Entries Tagged 'Google analytics' ↓
October 9th, 2013 — Google, Google algorithms, Google analytics, search engine optimisation, seo
Google has a tendency to play God – or at least that what some online marketers believe. 
A quick tweak of their algorithms can make your traffic plummet over night, but it’s not always down to the big bad search engines.
Panda and Penguin caused pandemonium for many website owners. Forums were filled with rants about how these updates were killing their businesses because their traffic vanished.
But was it really down to these little fellas?
Not necessarily.
Granted, a lot of websites took a hit when the updates happened, but not all the traffic dips can be attributed to these algorithmic changes.
Understanding if you’ve been hit by Penguin and Panda
No one wants to see his or her traffic reduce or vanish.
When this apparent dip coincides with a Google update it seems logical to point the finger in their direction. But they may not be the cause.
If you notice a dip in traffic the first place you should look is your analytics. Take a look at your traffic sources. If they have dipped across the board (i.e. Google, Yahoo and Bing), the chances are it has nothing to do with Google.
So what’s causing it?
It’s more likely to be your search engine optimisation strategy.
Sitting back isn’t an option
When you started out, you probably had a rigorous SEO strategy in place. But, as time moved on and you got busy, the strategy probably took a bit of a slide.
But you were still getting traffic and business, so all was good.
The problem with sitting back and resting on your laurels is that, every day, a new kid will appear on the block. This fresh website will be working hard on its SEO and so will stand a good chance of ranking higher that you.
As soon as your traffic starts to dip, it’s a warning sign that you need to up your game.
But relying 100% on the search engines for your traffic is a disaster waiting to happen. Which is why it’s essential to diversify your traffic.
How to diversify your traffic
If you put all your eggs into your SEO basket, things will go wrong at some point.
That’s why it’s important to spread your traffic by using:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google+
- YouTube
- Blogs
- Pay Per Click
- Email marketing
- Newsletters
All of these will help you drive traffic to your website without relying on the likes of Google, Yahoo or Bing.
If you want a successful online marketing strategy, make sure you diversify.
August 22nd, 2011 — Google analytics, social media, social media marketing, social networking
For years you’ve benefited from Google’s analytics to track the activity on your website.
It’s been a God send for internet marketers giving an invaluable insight into where your traffic comes from, which keyword brings in the most, what pages they visit, how long they stay etc.
This handy little tool has helped thousands of people improve the SEO and user experience of their websites.
From your dashboard you can discover all sorts of handy statistics which can be used to continually enhance your website’s performance and so boost your ROI.
That’s great for measuring and assessing web traffic, but what about your social activities?
Getting more social
As more and more businesses are utilising social media to market their business and communicate with their customers, wouldn’t it be great if there was a way of tracking this activity like you can the traffic to your website?
Well those clever people at Google have found a way.
Recently Google has become more social. It has introduced Google + and the Google +1 button and now offers Google Analytics Social Interaction Tracking.
With this new addition to the Google family you can track the social interactions on your website, blog or your Facebook fan page.
To learn more about how to set this up, take a look at this SocialMediaExaminer post – How to Track Tweets, Facebook Likes and More with Google Analytics. It provides a step by step guide on how to set up your analytics.
This process does involve playing with HTML in your web pages files so if you’re not overly comfortable with code tweaking you may want to seek some help.
Over to you
Do you already use social media tracking? If so how useful do you find it?
Perhaps, after reading this, you’re going to give it a go. If you do, bookmark this post and come back, leave a comment and let us know how you got on.
March 7th, 2011 — article writing, b2b copywriter, blogging for business, Content marketing, Content writer, copywriting tips, Google analytics, online marketing, social media marketing
More companies are beginning to utilise the power of online content marketing. It enables them to educate, communicate and, influence readers generating a stream of new customers.
However too many understand it is what needs to be done in today’s online world but jump in without thinking.
Their lack of strategy, experience, understanding and their unrealistic expectations lead to the onset of apathy and bewilderment resulting in the misguided belief that online content marketing doesn’t work.
But as a copywriter, I have been using online content marketing to promote my business for the past 4 years and it really does work. You just have to know what you’re doing.
Get an online marketing plan
The number one mistake made by companies that launch headlong into content marketing is their lack of empathy with their readers.
They write about what they want to know about rather than what their readers want. It’s this disparity that leads to a big fat nothing in the effectiveness of their marketing.
So before you even consider blogging, tweeting or Facebooking you must find:
- What they’re looking for
- How they want it presented (their content preference)
- When they need the information
How do you find that out?
There are a number of ways you can research the information you need to know –
Ask them – the good old fashioned survey either through email, blogging or just asking them face to face. Do they need ‘how to’ guides? If so, what format (eBooks, video, podcast etc)?
Analytics – look at your website analytics and see what they’re looking at. If your website has a video on it and it’s not getting any hits, perhaps your visitors are trying to tell you something.
Social media – if you‘re using social media, listen to what your customers are saying, that can give you some great clues about what their needs are.
Keywords – going back to your analytics, the data on your keywords can tell you a lot about what people are looking for, the words they use to find you etc.
If you want your content marketing to be successful you must listen to your customers and provide them with what they want, when they want it and in a format they like.
Of course not everyone will want the same things so your strategy will have to flexible. But listen, understand and then react.
February 28th, 2011 — b2b copywriter, conversion, copywriting tips, Google analytics, internet marketing, keywords, marketing, online marketing, website copywriting
As an internet marketer you’ve probably heard people talking about traffic and conversion rates.
So what’s your conversion like?
Do you know?
Do you even care?
Well, if you want your online marketing to be effective you need to know and care what it is. But before you charge headlong into panic because your conversion isn’t as good as your neighbour’s, you need to consider what your conversion goal is.
Your conversion goal may well be different to your neighbour’s so don’t get hung up on who’s got the biggest just yet. First you have to work out what yours is. It could be:
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Order form completions
- Brochure downloads
- Signing up for a free trial
- Payments
Once you know what it is you’re measuring you can start to quantify the effectiveness of your website through Google Analytics.
But before you can achieve conversion you must have traffic. The information you obtain about your website through analytics will show you the number of visitors your website is receiving every day, week or month (that’s your traffic), how long they remain on your site, which keywords bring in the most traffic, which pages they visit etc.
You may think you’re doing brilliantly with your marketing because you are getting thousands of visitors to your website every month.
Great – but is that reflected in your sales or sign ups? If your traffic has suddenly jumped, has your turnover made the same leap? If not, something’s wrong because you’re not converting.
5 reasons why you’re not converting
1. Quantity not quality
You may be getting loads of visitors but if no one is buying something is seriously wrong. The first thing to check is your keywords.
Each page of your website should be targeting a different keyword. So if you are getting traffic but there are no conversions (and your bounce rate is very high), check your keywords as they may not be attracting the right readers.
2. Your promise isn’t delivering
Again this one goes back to your keywords.
In this instance you may be using a keyword that doesn’t actually reflect what’s on your webpage. Therefore visitors are arriving at your site expecting to see blue butterfly brooches but when they arrive all they find are blue brooches.
Therefore you have a mismatch between what you’re offering your visitors and the traffic your SEO efforts is targeting.
3. Now what?
One of the most common aspects of a web copy that is missed is the call to action.
If a visitor lands on your website, finds your content relevant and interesting you must make sure you tell them what to do next.
A well positioned, commanding call to action above the fold of your web page (so it’s in their eye line) will make sure your reader knows exactly what they must do next – whether it’s to buy, order, sign-up etc.
4. Boring…
If you’ve gone to the expense and trouble of developing a good SEO strategy you need a great website to wow your visitors when they find you.
If your web site is poorly structured with bad navigation, slow-loading pages and full of annoying pop-ups your visitors will flee.
This will reduce your conversion rates and boost your bounce rate – and that’s not good.
People want to see websites that are well designed, easy to navigate and a joy to use. These features will encourage them to stay and make them more likely to buy from you, sign-up to your newsletter or complete your survey.
5. What about you products?
Of course, your poor conversion rate may have nothing to do with the design of your website or the keywords you’re using. It could simply be because your products aren’t what your customers need.
You see web design and great copywriting will get you only so far – if you’ve poorly researched your market and are trying to sell something people don’t want, they won’t buy it. If you’ve checked everything else on this list and it all looks OK, maybe it’s time to consider whether your products and services satisfy the needs of your market.
As we’ve seen, your conversion rate (or lack of it) can be affected by a number of different factors. Your keywords, web copy, web design and products and services will all have their part to play. If you want targeted traffic and a great conversion rate they all have to be firing on all cylinders.
May 28th, 2010 — copywriter, freelance copywriter, Google analytics
Whether you’re a copywriter, web designer, SEO guru or business owner, understanding how to use Google Analytics effectively will help you achieve more traffic and conversions.
You can keep an eye on where your traffic is coming from, which keywords are people using to find you, how long they are staying on your site, which pages get the most traffic, which referral sites bring in the most click throughs?
But, when you log in and are faced with the dashboard:
Do you really understand what it all means or how to get the best our of the data?
Probably not, which is why I was pleased to come across a recent blog post on seomoz.org
This post gives you 5 simple tips for Google Analytics that you should be using to get the most out of it. So, grab a coffee, sit back and have a read – it will change the way you use Google Analytics forever.
