How to Track Your Website Performance

Hello People!

Maybe some of you know already that Google offers a great tool for measuring your website traffic success – Google Analytics. Go to www.google.com/analytics, set up an account, add a special script to the web pages you want to track and start a great adventure of monitoring your website performance.

Google Analytics gives you handy reports on the following issues:

1. Content Analysis
2. Visitors Analysis
3. Traffic Sources
4. Goal Conversion

Among these tools you will find an answer to every question regarding your website performance. I would recommend that you create monthly reports in Excel spreadsheets, for example, which will enable you to compare the results over time. I suggest that you monitor especially these criteria:

Visits
Page Views
Pages/Visit
Avg. Time on Site
Bounce Rate
% New Visits
Goal Conversions

Hope this piece helps and wish you all see the nubmers grow!

How to Get More Returning Visitors

Updated Content

To attract your first time visitors to come back and to keep coming back, you must always have what to offer: nobody will keep returning to see the same pages all the time.

Involving Your Visitors

If you want people to come more often, I would recommend involving them somehow in parts of your website: this could be an online discussion forum, blog, or just simple option to post a comment.

Create a Membership Club

Another option of involving visitors into happening on your website, is to invite them to your membership club, this could be as simple as just sending them a monthly online newsletter.

Good Navigation

Having a good navigation is also important to the indexing of your web pages. There is nothing worse than arriving at a website and having difficulty understanding where to go for the information you are seeking. Have easy to use, clearly marked navigation so that your visitors click through instead of click-away in frustration.

In-site Cross Linking

Get all of your web pages indexed by the search engines by implementing your sitemap. Your web pages should be no more than three clicks away from the home page. On every page you should link back to your home page and your main service(s) or product (s).

Web Site Design

This is also important, if you want to get indexed. Text content should outweigh the HTML content. The pages should validate and be usable in all of today's leading edge browsers. Rather stay away from Frames, Flash, Javascript, Image Maps, and Dynamic URLs, search engines dislike them all a lot.

One prudent tool to use is the “alt” attribute of pictures on your site. You simply describe the pictures and these descriptions can include your keywords.

Increase Your Page Rank

Hello People,

Hope things are going well for you and that you enjoy this weeks' post.

Linking strategies to Increase Your Page Ranking

As determined by the number, quality and type of linked pages, most search engines don't even consider websites if there is not at least one or two links pointing to these sites. Links from other popular websites back to your website are one way of increasing your site's popularity. Finding websites with similar content (but not your competitors) and high link popularity, then trading links to be posted on each site, is one way of increasing your site popularity.

Is it good to submit your website to the search engines?

The answer to this question is generally positive. If you do not submit your website to the main search engines, it may take ages (literally several months) to get listed. On the other hand, some website submitting providers overdo this and it can generate negative results.

Therefore I would recommend the following proven Online Search Engine Marketing Program: http://www.submitnet.net/. After setting up an account, the program will submit your website to various search engines at once (including Google and Yahoo!, of course), and then resubmit it on a monthly basis. Apart from that, there are many useful tools which will check your meta tags, website content and compatibility for browsers. The program is even able to manage your PPC campaigns from one source, when you pay for the service.

It is essential that when using Submitnet, you have already optimised your website using the information gained from PPC and Google Analytics reports. Run Submitnet reports and update your website accordingly. The tutorial will help you with all the steps you need to take.

How to Track Your Google Adwords Campaign

Track your keywords

Providing that your keywords fall below the 0.5% CTR for the first 1000 impressions, they will get disabled. That is the first reason you need to track your keywords performance and modify them regularly. Remember, change your words around, use new keyword matching options, try out different capitalisation and spelling variations, use singular or plural versions as well as different punctuation and grammar tenses…

You can decide if you want to receive daily, weekly or monthly Google Adwords reports.

Google can also create your personalised report in only five minutes. Click on the tab “Report“ => “Create a report now”. You can create a report to track the performance of your keywords, text ad, image ad, URL, ad group, campaign and account.

In order to save money, you can delete the keywords that do not convert into sales from your list. It is also recommended that you “peel” those keywords that get low CTR and “stick” them to a new campaign or ad group with an ad specifically targetting them.

To finish, don’t be obsessed by getting the first position. The first position enables you to get more clicks, but not necessarily to get a high conversion sale. Why? Because clickers who aim at purchasing something will take time to look down the page. In contrast, users who just want to take a quick tour will click on the first ad.

Track your ad

Making tiny changes to your ad can have a strong impact on your CTR. Keep changing your ads around regularly. After few weeks, you will be able to detect your best performing keywords. Use them to rework on your ads. Your ad should include your best keywords. On the same way, if you detect bad keywords, delete them from your ad.

Google gives you a separate CTR and CPC for each ad so you can track their results separately:

Track your sales conversion

Google has a built-in "conversion tracking" tool that's linked to AdWords. You put their code in the "success" page on your site and along with your CTR statistics, Google will give the percentage of visitors who opt in or buy in your weekly, monthly or daily report.

Create Your Adwords Account and Your Campaign

Hello People!

Having read the previous parts of my blog, now it is time to set up your account. Go to http://www.adwords.google.com/ and follow these steps:

1. Click the “Start Now” button and sign up the form for the “Standard Edition”. Choose your target language and location.

2. Now create your first ad. Its role is to generate traffic on your website; therefore it must attract people’s attention. You have to motivate people to click on it. You must be concise, accurate and clear for you have restricted space. Be careful, characters include spaces as well. Here is the structure of ads in Google Adwords:

Headline (max.25 characters)
Description line 1 (max. 35 characters)
Description line 2 (max. 35 characters)
Display URL (max. 35 characters)
Destination URL (max. 1024 characters)

This way of creating ads is recommended by most Google Adwords experts:
Always include your exact keywords in the title of your ad. If searchers see the keywords they entered in the title of the ad, they will likely click on it.

The first description line should contain your most important benefits to grab people’s attention and to force them to take action.
The second line should list features – what exactly people get after clicking on the ad. Moreover, I suggest to put a call to action to this line.
The display URL can be used as well – after your domain address you can put anything.
Your home page may not necessarily be the best one for all your ads so your URL destination address should mirror the content and purpose of your ad.

Before starting to write your ad and your description, just have a look on these useful tips:

1. Get inside the customer’s head. What are your customers looking for? What do they expect?


2. As you have limited text space, avoid terms like “a”, “the”, “of”, “at”…


3. Use words like “new”, “free”, “limited offer”, “discount” to attract clickers.


4. Avoid superlatives like “the best product...”, “the most wonderful …” or “the top of…” It is too basic and not pertinent.

3. Now enter the keywords list that you have created with Chapter #3 of this ebook. Notice that with Google Adwords, you have the possibility to format your keywords with the four types of keyword matching options:

Broad matching: for example => marketing consultant. Your ad appears each time users search on these keywords, whatever the order or the other search terms.

Phrase matching: for example => “marketing consultant”. Your ad appears if the keywords are all present in the right order, regardless of other search terms.

Exact matching: for example => [marketing consultant]. Your ad only appears if the keywords are all present in the right order and no other terms are searched for.

Negative matching: for example => -manufacturing (use the “minus” character). Your ad for “marketing consultant” only appears if the word “manufacturing“ does not appear in the search query together with “marketing consultant”.

By using these matching options, you should be able to produce well-targeted results. Google also gives you the possibility to block your ads showing for searches conducted by people from certain countries or people who speak a certain language.

4. Next step is to decide on your daily budget. Choose the budget which fits to your resources.

5. Place your bid as well. Your bid price is your maximum bid price, which means you will not necessarily pay that all the time. You will only pay 1 cent more that the competitor under you.

Google will suggest you a bid amount, however it is not compulsory to follow up their suggestion. Just place the bid that you can afford. To find the most relevant bid, use the traffic estimator by clicking “Estimate Search Traffic”: it will give you some idea on the amount of clicks you can expect per day, the position of your ads among the others and how much you will be spending.

I would recommend you to place higher bids at the beginning. That will help you to generate traffic on your website rapidly and therefore to figure out which ads work and which ones don’t.

6. Enter your email address and your password. Afterwards you will be sent a validation email. Log into your new Google account. You just have to enter your credit card details and your campaign will be running!

7. If you wish to add a new campaign, log into your Google account and click “Create New Campaign”. Then you will just have to follow the steps that we have just detailed below.

The good strategy is to run two ads against one another in a campaign. After few weeks, delete the one with the lower CTR and write a new one to replace it. Google will automatically alternate your ads according to their CTR.

To create a new ad, just click the link “Create ad Variation”. Enter your new ad, and then click “Save new ad”. Google will alternate your different ads throughout the day.

Repeat the keyword in both the ad title and ad description to improve your chances for a click.

Pay per Click Campaigns

Hello People!

Today I will write about an amazingly effective advertising tool where you pay only when people actually see your website. In this issue I will concentrate on Google Adwords as Google has majority in the search industry these days.

What is it all about?

To support and enhance your SEO, the three biggest search engines offer an opportunity of pay-per-click advertising. This is a special form of online campaigns where you pay just when people click on your ad so that they are directed to your webpage. Your ads will be shown always your campaign keywords are looked for in the search engine, however, you do not pay for these impressions, you pay just for the clicks your ads receive.

Google Adwords Fundamentals

Launched in 1998, the Google Adwords Program is now the leader in the pay-per-click search engine industry. Contrary to its competitors, Google doesn’t list ads by only considering your bid or Cost-Per-Click (CPC). Google also checks if your clickthrough rate (CTR) is high:

Number of clicks your ad received
CTR =
Number of times your ad is shown (impressions)

High CTR = 1/20 = 5.50 %

Low CTR = 1/2000 = 0.05 %

It means that with traditional pay-per-click search engines, you have to bid more than your competitors if you want to get ranked first. With Google, you also have to get a higher CTR as your position is determined by multiplying your CTR by your CPC: Position = CTR × CPC.

In few words, it doesn’t matter how often your ad appears and how much you pay. The key thing is that people have to click on your ad. Therefore your key phrase or keywords have to be relevant to the search. If your keywords achieve at least 1.5 % CTR, it means that they are relevant.

Google Account Structure

It is important to understand the structure of your Google Adwords account when creating particular Google Adwords campaigns. Namely there are three levels in your account, as you can see here:

Your Account - Campaign - Ad Group Ad(s) Keywords

The first one, Your Account – there you have set your email address, password and billing information. Within each Campaign, there are particular settings common for all its Ad Groups, such as the daily budget, geographic and language targetting, distribution preferences and end dates. On the third level you create ad variations and keyword groups which are stated just for that Ad Group.

Other Google Adwords fundamentals you need to know to run your campaign successfully:

1. Only the top 8 ads are shown on the first page.

2. You must achieve at least a 0.5% CRT to maintain your campaign active.

Combine Headings and Links Keywords

Hello People!

The story of building up a perfect web site continues. After creating a killer meta tags, your way is to concentrate on your headings and links. What words should you have there?

Headings & Links

Headings are a very important attention-grabbing essence of your landing page. People will not read your entire page. That’s why it is smart to divide your page into short paragraphs and to highlight each of them with a killer headline which will not only catch their attention, but also tell them in a second what the whole paragraph is about.

For the SEO purposes, make sure that your headlines are marked < h1 >Headline#1 < / h1 >, <>Headline#2 < / h2 >etc. and that they are stuffed with your best keywords. Apart from the keywords, use words like "free, proven, benefit, first, discover, complete, exclusive, how to…" in order to gain people’s attention.

Another important part of a landing page are the links. As mentioned already, your links should not direct visitors to your home page or elsewhere other than the next step towards reaching your goal. What is also relevant, is the anchor text, i. e. the clickable text of the hyperlink – for the SEO purposes, stuff it with your keywords as well, don’t leave it just as “Click here to sign up”, but mention your product as well: “Click here to sign up for the Search Optimisation Workshop now”.

How to Combine Headings and Links Keywords

Here is an example if your landing page promotes a newsletter with free marketing, sales and leadership articles.

Headings Keywords:

interesting articles
valuable articles
free articles

Links Keywords:

marketing articles
sales articles
leadership articles

This means a capture on the whole list of keyword searchphrases:

interesting marketing articles
valuable marketing articles
free marketing articles
interesting sales articles
valuable sales articles
free sales articles
interesting leadership articles
valuable leadership articles
free leadership articles

How Meta Tags Will Boost Your Search Engines Ranking

Hello People!

So you would like to increase your ranking, maybe you have heard about meta tags but how to use them in a powerful way that will create wonders with your web page ranking? Let's take a tour.

Site Title Tag

This is the most powerful SEO technique you have, so use it creatively! When search engine results are displayed, the title is the first thing people see.

Thus each page should have a different Title tag with 2 or 3 of your keyword phrases at the beginning. The title should explain in a few short words (your keywords) the intent of the page. Don't put your company name first - place your keywords first and if you feel you absolutely must have the company name in the title add it second.

Despite its importance, rather do not overdo it with the length of the Title tag; 50-150 characters including spaces should be appropriate. And do not just list your keywords, because you then risk being considered as spamming. Rather try to remain as close to a readable sentence as possible. You also should make the title enticing, so that the viewers of search engines listings will also click to see your website.

Description Meta Tag

Below the Title tag is a Description tag which will be generally the first sentence on a page. The Description Meta tag is also fairly important. Your description should also have 2 or 3 of your keyword phrases at the beginning as so should your first sentence. Just like the Title tag, reflect the content and try to keep there no more than 200 characters including spaces. Change the words around enough so that you can hit various typings of your keywords.

You should have a different title, description and first sentence on each page. You many also want to try shorter titles with only one keyword or keyword phrase as this will raise you keyword relevance. And try to consider putting your domain name at the very end of the title.

Keywords Meta Tag

Although many people rely on them so much when performing SEO, meta tags have decreased in importance recently, but are still worth using for clarity and search results. Their initial purpose was to help search engines find out important information about your page that they might have had difficulty determining otherwise.

The Keyword tag is now the least important but is still used by some engines. As you never know when the rules of the search engines will change, or a new engine will want them, so take the time to include these tags in all your web pages. We recommend you do not overdo it with meta tags as well; your Keyword Meta should not exceed 250 characters including spaces.

If your site is especially interesting for a specific geographic location, be sure to include the actual location in your keyword meta as well.

When performing SEO, you should always use the same keywords which also appear in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description etc. Any keyword phrases which are used in your meta tags only, will not have enough prominence to help your listings for that phrase.

Don't Stop People from Buying Your Products!

Hello, people!

Hope you are all well. This week I will outline some ways of preventing cancellation of the buying process after you have got the attention of your visitors, their interest and desire for your product. You need to generate trust and to make the ordering process clear & secure.

Generate Trust

Although many of us probably do not pay particular attention to Contact Details and Privacy Policy when browsing the Internet, these are vital parts looked for especially during the purchasing process in order to make sure that you are a serious company. Apart from that, Testimonials could add trustworthiness to your landing page, too, as they are kind of confirmation and a referral from the REAL people who have already tried your products or services and who didn’t mind to publish their names (sometimes their occupation and pictures as well) and you can possibly find them, if you need to confirm their positive statements.

Last but not least, the trust in your company and products will be supported effectively when you offer an unconditional money-back guarantee if at all possible. This will prevent the fear, uncertainty and doubt about moving towards the purchase.

Make Your Ordering Process Clear & Secure

In general, over 60 percent of online shoppers abort the ordering process. It’s a pity that after gaining their attention, interest and desire you can still lose them due to a complicated, unclear or unsafe ordering process. To prevent this, try to follow the advice:

1. When already in the purchasing process, don't hide the price for your products or services. People will not continue if they don't know how much they have to pay.

2. Tell your visitors upfront about your refund policy.

3. Tell your visitors about all additional costs and taxes they have to pay, so that they know the final price before they have to enter the credit card number.

4. Make sure that your order pages are easy to understand. Test them with your friends or relatives who don't browse the Internet very often.

5. Make sure that your order page shows an understandable notice if the customer forgets to enter the email address or any other required field.

6. Make sure that your order pages work internationally. Some countries don't have postal numbers or their regional structuring can be different from yours.

7. It's very important that your order pages are secure. Use as much encryption as you can and use the additional security services such as Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode.

8. Test your order pages regularly in order to make sure they work.

Turn Your Visitors into Buyers

Hello people,

Last week I have written about the right keywords. Once you have created your keyword list, it is essential to create landing pages which contain these keywords. This is a crucial step to get conversions. A conversion is when a customer buys your products or signs up for a newsletter or takes any action you would like him to take.

When your landing page does not include the keyword your customer typed in when looking for your services, it is not very likely that he keeps browsing your website. Moreover, it is recommended that you create a separate landing page for each of your keyword, or combination of keywords. Each of your PPC ads should point at a relevant landing page. So how to make your landing pages bring you actual sales?

Content is King

Create useful and comprehensive content that's related to your market to keep your visitors there. Adding keyword-rich text that makes sense and serves the concept of the web page improves your ranking and keeps your visitors interested. The more text, the better for search engine spiders when they index a website; it is strongly recommended that your homepage has at least 200-300 “visible” words. Moreover, the search engine spiders crawl especially the first 20 words of your website so try to keep an eye on them and make them really relevant to what your site is about.

In addition, valuable, dense and regularly updated content is one of the most important items you need for your website because visitors who stay longer while visiting a website help measure popularity of the site in the search engines. When creating content for your landing page, you should pay attention to the following elements:

The Purpose of Your Landing Page

The first step when creating your langing page should be setting a goal you want to achieve. What is it that you want your visitors to do? This could be one of the following:

1. Buy a product
2. Sign up a newsletter
3. Download a free trial
4. Read an article
5. Do a survey
6. Participate in a competition

List the Real Benefits

When you know the purpose of your landing page, you should give your visitors a REASON to move towards the goal. Remember, it is not your goal that they will follow; in fact, people are always looking for what is in it for THEM.

To achieve this, always list benefits of your products or services; not features. The difference is that benefits mean something valuable to the consumer while features are just descriptions of your product characteristics. Nobody cares so much about what material you used when creating the product, or what the technical parametres are. Usually, what matters to them is what problems your product can solve, and more importantly, how they will benefit from buying and using it.

In addition, websites offering products that managed to fix a problem usually get highest conversion rates. Moreover, try to use "you" more often than "I" or "we". Remember: Your customers don't care about you at all. The only thing they are looking for is what is in it for them.

Include a Call to Action

Once you have decided what you want your visitors to do and after revealing all the benefits they get, it is crucial to tell them what to do next. It must be crystal clear what they need to do:

1. Click here to order your SEO eBook now.
2. Sign up for the Success! Newsletter here.
3. Press Enter to continue. Etc.

In order to make a call to action more catchy and attention gaining, there is one smart trick: use the red colour always you want to highlight something to be clicked on. However, do not overdo it, since when your website is red on its whole, the particular spots will not stand out.

Keep it Simple

In order to keep your visitors focused on the steps you want them to take, keep all possible distractions away. This means your landing page should not be stuffed with links that will direct them away from the page. The only links your landing page should contain are those in line with your goal: links to your order pages, newsletter sign up forms, etc.