SEO Review

With dozens of free web analytics tools available in the market, Google Analytics stands out because it provides data like no other tool does. Just add a few lines of JavaScript code to your website’s footer and you have access to a vast amount of metrics you can slice and dice.

This data is useful to develop and implement fresh website marketing strategies and understanding the behavior online of your web visitors.

But before diving into Google Analytics, prepare a list of the most important questions you want answered from this tool.

3 Important Questions to Ask Google Analytics:

1. What do you want visitors to do on your website?

Every website has a purpose. It may be to provide information, build a brand or sell products online. Set your goals for the website and build it accordingly.

The Goals category of Google Analytics helps you to understand the number of goals achieved in a day, week or month. All you need to do is set your goal URL in the analytics settings and watch the data pour in. The funnel visualization sub category provides this type data:

• How many visitors completed my goals?
• How many visitors abandoned the goals to move onto other URL?
• Which internal pages did visitors came from to the goal webpage?

2. What is the Visitor doing on the Website?

Analysis of this data enables you to track the visitor’s action on the website. You can find out whether the visitor completed the goal you set. Accordingly you can make the changes which will reinforce goal completion. The content category in the left sidebar of Google Analytics provides important data:

• Top Content. It contains a list of the content viewed by the visitor, arranged in descending order. This lets you know the most popular pages of the website and how to leverage them.
• Top Landing Pages. These are the pages visitors land on, before going ahead and browsing the website. You can view the browsing path for each webpage and find a pattern.
• Top Exit Pages. It contains a list of web pages which failed to generate interest among the visitors and lead them to exit the website. Revamp the exit pages with these details and aim to convert them into your top content pages.
• Site Overlay. The Site Overlay opens a new web page which contains a small progress bar over every link. This bar shows the percentage of the number of clicks on that link. As the number of clicks on a link increase, the percentage of the progress bar increases.

3. Where is the Visitor coming from?

This is one of the most important data elements you can work on to get insights into the visitor. The ‘Traffic Sources’ category displays the websites and keywords which send traffic to your website. This category can be segregated into:

• Direct Traffic. This contains the number of visitors who came to the website by entering its URL into their web browser. Direct traffic is also used to determine the popularity of the website.
• Referring Sites. Referring websites are the ones which link back to a website using some content and a link. The visitors get referenced from the source website and land on the target website using the link provided. Referring websites can be used to judge the success of social media marketing techniques.
• Search Engines. It contains a list of the search engines which send traffic to the website. Google Analytics also lists keywords which were clicked upon by the visitors. A high percentage of visits from search engines indicate a successful search engine optimization strategy.

The answers to the above questions coupled with custom reports and segmentation provide rewarding insights. These metrics can be used to model the website around the desired goal and achieve higher conversions.

Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Learn about search engine marketing, paid search advertising, social media, and email marketing. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips. Follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to one of our SEO Consultants and receive your free consultation.

google analytics,web analytics tools,top content,web traffic,referring sites,direct traffic,search engine traffic

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Although I have been involved with Twitter from shortly after it’s launch there is so much to learn. People come up with different ways to use Twitter to market and develop a community of people and this is one great area of Twitter to follow. The other area of Twitter that is equally as great is all the plugins and hacks that are developed to make the entire Twitter experience more and more unique.

I want to list a number of Wordpress Twitter Plugins that you should know about for your personal Twitter experience.

Tweet Meme

You are possibly familiar with the little graphic that shows the number of tweets a blog post has and then you see a green button under that number that says retweet. This is the Tweet Meme plugin for Wordpress and it makes it easy for your visitors to tweet your blog to their Twitter feed.

Tweetbacks

With the explosion of blogging and Twitter this Wordpress plugin will import Tweets about your post as comments. You can display the tweetbacks nested in other comments on your blog or display them separately. The more comments you have on your site the better ranking your page can get in Google since it shows activity and value.

Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. Twitter Tools integrates with Twitter by giving you the following functionality:

• Archive your Twitter tweets (downloaded every 10 minutes)
• Create a blog post from each of your tweets
• Create a daily or weekly digest post of your tweets
• Create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post
• Post a tweet from your sidebar
• Post a tweet from the WP Admin screens
• Pass your tweets along to another service (via API hook)

Twit this

Place some simple code on your site to create a graphic or a text link that people can click to post a Tweet to their Twitter account.

Twitt twoo

Twitt-Twoo is a simple little plugin that will allow you to update your Twitter status right from your blog’s sidebar. AJAX takes cares of the hard work, and means that your page doesn’t even have to reload, allowing for quick and easy status updates. Displays your latest Twitter status, and when it was last updated.

Twitter Updater

The Twitter Updater automatically sends a Twitter status update to your Twitter account when you create, publish, or edit your WordPress post. You can specify the text for the updates, and also have the option to turn the auto update on/off for the different post actions in the admin panel.

Twittar Wordpress Plugin

This Wordpress plugin will try to load the twitter avatar of the person leaving a comment on a blog post. It will try to match the email address in the comment to the Twitter account. If this cannot be done it will attempt to use the Gravatar. There are a number of other style settings you can use for customization.

Read more great articles at Bill Wynne’s blog. Get useful ebooks and other gifts for free. Bill has been a successful internet marketer for over a decade. Read articles on Add Comments to Blog and Online Article Marketing

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Many of us go out and buy some of the best software and hardware tools available. We read about some tool that could easily DOUBLE our business, or TRIPLE our productivity, so we wisely purchase it.

Many of us realize that we lack certain skills in critical areas of our businesses, so we register for online classes.

Many of us realize that we don’t really know how to use those whiz-bang pieces of hardware or software mentioned above, so we track down and register for in-depth tutorials.

Then we do the DUMBEST thing… we never go through the training. We never learn to use those tools that could easily make our lives easier, and our businesses much more profitable.

We rationalize that “we don’t have the time!”

This is one of two areas that has contributed the most to the growth of my productivity… and to my bottom line recently. I’ve started actually “making the time” to go through those tutorials and really learn to use the software or hardware tools that I have. I’ve actually made the time to go through several tutorials on how to develop critical skills that I need.

As an aside, I’ve also “made time” for more fitness, which is also essential to my long-term productivity.

How does a busy businessperson do this?

You simply put it right on your schedule… and then you do it. You allocate blocks of time for it, and then you don’t “find” something more important.

I spent 20 years and 10 months in the U.S. Air Force. During that time I spent many, many WEEKS sitting at a desk or computer, actually learning how to use a piece of equipment, or learning to do some process. I often wondered if that was the best use of my time, but I wasn’t given a choice! So, I cheerfully completed the training.

I not only learned to use my equipment, but I had to then take “practical exams” to prove that I knew how to do it.

Major corporations, governmental agencies, universities, etc, ALL put their personnel through extensive training to make sure that they actually know how to use the equipment and do the processes that are a part of their jobs.

This training is often VERY expensive.

Many of these corporations consult with major think tanks, and expensive consultants, in looking for ways to improve productivity… and their bottom lines. It’s rare that they are advised to cut training.

Many of us online entrepreneurs have never run our own businesses before, and for some reason don’t fully appreciate the value of properly training our employees (or ourselves). So, we flounder for days, weeks, then months! We operate at a fraction of our potential productivity because we never really learn to use the tools at our disposal.

Consider… if setting aside an hour a day for a week, to actually learn to use the tools that you already use every day more efficiently, would increase your productivity by 20 percent, would it be worth it?

To me, the answer is a resounding yes. Over the next year the return-on-investment would be huge.

When you consider the amount of time many of us spend on time-wasters (we all know what they are), we have to acknowledge that we really can fit proper training into our schedules. That’s just a matter of discipline.

There IS a reason big businesses and governmental agencies set aside training days, or even training weeks! Perhaps we should take our cues from them.

Just food for thought!

Oh – earlier, I said that going through the training was one of two ways that I’ve experienced the most growth in productivity. The other one was that I learned to outsource and delegate more. I learned to focus on those chores that are the highest and best use of my time, and to get someone else to do the rest. Like many, I’m still working on that one, but that’s the topic of another article anyway.

Commit to actually learning to use your equipment today.

Willie Crawford operates his own online businesses, brokers joint ventures, teaches online and offline entrepreneurs, and consults with numerous commercial and non-profit corporations. One of Willie’s favorite tools, used for project collaboration is called BaseCamp. It’s at http://timic.org/BaseCamp

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Handset manufacturers and software providers are all champing at the bit in carving out market share for projected mobile apps sales to reach $17bn by 2012. The global appetite for mobile apps will explode over this decade, but what about mobile SEO?

What for many is glaringly obvious, mobile is set to become the primary access point of the internet in this coming decade. But where do we fit in?

In yet another encounter in the big tech wars, this time it’s Apple that titan Google is taking on. Over the past few months Google’s mobile operating system, Android, has debuted on a host of smartphones, which has riled Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs enough to tell his employees: “Make no mistake, Google wants to kill the iPhone.”

Taking this to heart, Apple this month sued Taiwan’s HTC Corp, the maker of touchscreen smartphones using Google software, accusing it of twenty hardware and software patents infringements related to the iPhone.

As if to make matters worse for Mr Jobs, a recent article in TechCrunch confirmed his fears: “I’ve been using the Nexus One with TMobile since mid-December as my primary mobile phone. This is the best Android-powered phone to date. It’s also the fastest and most elegant smartphone on the market today, solidly beating the iPhone in most ways. In this rapidly evolving market there is sure to be something better just around the corner. But if you are looking to buy a high-end smartphone right now, this is the phone for you.”

But what will come of this in a time some prematurely describe as the Year of Mobile? According to Jason Steinberg of ClickZ: “2010 is the year of mobile…Everyone in advertising and media has been hearing that statement for nearly three years running. And for the last two, it’s been followed up with a less than reassuring ‘and this time, we mean it’.”

To back that assessment up, the BBC reported: “…developer activity for the iPhone has risen 185% in advance of the iPad’s April arrival. Applications for the iPhone can be ported over to the new device. We have definitely seen a shift back to the iPhone with the anticipation of the iPad and a little bit of the disappointment with the Nexus 1 (Google phone), Simon Khalaf, chief executive of Flurry Analystics told business site MarketWatch.com.”

Already, Google’s Android Marketplace has more than 30,000 apps made for smartphones running on its mobile operating system. Chetan Sharma Consulting told the BBC that the charging model which dominates the app ecosystem is changing. “Advertising and the sale of virtual goods has helped expand choices for developers and we will see all of that ramp up in the next couple of years.”

And, of course, the possibilities are enormous, with 270 million mobile subscribers in the US alone and with 29.1 million of them smartphone users. And in addition to the high numbers in the US, the majority of users in the developing world are going online for the first time using a this device.

As David B Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School, told the New York Times: “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility…That has the potential to change the economics of the internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”

Like many in the industry, Google recognises that more and more people are accessing the web via mobile phones rather than the desktop and has openly stated that the Nexus One represents “the next frontier” in the company’s core business.

There can be no doubt that mobile marketing will play an increasingly important role in the overall marketing mix; from searching on the move to social networking, all platforms will become the new staple of internet search.

Although Apple’s recent legal action against HTC may have wider implications for all phone makers that use Google’s Android operating system, Ian Fogg of Forrester Research said that the case against HTC, in which Apple alleges infringement of 20 of its patents, could be the first of many.

But whatever the current legal wrangles, localized content is what search instantly delivers on these devices, so products or services will increasingly need to be related to a geographic area, if they don’t already, and sites should focus on the keyword phrases that identify the geographic scope of the business.

To emphasise this trend, Google Blog comments: “If you’re like us, you’re constantly looking for things in your neighbourhood, whether it’s [restaurants in zurich] or a new [dentist in houston]. If you specify your location in your query, we often show your results on a map…”

All very interesting, but where does all this leave mobile SEO when results from internet search and mobile internet search appear so indistinct at the moment?

John Sylvester is the media director of V9 Design & Build (http://www.v9designbuild.com) and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources