How often do you check your web traffic status? If your answer is never, then it is time you start doing so. Measuring and analyzing your website’s success is an important step which is often ignored by many website owners. Your sales might be pretty good for your website but without the knowledge of your visitors like who they are, where they go, what they are looking for, where they leave and what turns them off, you might be losing many potential customers. By analyzing your website along with your marketing efforts you can improve the overall performance. Web analytics is measuring the results against your goals and check how much success your website has been able to achieve.
Goals – Current Results = Website Success rate.
To improve your results you need to measure, understand and adjust the events that lead to the result. You need to drive targeted traffic to your site and use web analytics to analyze and measure user behavior.
There are mainly three steps you need to follow in order to improve your website traffic. The first step is to drive targeted traffic onto your site by various marketing strategies like SEO and PPC. The next step is to persuade the visitors to take desired action on your site. You can have an appealing website with newsletter subscription or software demos to download. The third step is to use web analytics to analyze customer behavior. Using web analytics to analyze your site is a new method. This helps you keep track of the end results produced by the former two steps. With the help of this you can monitor and make improvements of the previous steps. You can keep track of the website traffic by knowing where the visitors are coming from, the area where they leave the site, the keywords that were used to find your website, where they navigated your site from and keep track of the actions taken by them on your site. This information can help a great deal to improve your business.
There are two types of web analytics: on-site and offsite web analytics.
On-site web analytics: This type of web analytics measures visitor’s session on your website. It means it checks the pages that encourage people to buy your product, the pages that drive them away and the ones attracting more visitors. It measures the website performance in a commercial context. The data collected from here is used to compare against the key performance and used to improve the webpage of the marketing campaign.
Off-site web analytics: You can make use of this even if u do or do not own/ maintain a website. It measures the various opportunities in the market like potential customers, the visibility of a website and other factors that affect a website promotion.
Setting Up Web Traffic Monitoring Devices:
You need to track your site users using more discrete methods. Here are some methods you can adopt to check your website visitors’ status:
1. Install hit counters on your site:
You can install hit counters on your site or blog to check the amount of visitors. With the help of this you can keep track of the increase of decrease in the amount of users on your site. There are number of counter providers that’ll let you run their script on your website. You can paste their code on your website and keep track of the daily visitors. Few of the counter providers are Counter.com, eXTReMe Tracking, Promotion Stat.
2. Use your web host statistical package:
The good thing about using a reliable hosting service is that every time someone visits your site, you web host server records the user’s activities in a log file. The data in this log is usually abbreviated and cryptic making it difficult and time consuming to use. Your Web host uses a software tool to import the log-file data into a built in database which in turn transforms the data into readable and easy to understand statistical reports. Analog (http://www.analog.cx) is of the popular software tools used by Web hosts. You can visit their websites to learn more about it. Web host statistical package includes daily transmission statistics, total transfers by client domain, transfers by reversed subdomain and total transfers from each archive section.
3.Purchase a web traffic analysis software:
The log file provided by your Web host is not in a user-friendly readable form. There are many web traffic analysis software applications available to collect the required data. These software applications summarize the results in an easy graphical and readable reports based on the information provided by the web host. Some of these applications work with your web ISP’s web server and hence saves you time and freedom to manage the entire process. Being flexible, these applications help you control what you want to include or exclude.
In the past, web analytics used measure things like server hits, entry pages, exit pages, unique visitors, repeat visitors, first page visited and the time spent on the site. The advanced web analytics are more business specific and can show us conversion ratios, browse to buy rates and customer acquisition costs. As the technology improves web analytics are able to help us find other aspects of web as well. At present web analytics help us analyze visitor’s behavior. This information could be used to improve your SEM strategies, keyword selection, site architecture and design. You can also improve the marketing methods and follow the appropriate steps to bring relevant web traffic on to your site. Web analytics is the best way of improving your return on investment (ROI).
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Steps to Successful Search Engine Optimization
Submitting your website to search engines does not get your webpage better ranking. That is a misconception about SEO that has been going around for quite sometime. It does no harm by submitting your site to them but it does no good as well. Just submitting your site to the search engines doesn’t give you a good spot on their pages. In order to be eligible and indexed by search engine crawlers you need to optimize your site. Search engine optimization is an on-going process. You need to invest enough time to get the desired success. Compared to other forms online marketing, SEO offers higher return on investment (ROI). With the growing number of users relying on search engines to find their pages, it has become essential to optimize websites and make them search engine friendly. Here are few steps you need to follow for the search engine spiders to crawl and index your site.
Theme:
It is important to choose a theme for the pages of your website. Each page should be able to convey a message or fulfill a purpose.
Keywords Selection:
Choosing the right keywords is an important and crucial step of search engine optimization. You need to list the relevant and searched keywords and key phrases for each of the pages. Choosing the most competitive keywords can get really frustrating hence as a beginner you can focus on less competitive, yet searched words. You can make a list of relevant keywords and use tools like wordtracker and overture keyword analysis tool to know the search frequency.
Know your Competitors:
It is important to keep an eye on your competitors. You can study what keywords they are emphasizing on, know what websites are linking to them and where they rank. The less competition you have the better it is.
Optimize your Page Content with Phrases:
When you select the relevant keywords for your web page, you can rank them according to their importance. You can revise the existing pages and optimize your page content starting with your top key phrases. Optimizing your site includes alteration of the meta tags i.e. title, description, keywords, headings, image alt, link and the content of the site. You can also have robot.txt file to help the spiders to crawl the pages you want them to.
Linking Strategies:
As mentioned earlier link building is one of the important part of SEO. There are two linking strategies:
Internal Linking: In your page content you can refer to other important pages of your website. You can make use of the keywords of the landing page for your hyperlink text. You can even use keywords in navigation structure.
External Linking: You can build external links by various means. You can start your own blog or write articles so that other websites interested will link to you. You can ask other webpages to place your link on their websites for placing their link on your site. This is known as reciprocal linking. You can advertise your sites on directories like dmoz, yahoo directories etc. Getting backlinks from these popular sites will help you get better ranking. There are various other ways to increase your inbound links.
Traffic and Revenue Tracking:
After your website is optimized you need to track the sales and the traffic it is receiving. You need to focus more on traffic and revenue than the page ranking. There are many software which gives you the report on your revenues by keywords, search engine, advertising campaigns etc.
Analysis:
You need to analyze your website and make necessary changes. Search engines keep changing their algorithm, hence it is important you be updated and try the new marketing strategies. You also need to keep track of your rankings and reoptimize the pages if you need to. You can then wait for the results.
Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic.
Theme:
It is important to choose a theme for the pages of your website. Each page should be able to convey a message or fulfill a purpose.
Keywords Selection:
Choosing the right keywords is an important and crucial step of search engine optimization. You need to list the relevant and searched keywords and key phrases for each of the pages. Choosing the most competitive keywords can get really frustrating hence as a beginner you can focus on less competitive, yet searched words. You can make a list of relevant keywords and use tools like wordtracker and overture keyword analysis tool to know the search frequency.
Know your Competitors:
It is important to keep an eye on your competitors. You can study what keywords they are emphasizing on, know what websites are linking to them and where they rank. The less competition you have the better it is.
Optimize your Page Content with Phrases:
When you select the relevant keywords for your web page, you can rank them according to their importance. You can revise the existing pages and optimize your page content starting with your top key phrases. Optimizing your site includes alteration of the meta tags i.e. title, description, keywords, headings, image alt, link and the content of the site. You can also have robot.txt file to help the spiders to crawl the pages you want them to.
Linking Strategies:
As mentioned earlier link building is one of the important part of SEO. There are two linking strategies:
Internal Linking: In your page content you can refer to other important pages of your website. You can make use of the keywords of the landing page for your hyperlink text. You can even use keywords in navigation structure.
External Linking: You can build external links by various means. You can start your own blog or write articles so that other websites interested will link to you. You can ask other webpages to place your link on their websites for placing their link on your site. This is known as reciprocal linking. You can advertise your sites on directories like dmoz, yahoo directories etc. Getting backlinks from these popular sites will help you get better ranking. There are various other ways to increase your inbound links.
Traffic and Revenue Tracking:
After your website is optimized you need to track the sales and the traffic it is receiving. You need to focus more on traffic and revenue than the page ranking. There are many software which gives you the report on your revenues by keywords, search engine, advertising campaigns etc.
Analysis:
You need to analyze your website and make necessary changes. Search engines keep changing their algorithm, hence it is important you be updated and try the new marketing strategies. You also need to keep track of your rankings and reoptimize the pages if you need to. You can then wait for the results.
Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic.
Click Fraud: The Dark Side of Online Advertisement
Pay per click has been one of the greatest boons in the advertising industry. PPC has been a good source of income for many sites. But there is one threat namely click fraud that has been bothering the advertisers. Click fraud is a type of internet crime that is practiced on pay per click advertisements. A person, automated script or computer program emulate as a real user of web and click on these ads to generate income for the clicker.
Signs of Click Fraud:
You need to be cautious about whether your ad campaign in under an attack of click fraud. You need to be familiar with several aspects of the campaign and its performance. Here are some behaviors that indicate click fraud:
* Unexplained inflow of traffic for specific terms.
* Sudden change in the click count that has sustained a certain level.
* A better indicator is being able to identify existence of wide variations in the return on advertising spend from one day, week or month.
* Abnormal spike in activity.
* Significant differences in similar terms like website design and website designs.
Click Fraud Awareness and Prevention Solutions:
The best way of preventing click fraud is by being aware of the server logs to identify the CTR and conversion rate. A good conversion tracker will help you be aware of the statistics of your ad campaign. There are other ways you can reduce the chances of click fraud.
* Ban IP addresses:
The first method of preventing click fraud is by banning certain IP addresses From viewing your website. This is not an appropriate method as you might be losing potential customers by doing so. Therefore you need to be careful before following this step.
* Broader distribution of keywords:
Advertising for highly searched terms might bring good traffic but you risk of greater exposure of click fraud. Since these terms come with higher price tag, there are greater chances of click fraud. To prevent this you need to advertise the terms that have low price range and are comparatively less competitive.
* Affordable bidding:
You need to bid for terms suiting your budget. You need to specify how much you are willing to pay per click or per sale and the maximum amount you are ready to pay for the advertisement per day, week or month.
* Analytics expert:
You can take help of analytics package such as ClicksTracks or Google Analytics to prevent click fraud.
Online advertisement is a competitive industry. Keeping this in mind it is important for the advertisers to be aware of click frauds and keep in track of their ad campaigns. If you think it takes too much of your time and energy then you can always take help of experts to ensure your investment is not pilfered.
Signs of Click Fraud:
You need to be cautious about whether your ad campaign in under an attack of click fraud. You need to be familiar with several aspects of the campaign and its performance. Here are some behaviors that indicate click fraud:
* Unexplained inflow of traffic for specific terms.
* Sudden change in the click count that has sustained a certain level.
* A better indicator is being able to identify existence of wide variations in the return on advertising spend from one day, week or month.
* Abnormal spike in activity.
* Significant differences in similar terms like website design and website designs.
Click Fraud Awareness and Prevention Solutions:
The best way of preventing click fraud is by being aware of the server logs to identify the CTR and conversion rate. A good conversion tracker will help you be aware of the statistics of your ad campaign. There are other ways you can reduce the chances of click fraud.
* Ban IP addresses:
The first method of preventing click fraud is by banning certain IP addresses From viewing your website. This is not an appropriate method as you might be losing potential customers by doing so. Therefore you need to be careful before following this step.
* Broader distribution of keywords:
Advertising for highly searched terms might bring good traffic but you risk of greater exposure of click fraud. Since these terms come with higher price tag, there are greater chances of click fraud. To prevent this you need to advertise the terms that have low price range and are comparatively less competitive.
* Affordable bidding:
You need to bid for terms suiting your budget. You need to specify how much you are willing to pay per click or per sale and the maximum amount you are ready to pay for the advertisement per day, week or month.
* Analytics expert:
You can take help of analytics package such as ClicksTracks or Google Analytics to prevent click fraud.
Online advertisement is a competitive industry. Keeping this in mind it is important for the advertisers to be aware of click frauds and keep in track of their ad campaigns. If you think it takes too much of your time and energy then you can always take help of experts to ensure your investment is not pilfered.