and what they are engaging in on your site. There are lots of different ways in which to analyze this information so it is key to know about them all.

2. Choose your key words carefully.

Certain key words in a search will lead high numbers of visitors to your site. But are they the people you want? Most of the time, driving the right people to your site is more important than driving a completely diverse audience to your site.

3.  Get to your Audience to the Point.

Every website has a goal. Make your website easy to navigate. If you are selling a product, then sell the product right away. Don’t make your audience search the page too hard. Usability is key. The trick is to monitor how well your ad copy and website layout work together to make that sale. Web metrics will monitor what’s working and what’s not.

When you know what’s working and what’s not working on your site, you are then prepared to make the right changes to the site. Don’t be afraid to keep making changes until your site is a success.

4. Analyze Audience Behavior

So you are getting the right people to your site. Great. But nothing seems to be happening. It is very important to understand what your audience is doing on your website. If they completely miss the most important part of your website, then not only was their visit unsuccessful, but the odds of them returning to the site go down significantly.

Watch what is happening during their visit. Where do they spend the most time? Where are they not going at all? The answers to these questions are key.

5. If you don’t want to monitor EVERYTHING, make sure you monitor these 7 metrics…

There are a ton of metrics out there and it’s hard to make a website perfect. So make it as perfect as you can and use metrics that cater to what you care about knowing the most. If you want a quick summary of your website success, filter down what you need to know: Bounce Rate, Attention, Conversions, Spend, Errors, Online Search Terms, Bailout Rate.

These metrics will give you the best overall perception of your site.

6. If it aint broke, don’t fix it. But if it is broke, maybe just improve it a little.

So your metrics have told you that no one has clicked through to the most important part of your website. You have already spent lots of time making this particular section of your site perfect. Surely, you thought, this would be the key to boosting business. Well it wasn’t because no one has taken the time to click through to see it.

Now you are left with two options: develop or remove. If you decide this website feature needs to be improved, then brainstorm process begins again. Think about what is missing. Why are people not clicking through? What will it take to encourage click-throughs? Look around on other sites and pay close attention to how it draws you in. Where is your eye drawn to and why? Studying other sites and applying this knowledge to your site will other further enhance your own audiences’ experience on your site.

Or on second thought, maybe you are just thinking that you should delete this non-functioning feature all-together. If what is not working on your site is not worth the effort to fix, then delete it. This won’t necessarily hurt your website because it will only make it easier to navigate. A user-friendly, clean layout is always a good choice. Too much clutter hurts a website’s functionality. Whether the decision is to improve or delete, the important thing here is that a change has been made based on web metrics feedback.

1. Find a large enough group of people to talk to. Marketers are always looking for new segments to penetrate with their products and blogs are a great channel to communicate with them.  For example, if you sell executive suites to small businesses, you will probably want to target prospects based on geography and perhaps service firms. That will give you a large group of people to talk to but this group will probably be composed of several smaller groups with similar interest, so don’t stop there.
2. Learn what is unique about each smaller group. Within that larger segment you should create a variety of content that speaks to what is unique to each one do those smaller groups. Following the example above, it could be interesting to create content that talks about the importance of first impressions, the role of branding in finding new clients, the most successful stock investments strategies or the latest high-end entertainment events in the area.
3. Share with them and build trust. We all know that people like free samples, gifts, give away, free content, free research, extras or free trials. Use those to start building your brand and relationship with them.  Once you have built that trust and created that first impression, it is really hard to lose it – unless you really screw it. When blogging for sales you must honestly want to share knowledge and tips without expecting something back immediately, you must have patience.
4. Be patient and keep sharing. This is key as the game has changed for marketers and sales people, if you go aggressively for the sale without really knowing where the prospect is in the purchasing process, you will create a lot of enemies that could have been clients down the road. More than 95% of your blog’s visitors will not be ready to buy so you must be softer and broader with your message to appeal to a larger group that is most likely looking to simply educate themselves. However, make sure to make it easy for those that are shopping to contact you or purchase online.
5. Embrace your visitors and their networks. As people comment on your posts, bookmark them, share them on social networks and subscribe to your blog, make a task for you to develop each one of those relationships and ideally try to take them offline if appropriate. Don’t try to sell them until they are ready and ask more about your product or services. Developing those relationships will also help you reach a much larger audience than you can reach yourself.
6. Keep improving your sources. The content that you put in your blog is the fuel that will get your lead generation machine going, so make sure to create an editorial calendar and follow it religiously. If you have trouble coming up with your own thoughts or ideas, you can comment on research reports, studies, do book reviews, interview other experts, etc. Don’t ever run out of gas.

Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

Search Engine Optimization has been a cat & mouse game since its inception, marketer and web masters spent their time figuring out how to game search engine algorithms to only find out that these sites kept evolving and coming up with new criteria. The beauty of this game has been that it has evolved in the direction of making results more and more like what you would find on an offline search for a product or service. The difference though is that looking for an accountant offline could take you days or weeks to find a good one. You would probably look for one on the yellow pages, then ask your friends if they knew one, then interview several, than ask for references, to end up probably working with one that worked with someone you trust.  However, online you can do this in a matter of minutes or seconds. Product or service searches on Google (using their filters, social search features and Google buzz) or searches on Facebook (which can also be filtered for friends) will, if not already, complete the entire search and selection process.

So, the questions are: How do you optimize your web presence? How do you embrace word of mouth and user generated content around your brand? How do you grow a network built on trust and reputation? In a few words, and you can watch the presentation below to get more details, the answer is three-fold.

First, you want to establish an editorial calendar because it will help you increase content quantity, quality and your will get more subscribers. Do simple math, more content + better quality = better search engine ranking. Add a little of smart marketing and you will get more readership and that will drive more subscribers (or potential customers)

Second, become a publishing warehouse as it will help you get your target audience in the format and timing that they prefer the most. Take the topic for the day, week, month, whatever your reality is and put in your “content development process” to create blog posts, articles, presentations, tweets, white papers, questions, videos, podcasts, etc. or whatever your target audience respond best.

Third, leverage personal branding to distribute content to networks built on trust and reputation. As stated on a previous blog employees can become a great channel to distribute your content.

By Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

As a marketer, I have been waiting for analysis of search engine effectiveness to include measures for user relevance and the power of the communications to establish connections.  I am encouraged because that finally seems to be happening. According to Dwamian Mcleish and Jose Guerra, SEO is passé; the new term should be Content Search Optimization (CSO). Communications specialists like me should be cheered because the system has finally begun to catch up with what we always knew.

Graphic designers have similar concerns to those of content providers.  They believe that attractive, easily navigated sites will increase the power of the organization’s web presence. Unfortunately, the traditional measures by search engines do not include many metrics for these factors.  In fact, only recently have search engines begun to read flash so designers were cautioned not to use those impressive graphics.

Similarly, search engine rankings required that content developers integrate as many key words as possible in the copy but also keep it short. This is not useful to the reader however, because target audiences expect messages to respond to their need.  Packing search terms into the text does not add value for the reader.  It was just another way of gaming the system to increase visibility of the website on the Internet.

The goal of the search engine is to provide highly relevant, easily accessible information to the consumer. Consumers will benefit as organizations begin to realize that the easy measures are not enough anymore.   As the website owner, attracting visitors through high page ranks is about helping them find you but it is also about delivering value once they are there.  Overall, you increase your rankings if you build that trust over time.  At the Branding SIG for the DFW AMA on February 2nd, Dwamian said that the search engines are beginning to develop measures that incorporate content relevance into the rankings.  It cannot happen too soon.

If yes, then call us. If not, then you are just probably finding ways to keep your job and we recommend you to read the 6 tips below and then tell us how they worked for you.

1. Don’t Spend Your Entire Marketing Budget. Costs saving initiatives have been more popular than ever before. If you can manage to not spend your entire marketing budget you will be rewarded. Showing savings is always a good thing these days, and who cares if you hurt your lead generation volume and quality or stall your brand building efforts. What is more important though is to get a tap on your back from your boss for finishing the year strong. Nobody will hunt you down if you don’t continue your efforts to capitalize on the upturn of the economy we will see in 2010, right?
2. Keep Reducing Headcounts. Everyone had been letting people go and most have successfully managed to survive this economic crisis based on these decisions. These types of initiatives are effective and opportune to let go of low performing employees. You can always hire top performers later in the year; although you may not have enough budget. Remember you saved so much money by not spending your entire marketing budget that your boss will probably decide that you could do a great job with a smaller budget in 2010.
3. New Market Segments are Not Worthwhile. Although, trends such as the high broadband Internet penetration, the surge of web 2.0 tools and the social media boom are making it easier and easier to reach out to smaller segments in very cost effective manners, many people would argue that is not enough. Segments based on race, language, gender, age or sexual preferences are not big enough yet to allocate enough resources. No one cares that one of every five young adults today (ages 18 – 34) are Hispanic, which are ONLY about 50 million people. And nobody believes in Forrester estimates that Hispanic disposable income as a group will grow to $1.4 trillion by 2013 from $951 billion in 2008.
4. Search Engine Optimization is Overrated. People justify SEO investment with arguments such as that more than 1 billion people worldwide, ages 15 years and older are Internet users or that more than 74% of the US population uses the Internet. Also that organic search drives 75%+ of all search traffic. What value does all that have? How many people really use the Internet to purchase or influence product purchases? Not many really, the penetration of ecommerce, on product categories such as computer electronics and media (books, music and videos) is ONLY 25%. There are still lots of people that you can reach out to without using the Internet, so why bother reaching out to these demographics, right?
5. Email Marketing is From the Past. Email marketing started in the mid and late 1990’s, which is a long time ago in Internet history. It boomed in the early part of this decade, but as of a couple of years ago many argue it is being replaced by social media marketing and other new media channels. Companies used to BLAST emails because it was easy and cheap, but CAN-SPAM laws, anti-spam software and other tools are allowing people to hide from email marketing messages. Let’s look at some stats again to support this argument. Email open rates are above 30% in many industries and click rates get up to 6% or higher. So if you are a small or medium size business and you have an opted-in list of prospects and customers of let’s say 10,000 emails, you are directly reaching ONLY 3,000 people and building strong relationship via your content or offers with ONLY 600 people… EVERY TIME YOU SEND EMAIL CAMPAIGNS.
6. Social Media is a Fad, Let Your Competitors Go There First. Much has been said about the reach of social media, the engagement capabilities it adds to the mix, that is taking Word-of-Mouth marketing to the next level and that is incredibly more cost effective than other tools. But, it is so new that many marketers feel threatened or not knowledgeable enough to jump into it, so they are waiting for others in the industry to lead the path to figure out how to use it. Let your competitors work with “social media” marketing firms and create some success first before you join. Why take any risks? We still need to survive 2010, right?

We like to share ideas, thoughts, best practices or whatever we feel like writing about in lists of 6. But, you can add to it…so, If you are going to take one risk, make it sharing your thought and believes with others. Feel free to comment, tweet, share or do whatever you want to do with this.

Jose Guerra
Principal

Search engine optimization, or SEO for the cool kids, is one of those subjects that always give people the quivers. There is so much information out there that it can overwhelming to people who are just looking to get their name out there. Guess what?… I don’t have good news. SEO is not getting any easier because you can get buried in the multitude of information especially since we are living in a time in which real-time information rules the internet.

There has been a lot of talk recently about Google and Bing’s new deal with social media powerhouses, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven’t heard, then let me bring you up to speed. Google and Bing recently struck a deal to include live social media feeds in their search results. There are a lot of positive implications of this, one worthy of mentioning is the undeniable admission that social media is here to stay.

Aside from the obvious implications here,  we decided to uncover some other quasi-obvious outcomes of these and other moves related to mainstreaming social media. Here is how to get started:

Do what “they” do
One of my very favorite SEO tools is Axandra’s Internet Business Promoter (IBP) . I have been using it for years and have been very impressed with its’ ease of use and power. An overlooked part of SEO is one of the things that IBP does very well, figuring out what works for a particular keyword. When you choose keywords, see which other websites perform well with those keywords and what kind of presence they have, even if they are not your direct competitors. Look at it this way, if they have your keywords, they are your keyword competitors. Mimicking them will not necessarily make your website have immediate success, but it is a very good base to start from when it comes to your SEO campaign. As a note, you will notice that IBP still walks you through setting your meta keywords and descriptions…I said they are not as powerful as they use to be, not that you shouldn’t still do them.

Always have up-to-the-minute, up-to-date content! This one is simple… always having fresh content means that search engines will have a variety of content to establish your relevancy. This will also make your website more appealing and attract repeat visitors.

Broadcast yourself
If you haven’t done so already, make sure you check out the most common social media platform in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the ever so important Blogging platforms such as WordPress. When I say have a look-see, I mean just that. If you are new to social media, it would be futile for you to sign up for all of them, especially if you don’t have the means to maintain them. Getting on the social media platform with no good strategy to maintain it is almost as bad as not getting on it at all. Instead, join one or two to get a feel for things, then start branching out once you have build up some confidence. If you are in doubt, we usually recommend starting with LinkedIn since it serves a more professional purpose, then move on to Twitter, because of it’s social simplicity. Facebook is also a great tool, but it will require a lot more interactivity than the two previously mentioned.

Aside from maintaining your own social media presence, you should participate in as many discussions related to your industry as possible. A good place to find and/or fuel those discussions is LinkedIn’s question and answer platform.

One other avenue of social media presence that companies usually overlook is encouraging their employees to fuel discussion about the company. Putting a system in place where your employees can help to maintain your social media presence is vital in distributing the responsibility and the workload of branding your company through social media.

Always link back to your website
This should be an obvious one, but I don’t know how many companies we have talked to that don’t do this. Linking content back to your company, will increase your relevancy and  reputation on search engines. Search engines love “linkbacks”, in fact, many SEO experts believe that external links to your website are one of the major contributing factors of SEO.

What’s the word on the street?
The most important concept to grasp is that you must always be monitoring your company’s reputation. Not all comments about your company will be positive, so it is important that you find the conversations people are having about you and respond accordingly. Search engines will find those conversations and without a voice, you are subject to the opinions of the masses instead of making people understand that you care.

In conclusion, you may have read this and thought this had very little to do with SEO in general. The truth of the matter is this is SEO in it most up to date form. Gone are the days when it was just changing a few tags on your website and exchanging a few links. Participation in the social media ocean brings recognition, recognition creates relevancy, relevancy drives traffic, and traffic bring sales.

Let us know what you think by casting your vote on this post. We also welcome your comments.