Let Your Website Do The Work!

Tips for Using Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free software service that helps to track the goals of your website.  Once all of the information is gathered, the program then turns that data into information that you can use to see if you are reaching your goals.  This information is presented in the form or reports. 

The first step in using Google Analytics is to set up an account. 

There are four basic questions that you should consider when setting up your Google analytics account.

1.  How many people are visiting your site?

2.  Where are your visitors coming from?

3.  What would you like for your visitors to do while they are on your site?

4.  What are your visitors actually doing? 

Once you have your account set up, you can then choose what type of information you want to track.  Some important numbers to look at are: 

Visitors: This is the number of people interacting on your site.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who left your site instantly.

Time On Site: This is the amount of time your visitors spent reading content on your site. 
 

You can also track how your visitors got to your site.  Direct traffic arrives at your site by typing in your web address.  Referring URLs are other sites that are sending you traffic.  Search engines include Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all of the other search engines out there.   

There are over 100 different reports that you can run on your site, you select them depending on what information you want to acquire. 

Once you run the reports and get the numbers, you can then see what is working on your site, and what needs to be changed.  If there are certain areas on your site that are receiving high traffic, that means your readers find your information useful.  If there are certain pages on your site not receiving as much traffic you may want to adjust your content accordingly. 

Google Analytics is a great tool that can help you improve both the traffic and the content on your site. If you're looking for more tips on how to create a website that actually works, you won't want to miss my upcoming event with James Wedmore. I'll show you how easy it is to create a website that actually works and attracts you all the customers you can handle! To see more details click this link: http://www.TinyUrl.com/JenniferH

 

 

Attract Your Ideal Client With Your Website

As small business owners, one of the most important tools that you can have for your business is a website.  With Google being today's yellow pages, most people who are looking for anything from party favors to a new hairstyle, from a new alarm clock to a new look for their living room will go to Google and type what they are looking for into the search box and wait a few seconds for the results.

Those business owners with the smarts to have a website and a good one at that will show up in these results.  So, as a small business owner, whether you own a beauty shop or a clock repair shop you should have a website, and not just a website, but one that will attract your ideal client or customer. 

After all, if your clients are searching Google for their needs then you want to show up, right?  So, how do you make this happen?  The following are some important parts of a website that will help it to rank well in Google searches. 

A good website will not only have a good layout, attractive site design, be easy to navigate and load quickly, but it will also put into action key concepts that will help it to rank well with the search engines, or be "SEO friendly". 

Some of these key items include:  titles, keywords and headers.  Which are simply areas of your website, that when utilized correctly can increase your search engine ranking.

Titles are viewed by a search engine first.  Therefore you will want to be certain to use your keywords in your title as often as possible.  Do not simplify your title too much by simply naming your homepage home your contact page contact and so forth, utilize these areas and insert your keywords there as well. 

Keywords, are one of the most valuable items in your website.  The search engines process your keywords in order to rank your website, the more specific you are with these the better.  You will want to use keywords in your title, in your header as well as throughout the website itself.

Headers, which are the bolded areas of your site are taken into consideration by the search engine and should therefore be utilized and filled with keywords as well.  The first two header tags are of the highest ranking in Google, therefore use them more readily than others. 

These are just three of the areas in which you can focus to make your website stand out among the search engine rankings and help your ideal clients to find you, when searching for your area of service or your specific product offering. 

If you're wondering how you can automate your small business and let your website do the work, you can check out my free video series at http://www.AutomateYourBizVideos.com.

Drive More Traffic To Your Website With A Winning Google Ad

If you're looking for more traffic to your website and need it quickly Google Adwords is the place to go.  A lot people are advertising on Google, but don't know all the secrets to creating a profitable campaign.  I just recently setup a Google Adwords campaign for a client who is looking for more traffic to her e-book sales page.  While setting up her campaign I kept a few things in mind that can help you with your Google Ads.

1) Do effective keyword research- This is where all of your adword campaigns should start. Without good research you will be missing out on some potential keywords. I like using Google's free keyword tool that is found within Adwords.  The best way to use this tool is to use the website you're going to be sending traffic to and use this website to generate keyword ideas. Look for keywords that have low competition and high volume.

2) Write An Effective Ad- When writing your ad for Google make sure to use your keyword in your title and the body of your ad as much as possible. When potential customers then search on google your ad will catch their attention because it will be specific to what they are looking for.  Remember the goal for Google advertising is not to get the most clicks but to get the most qualified clicks who will buy from you. Here's an example of a recent ad I put together for a client.  Take note of the special symbols and how I capitalize the first letter of every word to get attention. You only have a limited number of characters for your ad so make sure every word counts.

   

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3) Track your advertisement-Without tracking you're wasting money.  You need to know exactly how many people are buying or converting into ezine subscribers.  With this knowledge you can delete campaigns that aren't converting and become an adwords expert. You can use www.jenniferscart.comfor your shopping cart service and set up an ad tracker for your Google ad. Another great option is to use Google's tracking system within Adwords.  You will setup your conversion goals and then install some code onto your thankyou page for either your product or ezine. But a problem I ran into was if you use Consant Contact for your newsletter signups there is no way to track these signups unless you use their API feature.  An API is short for application programming interface. Constant Contact has an API which allows programmers to interact with their application, but in my opinion this is way too complicated for most of us.  I would suggest instead using a separate autoresponder service such as www.jenniferscart.com or www.jennifersautoresponder.com to sign up subscribers. Then with this service you will be able to track conversion goals easily.  

So with these tips in mind you're off to a great start setting up an effective Google Ad. Just remember your goal is the most targeted clicks for the cheapest price.

They're Not Just Numbers!

After your web site is live and on the web, you're all done right? Not exactly, now comes the fun part tracking your web site visitors and statistics. Yes, you heard me I said "fun". This part can be fun if you know what you are looking for and have a system in place to help. So you are ready to start tracking, but what do all of these weird terms mean. Let's first start with some definitions and then I will show you what is most important to track and what you can ignore.  
 

Page Loads- The number of time a page is viewed and loaded on your website.  

Unique Visitors- How many individuals are viewing your website. 

Returning Visitors- How many visitors to your site are returning to your website.  

First Time Visitors- How many visitors to your site are new.  

These website stats are usually displayed in a summary page or the first page of website tracker tool. Use these stats to determine trends. Does your website have a weekday rush and a weekend slump? Is your website in general growing or declining?  

Besides these summary statistics, there is much more information that will help you grow your website and online marketing. For my website stats I use StatCounter so if you use different platforms the wording might be a little different. The best place to find out where your website traffic is coming from is to look at "Recent Came From" stats or in Google it is called "Traffic Sources Overview" in your Dashboard. This information shows you exactly what links your website traffic is coming from. If there is no link, the traffic is called direct traffic.  

This information is important, because it allows you to see if your social networking, blogging, pay per click advertising, and article marketing is paying off. You should be able to tell from this information what sources are bringing the most traffic to your website. 

Also, it's important to take a look at your keyword stats. How are users searching for your website? Is your search engine optimized for the important keywords? Are people clicking on your search engine ads?  

There are so many more statistics you can pay attention to with your website such as visitor maps, internet browser stats, and visit length. But start with the stats mentioned above and then move on to these more complicated website stats.  

Now, that you've learned what you should be tracking I suggest getting a weekly report emailed to you automatically with all of this information. Both tools I recommend allow you to have this set up. Then analyze the data every week and plug it into a spreadsheet. If you aren't happy with your stats, then begin to implement some changes to your website and traffic sources. But keep in mind that a brand new website needs a few months time to grow its stats and traffic.  

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWLETTER OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Jennifer Haubein publishes "SiteNotes" a FREE bi-weekly ezine for small business owners who want a website that actually works. If you're ready to start making more money online, get your FREE tips now at www.BestBizWebsiteSolutions.com/newsletter.html

Jennifer Haubein publishes “SiteNotes” a FREE bi-weekly ezine for small business owners who want a website that actually works. If you’re ready to get insider tips website developers don’t want you to know, and start making more money online, get your FREE tips now at http://www.BestBizWebsiteSolutions.com/newsletter.html.

Website Traffic Secrets Video Revealed by John Reese

John Reese just revealed his new videos on traffic secrets 2.0 in order to promote his newly updated traffic secrets 2.0.  This video is well worth taking a look even if you're not interested in website traffic secrets, because it has all the great elements of successful video for a product launch.  It's a great learning tool for online entrepreneurs. 

To take a look at the video visit this link: http://www.trafficsecrets.com

I'm always on the look out for helpful tips on how to increase your website traffic.  I think this is one of the biggest issues on my client's minds.  John revealed 10 helpful tips on how to use research and your competition to improve your website traffic.  He certainly left me wanted more information on the actual strategies he employs with this different tactics. 

After watching the first video, I then continued on to the second video where he confirmed what I've been telling my clients "content is king."  The more content you have on your website the better your traffic and if you know seo tactics on how to optimize this content the better. 

One of his tips really resonated with me.  He said you need to approach website content like a television producer.  This really spoke to me, because I used to be a television news producer loved the link between the two.  As a television producer I was always planning, researching, and implementing.  You should be using these techniques when developing content for your website. And remember to increase your traffic you will need to always develop new content for your website or blog. Create your very own swipe file of articles to help with your content creation.  Newsrooms are filled with press releases and articles in order to constantly create new content for their viewers.  Your website visitors are just like television viewers, they are hungry for new content!  So are you feeding them new content?  If you're worried you don't have the time, in my next post I will talk about how to outsource your article writing. Stay tuned.

Jennifer Haubein publishes "SiteNotes" a FREE bi-weekly ezine for small business owners who want a website that actually works.  Is your website not attracting you clients? Don't miss my Special Report "5 Reasons Your Current Website Just Doesn't Work!" Get your free report at www.BestBizWebsiteSolutions.com/newsletter.html.